Suppose you are looking for a successful and stable eCommerce business. Then choosing the right platform for eCommerce development depends upon many factors. Such as business needs, budget, and delivery timing.
In the online market, we have multiple platforms available for eCommerce development. And, the development can be done in two ways traditional development and headless development.
Traditional development comes with coupled frontend and backend admin base. But headless development is different as compared to traditional development.
Within the past year, the hype of headless development has grown. Online businesses are moving towards a headless approach to growth. With headless development, the store owner has more flexibility to show their products and information. On the frontend, while also improving the entire customer experience.
Some Background - Headless eCommerce Development
Headless development means that the frontend layer is decoupled from the backend eCommerce. And both work individually and have an API-based architecture.
With the help of API, both the front end and backend communicate with each other. Which provides you the flexibility to make a unique and personalized user experience at the frontend. Meanwhile, the whole backend function of the eCommerce system is still working.
Pros of Headless Development
If you think this strategy is going to help you. Then let us discuss some advantages of Headless eCommerce development.
High Performance
When we talk about the high performance of online stores. Then the name of headless eCommerce development is there.
Due to the separation of frontend and backend layers in an eCommerce. Everything is based on API calls. It provides high speed with customizable technology. It is faster and more efficient as compared to monolithic eCommerce architecture.
High performance of the online store matters. With a headless development approach, we can increase our customer attention and offer a seamless shopping experience.
There are many examples of high-performance online stores. Which develops using the headless development approach. Such as LabX, Nike, Venus, Redbox, and many more.
No Maintenance Mode
If you are planning for any festival sale on your online store. Then preparation is compulsory before the sale due to the high traffic.
If you have a traditional development-based online store. Then you will need to set maintenance time for your store. It means that your customers will have to wait for the availability of the store during this time.
With the help of headless development, you can easily get rid of this problem. Whenever you are planning for any festival sale. Or any sale session you do not need to set your website on maintenance mode.
You can easily maintain your website without maintenance mode. Due to the decoupling of the frontend and backend admin panels.
More Flexibility
Building an eCommerce store on headless is more developer friendly. Whether It is in terms of integration options, quick updates, the connection of multiple devices, and many more.
Headless eCommerce development offers flexible options for users. To connect with your website. In addition, multiple frontend interfaces can be provided by merchants. Without interrupting backend functions, and can easily update the frontend as required.
Omnichannel Capability
An integrated distribution, promotion, and communication strategy are known as an "omnichannel approach."
In Headless eCommerce development, vendors can distribute content across multiple platforms. Via this strategy, you can create more profitable marketing options. And develop more communication channels for the sales leads to reach you and convert.
You can optimize content for any devices connected via the internet. Such as voice shopping or smartwatch with the help of headless eCommerce development.
Without any changes, the experience remains the same. Customers can select their shopping channels and take advantage of your business.
Cons of Headless Development
If headless has advantages, then it has also disadvantages. Because for any business executing headless commerce is a challenge. Now let us discuss the downside side of Headless eCommerce development.
Increased Budget
Budget is one of the main concerns of any business. Before planning to build any online store. We have to decide our budget first. Whether it is a small startup or a big startup.
Headless eCommerce development is expensive. Compared to traditional eCommerce. It needs a high amount of investment. Therefore it is hard for a startup business to afford it.
The frontend and backend of the website are decoupled. Both require hosting and maintenance. So, this can cause an increased budget to manage your website.
Complexity
Everyone wants to avoid too complex work. And it is a drawback for headless development. Because the structure of the headless is not easy to understand.
Due to the connectivity of multiple devices, you have to keep deep knowledge about it. It takes more time and effort to establish APIs. And cover up all the endpoints if you design both of them yourself.
It is difficult to manage because it is too complex a technology. Including several frontends, APIs, and backends.
IT Team Dependency
If you are running your online store on traditional development then. Sometimes you can manage your store by yourself.
However, if you are going towards headless eCommerce development. You need to hire more support for it. Because It is a complex based technology, so to build and maintain each new channel. You must have a strong development team.
No Drag and Drop Page Builder
In today's era store owners have to interact with their customers. Usually, the Headless fragmented environment has no drag and drop editor available. When it comes to tasks for modification optimization. Store owners will have to depend fully on developers.
Summing Up
To summarize, we can say that headless eCommerce development is not meant for every online business. However, if someone is looking for an All in One type of solution, then they can create their eCommerce website on monolithic architecture and follow the traditional development process.
Whereas, if someone is looking for scalability, customizability, and delivering a high-performance and omnichannel experience, then headless eCommerce development is the way forward.
Top comments (1)
I don't agree with all of your statements:
Increased Budget - The budget will be impacted by the requirements. If the requirements are extremely basic (think t-shirt shop), then going with a traditional approach tends to be less expensive. However, as the requirements increase (bundles, subscriptions, configurators, personalization, etc.) moving to an API and specifically composable approach ends up being less expensive.
If you have specific needs, it is much easier to customize a system designed for customization, then try to modify an all-in-one that was never meant to be extended.
Complexity - Currently companies with complex business requirements gravitate towards an API-first solution. The business requirements and desire to enhance customer experience through multiple-touch-points is complex, not the API-first design. I would rather work with an API-First solution over trying to build a magento plugin any day.
IT Team Dependency - This is dependent on the solution adopted. There are multiple headless CMS options that offer drag&drop tooling. So here I would say you are mostly correct, unless you choose the right systems you end up with IT dependency. Thankfully the headless CMS offerings continue to improve. If you want suggestions of ones with drag&drop feel free to ask.