The world has passed the COVID pandemic. And the countries are opening their physical trade. But still, the businesses are adopting online commerce or adding it as an extra channel for sales. And that shows the gained confidence towards the eCommerce.
As per the recent stats, most businesses are opting for Shopify. And the main reason for the Shopify adoption is the quick and easy setup. You need not worry about complex server configuration and management.
Apart from that, it allows reducing the initial cost to launch the website as it is a SaaS based solution. The best part of Shopify is the freedom from security worries. You need not give your time and focus to the security management of the website.
What is headless commerce?
To put it simply, the headless is used to separate the front end and back end of an eCommerce application. The presentation layer, which is where a customer interacts with commerce, is separated from the business logic layer in this case.
Here, the development team can utilize different front end technologies to prepare the presentation layer. And it allows the integration of multiple systems via API. Because the API first approach is being followed in the headless development.
The adoption of the APIs allows data sharing between cross platforms. Hence, eCommerce can give a personalized experience to multiple customer touch points.
Reasons to adopt headless for Shopify
If you want to go to the next level with your online business, then you should opt for the Shopify headless. Headless is becoming more popular in recent days. And there are various reasons for headless adoption.
Some of the reasons are as follows :
More flexibility
Shopify headless provides the freedom to adopt any technology to design your storefront. You can move ahead without Shopify's liquid template language and theme system. Shopify also launched Shopify Hydrogen to give more options.
Ready to scale
In traditional commerce, it is difficult to achieve a multichannel approach. And in current business needs, multi channel is a way to have multiple sales channels.
With headless, you can easily integrate multiple systems like CRM, PIM, Mobile app, POS etc. into Shopify. And can easily have multiple sales channels as well.
Better performance
In headless, there are many front end technologies designed to improve performance. Adopting such technologies in Shopify's headless development improves the performance of the website.
Improved customer experience
With a tightly integrated system, the data can be synchronized from one system to another. Hence, cross platform data transfer becomes easy. Now, a platform which is designed to handle a specific request can process and provide outcomes accordingly.
And the refined data can be shared with the customer. And it improves the customer experience with eCommerce.
Enhanced personalization
Headless allow you to integrate multiple platforms to collect data. And the collected data can be shared across different platforms as well. Like a customer signed in via website to purchase the product may end up on your mobile application.
Also, the collected data helps to give a more personalized experience on multiple customer touch points.
Different technologies toward Shopify headless adoption
There are different technologies are available for front end development. Hence a developer can choose the technology as per their choice to move towards the headless.
Some of the prominent development technologies are as follows :
Vue Storefront Shopify development
Vue Storefront started in 2017 to create a faster and more effective solution for their own. But later on, the Vue Storefront team decided to make it open source.
As of now, Vue Storefront has more than 1000+ live implementations. Also, the community is growing to make it more useful to businesses. Currently, Vue Storefront has 4500+ community members and 100+ agency partners.
Vue Storefront is a part of the MACH Alliance community. MACH Alliance advocates Micro services, API-First, Cloud-Native and Headless approach.
There are many agencies available which can help you with the Vue Storefront Shopify development. And even the Vue Storefront have its custom storefront for Shopify. The Vue Storefront team provides the Vue Storefront Shopify development services as well.
Shopify Hydrogen development
Shopify introduced Hydrogen in the Shopify Unite 2021 event. It is a react based framework built to create custom storefronts on Shopify.
Hydrogen provides different components which are specific to Shopify. Apart from that, it provides different hooks and commerce tools as well.
In the same event of Shopify Unite 2021, Shopify announced Shopify Oxygen as well. It is a hosting platform that allows the hosting of custom Hydrogen storefronts directory on Shopify.
Hydrogen gives an edge to Shopify's headless development. It is quick to start and provides design flexibility during the development process.
Shopify Next.js development
Next.js is a react based framework. It provides different building blocks to develop a web application. Here, a developer can use react to develop the UI part and then implement Next. js for additional application requirements.
Next.js has its own react starter kit for eCommerce as well. It is known as Next.js commerce. With the help of Next.js commerce, a developer can create high performance and fully customizable eCommerce website.
Next.js provides the Shopify integration with the Next.js commerce. Here, Shopify will be used as the back end to provide the commerce features. On the other hand, Next.js commerce is used as a customer touch point.
Who can adopt the Shopify headless development?
Headless adoption is not limited to any specific business category. Any business whether it is already established or just launched can adopt the headless.
Headless is no more an experimental commerce component. Earlier, it was adopted by the innovators and the early adopters only. But now the situation has changed. Due to current business requirements, an omni channel approach is required for the business. Hence, headless architecture is the right choice, to begin with even for a new business.
The associated cost for the headless adoption for Shopify
The costing factor toward the headless adoption can be divided into two parts based on the business life. One is the business which is already having a monolith architecture and they are looking for the migration of the complete system. On the other hand, there is the business which is just starting.
Surely, the adoption will be easy and less costly for the new business. While a business which is looking for migration may need deep pockets.
Further, the associated cost varies from one business to another business due to the different business requirements.
Conclusion
The commerce world is evolving with the possibility of different sales channels. The latest trends like social commerce, live stream selling, voice assistant selling etc. are the recent developed sales channels.
And if you want to harness all of them then the adoption of headless is a must. As it will be able to manage the different complex sales channels.
Shopify is a commerce platform which always tries to catch the latest trends in eCommerce. Hence, Shopify has introduced Shopify Plus in the past for the robust API support. And now has introduced the Shopify Hydrogen and the Oxygen to make the development fast.
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