Why does anyone need Shopify headless? Picture this: You have worked tirelessly on your business. However, you cannot go beyond the native capabilities of the platform as your business scales up.
Sounds like a bummer, right? While technology is a boon for ecommerce businesses, it is actually functional only for businesses that can quickly adapt to the changing waters and steer their way to the top.
The technological environment is dynamic, with changing buyer requirements and market uncertainty. So, the only way to become successful is to develop scalable, agile, and flexible solutions. This is possible through headless commerce.
If you have been in the ecommerce industry for a while, you might have heard about headless and countless benefits of this architecture. In this eye-opening blog, we will discuss Shopify headless and when is the right time to opt for headless commerce solutions.
What Is Shopify Headless?
In headless ecommerce, the front-end presentation layer (head) is decoupled from the back-end functionality to let the developers create customizable user interactions & experiences without interrupting the backend technology.
Shopify is a reliable ecommerce platform capturing over 11% of the ecommerce market, as per a PageFly report. With millions of online stores, Shopify is widely known as one of the best headless platforms. Let’s face it - the numbers don’t lie!
While Shopify is more than enough for the initial stages of business, real challenges arise when the business starts scaling up. By opting for a headless commerce Shopify solution, you can take advantage of the best front-end tools along with Shopify's backend.
Choosing headless commerce Shopify means creating multiple front-end experiences for different customer touchpoints and connecting them to a single backend system via an Application Programming Interface (API) layer.
Brands admire headless commerce as it unlocks the creative freedom for the developers to build unique storefront experiences that were once impossible with the traditional monolithic business models.
If you want headless Shopify examples in real-time, consider brands like Kotn, Peloton, Yoga Girl, Recess, etc. These brands have opted for headless solutions to deliver intuitive user experiences with lightning-speed websites.
Why Need Shopify Headless?
Shopify is famous for its user-friendly interface, seamless integration with payment gateways, PCI-compliant security features, and the ability to scale up as the business grows.
Stats Reference: 50+ Latest Shopify Statistics Of 2023 (pagefly.io)
Ecommerce merchants may want a visually appealing & feature-rich shopping experience for the customers' undivided attention. However, additional capabilities can drain your storage and slow down your website.
You can get the best of both worlds for business success. And that is possible through Shopify headless architecture.
In short, you (merchants) can create front-end experiences with whatever tools you want while utilizing the headless capabilities of the Shopify platform for a robust backend infrastructure.
Shopify Headless Theme
As your brand evolves digitally, your storefront needs customization to offer better, more personalized customer experiences. Shopify does consist of advanced themes, which allow certain levels of customization to achieve tailored experiences.
But choosing a Shopify headless theme means no more design sacrifices. You can achieve anything and everything with the best front-end tools without risking the site’s secure and reliable backend infrastructure.
Shopify Headless Checkout
The checkout page is one of the critical deciding factors in customer experience. Choosing Shopify headless checkout unlocks endless opportunities to design a distinct, effortless checkout experience while leveraging Shopify’s secure checkout system in the backend.
When To Go Headless?
The limitations of a monolithic platform restrict you from providing what the customers expect. As discussed earlier, you want to provide personalized experiences tailored to a wide range of customers. That too across multiple channels and devices as your business expands. With a growing ecommerce venture, it is the right time to go for headless architecture.
Headless Commerce Shopify offers the flexibility to build accurately what you need while allowing you to utilize the backed solutions of the Shopify platform.
How To Go Headless in Shopify?
Shopify enables merchants to opt for headless commerce Shopify solutions through Storefront API and Hydrogen and Oxygen. Storefront API is a Shopify API layer that provides developers access to the Shopify Commerce capabilities necessary for front-end interactions. These include search and recommendations, optimized cart, product and collection pages, etc.
The Storefront APIs deliver the fastest customer experiences across all devices, channels, and locations. These empower stores to handle any traffic with zero throttles.
Hydrogen and Oxygen are a combination of tools in Shopify’s official development stack used for building dynamic headless websites on Shopify.
In essence, you can go headless through:
- A composable commerce approach
- Using a Frontend-as-a-Service (FEaaS)
- Building from scratch with Shopify Hydrogen
While the stores built using Hydrogen can be hosted by any cloud hosting provider, Oxygen offers one of the fastest hosting solutions for Hydrogen stores. Oxygen is rendered at the edge with over 285 points of presence globally, providing complete deployment control to the development teams.
Should You Consider Shopify Headless For Your Business?
Whether you should opt for Shopify Headless depends upon several factors, including business size, website traffic, technical requirements, and future objectives. If you are not fully aware of your business, we don’t recommend you decide without discussing it with industry experts.
If you want to go headless through a smooth transition without losing any of your data, get in touch with Vrhunec. We ensure an effortless transition to headless commerce.
Enjoy the benefits of going headless while we handle the complex technical part.
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