Introduction

In the twenty-first century, eCommerce has achieved its pinnacle, especially after the pandemic. The sector is continuously exploding and is expected to reach $7 trillion by the end of 2024. Moreover, the tech world is celebrating the feat with a new headless e-commerce architecture. You might have heard the phrase headless before. Today, the word is synonymous with a tailored customer experience across countless buying channels.

In the blog, we’ll dig deeper into the headless eCommerce space, decode some of the top headless commerce systems trending in 2022, and which one to pick as per your needs. Let’s start!

What is Headless eCommerce?

Traditionally, the eCommerce space has employed a full-stack approach to drive operations. The plan worked well among the first-generation internet users, it made sense back then! However, the idea comes with low scalability and user control. Now that the world is moving more toward personalization, eCommerce has come up with a more dynamic approach offering omnichannel experiences and a lot of space for testing by going headless.

In Headless platforms, the frontend of an eCommerce platform is isolated from the backend, which contains the complete business logic in an architectural style.

Consider the PlayStation. When you purchase a PlayStation, you buy a console or device that lets you play games. You may, however, connect it to any monitor or television you wish. You'll be able to see and play the games as long as you have the necessary cable for both your display and PlayStation.

In this case, the PlayStation console is a headless server. Its significant concentration is on it. It contains all of the logic required to carry out particular functions. It distinguishes how these features and data are displayed to the user.

To put it another way, headless eCommerce refers to eCommerce that works well without a head (the frontend interface). This strategy allows the brand the flexibility to create anything they want while customizing the whole user journey. Even Google’s latest study supports the fact that personalization drove customers to spend 40% more time on eCom sites. Now is the time to go headless!

How Does Being Headless Work in eCommerce?

The epidemic is to blame for the unexpected increase in eCommerce sales. Second, leading eCommerce technologies such as Amazon make innovative technology available to their customers. Nacelle, Commercetools, Medusa Commerce Layer, Chord, and Bold are some headless platforms gaining traction in the commerce landscape.

This headless strategy benefits a wide range of companies. It lets companies with markets in various countries deliver culturally and linguistically suitable content while accommodating a range of currencies. Marketers for luxury and experiential businesses should focus on generating appealing visual content that will function across several platforms and devices rather than worrying about specific backend interfaces. Let’s see what else headless platforms offer:

• Reduce the expense of developing an eCommerce system from scratch.
• Reduce the time and cost of development.
• Provide all API features needed to create eCommerce and digital storage solutions.
• Create a unique consumer experience.
• Create several stores from a single foundation.
• All records are managed and stored, including catalogs, user data, pages, etc.
• From the back office, manages goods, product catalogs, and archives.
• This component handles all user authentications and authorizations.
• Scale your business with ease.

Headless eCommerce is the future of post-pandemic retail order. Moreover, eCommerce marketplaces compete fiercely with small and medium-sized online business owners. Several eCommerce companies have already adopted the strategy and have seen a jump in their CAGR. Let’s check them out in detail!

Top Headless E-Commerce Platforms to Watch in 2022

Shopify Plus

Shopify is the most popular eCommerce platform available. Today, Shopify is supporting 1,000,000 businesses in 175 different countries and over 5000 stores! Impressive, isn’t it? Shopify Plus is Shopify's more sophisticated version. It was created with enterprise businesses in mind. Moreover, it offers:

• Deliver a flawless experience for your online business.
• Convert every screen into a digital storefront.
• Update information across all channels with Shopify Plus's CMS.
• Enabling numerous connectors, extensions, and modifications, the platform allows you to change your conventional store into a modern eCommerce business.
• Create a better customer experience by combining any framework with the backend.
• It enables you to give users an omnichannel experience.

CommerceLayer

Another well-known headless commerce platform that allows you to create sophisticated eCommerce stores is CommerceLayer. You could use this headless commerce to build a website from scratch and incorporate standard shopping features like distributed inventory, localized payment gateways, promotions, etc. Let’s see why CommerceLayer can be a better choice for you:

• Build a scalable eCommerce platform.
• Deliver a localized shopping experience to people all over the world.
• Add a subscription-based model to your business.
• Enable eCommerce into wearable and voice devices.
• It enables you to give users an omnichannel experience.

Medusa

Medusa is a headless eCommerce solution with a complete eCommerce workflow that is open-source. Its process begins with product management, customer service, orders, delivery, and returns. Moreover, Medusa has a notification API that allows you to keep track of all system events. It leverages PostgreSQL and Redis and is developed on top of Node.js.

• Medusa is a headless commerce API, which means you can use the platform with any presentation layer- chatbots, website, desktop/mobile app.
• For worldwide sales, regions allow you to set currencies, payment providers, shipping providers, and tax rates based on your preferred location.
• Orders come with all the tools needed to run effective customer support operations.
• Customers may use carts to collect things for purchase, enter shipping information, and make payments.
• Customs, stock keeping, and sales areas are included with products. Medusa has an infinite number of possibilities and variations.
• Customers can swap products after purchasing them (for example: for incorrect sizes). For automated customer service, accounting, payment, and fulfillment plugins take care of all the labor.
• If a consumer has an issue with one of their items, a claim can be filed. Plugins ensure that sending out replacements, managing reimbursements, and gathering valuable data for analysis are all automated.
• Returns allow consumers to send items back and maybe set up to work fully automated using accounting and payment plugins.
• By establishing fulfillment plugins, the Fulfillment API makes it simple to interact with any fulfillment provider; a complete list of plugins may be found in the /packages directory.
• The Payments API makes it simple to interface with any payment provider; Medusa also supports Stripe, Paypal, etc.
• Integrating email providers, chatbots, Slack channels, and other services is possible via the Notification API.
• Customers may use Customer Login to manage their data, see their orders, and save payment information.
• Shipping Options & Profiles allows for creating rules for things like free shipping restrictions and different fulfillment methods, among other things.
• Medusa's Plugin Architecture makes managing integrations, switching providers, and scaling up a breeze.
• Customization tools are available for those unique use cases that other e-commerce systems cannot meet.

To continue reading more about other top headless e-commerce platforms and their features and also, how to chose the best one for your business, read my complete article here .

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