What is Headless Commerce? 🤯

Typically, the front end and back end of traditional website commerce are married, packaged and controlled simultaneously.

Everything on the front end of a website is to benefit the user, whereas the back end is where technical teams do business.

However, in headless commerce, these layers are entirely separate entities and communicate with one another via application programming interfaces (APIs).

Therefore, as headless commerce websites operate with a decoupled content management system (CMS), any changes made to the back end will not affect the front end of an online store or vice versa.

What are the Benefits of Headless Commerce?

The benefits of headless commerce architecture on Shopify Plus are second to none, as Shopify Plus merchants can leverage more control and flexibility over the visual expression of their store and customer experience without restricting template structures in place.

Generating omnichannel sales is also a lot easier thanks to Shopify's headless architecture, as merchants can sell products to their customers across all digital mediums while managing everything from the back end.

Shopify experts are also granted a little something we like to call "developer freedom", meaning that web development teams can build the finest storefronts with the tools they know and love.

Is Shopify a Headless Commerce Platform?

One feature that sets Shopify apart from other ecommerce platforms is its ability to support headless commerce architecture.

There are other ecommerce platforms out there that facilitate a headless approach to ecommerce, but Shopify Plus is the only platform that we'd recommend moving forward with.

Shopify headless commerce is like a unique form of architecture that brings possible customisations and control to the table for merchants on Shopify Plus.

With Shopify headless commerce, online stores have full control over the fate of the design and performance of their website, enabling Shopify developers to focus all expertise and efforts on complex tasks that directly impact the back end of a site.

Headless Commerce vs Traditional Commerce

When it comes to the comparison of headless commerce vs traditional commerce, it should be understood that three characteristics separate the two structures.

Headless commerce architecture does not limit front-end development in the same way as traditional commerce. With traditional commerce, developers like us here at Karmoon are often constrained to front-end designs, but headless commerce architecture offers almost limitless customisation and personalisation opportunities for stores on Shopify Plus.

Headless commerce also improves time to value, enabling stores on Shopify to focus on delivering a final, seamless user experience at less cost!