Headless commerce is an

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

where the front-end (head) is decoupled from the back-end commerce functionality and can thus be updated or edited without interfering with the back-end, similar to a headless content management system (CMS). The term was coined by Dirk Hoerig,

co-founder An organizational founder is a person who has undertaken some or all of the formational work needed to create a new organization, whether it is a business, a charitable organization, a governing body, a school, a group of entertainers, or any oth ...

of Commercetools, in 2013.

History

Headless commerce was arguably born out of a 2013

Forrester Research Forrester Research, Inc. is a research and advisory firm. Forrester serves clients in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The firm is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, MA with global offices in Amsterdam, London, New D ...

report that bemoaned e-commerce vendors falling behind

user experience User experience (UX) is how a user interacts with and experiences a product, system or service. It includes a person's perceptions of utility, ease of use, and efficiency. Improving user experience is important to most companies, designers, a ...

trends and recommended “loosely” coupling the back- and front-ends of e-commerce stores.

Architecture

Headless commerce architecture passes requests between a platform's

presentation A presentation conveys information from a speaker to an audience. Presentations are typically demonstrations, introduction, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea/product. Presenta ...

and application layers. The presentation layer is connected with the e-commerce functionality via

REST REST (Representational State Transfer) is a software architectural style that was created to describe the design and guide the development of the architecture for the World Wide Web. REST defines a set of constraints for how the architecture of ...

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

s, or application programming interfaces, which define interactions between multiple software intermediaries. This allows businesses to change customer-facing experiences without disrupting backend functionality and to update, edit or change products and distribute via API to multiple front-ends. REST APIs are the backbone of this architecture.

Coupled e-commerce vs headless e-commerce

Headless commerce is distinct from coupled, traditional or “monolithic” e-commerce in that the latter relies on a front-end and back-end that function together and the former comprises solely a back-end which communicates with front-ends via APIs. Headless commerce platforms offer advantages over traditional e-commerce platforms in that changes to data and functionality only need to be made in a single back-end, with all front-ends then having immediate access to those changes. Likewise, each front-end can then be changed and deployed without impacting the back-end. Another difference is that many traditional e-commerce platforms come with predefined front-end templates or customization, whereas headless commerce can power any front-end via APIs. Headless commerce platforms require more work and customization than traditional platforms and are often not suitable for smaller businesses. Such platforms lack predesigned templates and do not provide all-in-one solutions. Headless commerce platforms also require developers to build or buy a separate front-end. Headless commerce may be preferred from a

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

perspective, as traditional e-commerce platforms face a higher risk of making changes that could disrupt operations, since the front end and back end are coupled. Becaus
headless commerce
communicates with the front-end via APIs and there is no code intertwined with the backend database that stores content, frontend developers can adapt endpoint layout as needed with no disruptions to the customer experience.

Flexibility

The front-ends and back-ends of a headless system are decoupled, making it possible to change the content layer without disrupting business. This creates flexibility to allow the front- and back-ends to work independently and create new

s without compromising old ones. There is also no confining code that restricts delivery to

internet of things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

devices,

applications Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

s or other end points.

Speed

The decoupled architecture of headless commerce enables developers to make quick changes, such as implementing new functionalities and integrations without disrupting the back end.

Personalization

Headless commerce allows for the creation of customized

designs A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

and layouts for different endpoints, since front-end design can be changed without impacting the back-end.

Unified user experience

Headless commerce allows a business to control all customer touchpoints at once. This creates a consistent customer experience across different front-ends that enable customers to complete a purchase at any touch point.

Headless commerce providers

* Dynamics 365 Commerce * Brink Commerce * Swell * Shogun * Commerce.js * Oracle CX Commerce *

Shopify Shopify Inc., stylized as ''shopify'', headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, operates an e-commerce platform for retail point-of-sale systems that offers payments, marketing, shipping, inventory management, transaction management, and customer eng ...

Magento Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP. Magento source code is distributed under the Open Software License. Magento was acquired by Adobe Inc in May 2018 for $1.68 billion. More than 150,000 online stores have been cre ...

* Commercetools
Crystallize
* Fabric * frntkey.io * Salesforce Commerce Cloud * Nacelle * BigCommerce * Slatwall Commerce * Bagisto * Slixta * bl!nk * Pcommerce * VetrinaLive * ElasticPath * SAP Commerce Cloud * Rierino * TheShop Managementhttps://theshop.management/