Whitepaper

Headless: The unstoppable rise of

modern eCommerce

Why you should build a varied and inspiring

customer journey for online success

 Where Amazon leads, others follow — that has been an unwritten rule
Introduction of eCommerce. Not so long ago, the innovation of personalization
seemed so clever, even mysterious, that the instinctive reaction of
most businesses was: “This is for Amazon and eBay, not for us.” Yet
personalization is now part and parcel of how every brand markets
itself, in B2B as well as B2C. The subject of this whitepaper is another
technological innovation which, following in the footsteps of Amazon,
is being adopted by a lot of businesses: headless eCommerce.

In headless eCommerce, the system backend is decoupled from the

presentation layer, the frontend where you meet your customer – and
where your customer meets you. Compared even with a few years ago,
there are many more such “touchpoints”, not just the web or mobile,
but social media, smart speakers, smartwatches, and the Internet of
Things (IoT) which is increasingly becoming a part of our every-day
lives. Developers of Content Management Systems wanted to find a
way for businesses to deliver content seamlessly across all these new
and yet to be invented channels and a use case for eCommerce soon
emerged.

One of the great advantages of headless eCommerce is that

businesses can react quickly to market demands. Amazon changes its
.com store every 11.7 seconds – a capability and ambition that is off
the scale for any other business. That is not important. What matters
is that consumer brands such as Nike, Michael Kors, Bang & Olufson,
and Secrid are seeing rises in conversion as a result of a more vibrant
and responsive customer experience made possible by adopting a
headless approach.

In this whitepaper, we shall look in more detail at how headless

eCommerce works and in what ways it is different from traditional
eCommerce. There are many advantages to going headless – but it
comes at a cost. Headless eCommerce is not like personalization or
even omnichannel, which are indispensable tools for all online selling,
from Amazon to small specialist brands. As a technological approach, it
will be suitable for some business, but to others not at all. We conclude
by exploring if headless eCommerce might be a good fit for your
business.

Headless: The unstoppable rise of modern eCommerce 2

What is headless eCommerce?
In headless eCommerce, as we saw, the frontend
presentation (“the head”) has been decoupled
from the backend commerce functionality. This
means the frontend can be updated or changed
without interfering with the backend. In a context
where consumers move unselfconsciously
and fluidly from one “frontend” to another
— web, mobile, smartwatch, physical shop,
smart-speaker, IoT — this is a great advantage.
Time-to-market for changes to the customer
experience is much shorter because the backend
can be left alone, and requires no change.
Commerce functionalities such as inventory,
pricing, checkout, and security continue “to do
their thing” in the background, but the customer
engaging with the business is offered a dynamic,
responsive, and on-trend experience across all
channels, every frontend.
The headless approach is sometimes referred
to as “API-driven” and for a very good reason
because in headless eCommerce, front and
backend talk to each other through Application
Programming Interface (API) calls. For example,
when a customer clicks a “Buy” button on his or
Headless: The unstoppable rise of modern eCommerce
her smartphone, the presentation layer of the
headless eCommerce system sends an API call
to the application layer (the backend) to process
the order. The application layer sends another
API call to the frontend to show the customer the
status of his or her order.
It is easy to understand why early adopters
of headless eCommerce were experience-led
consumer brands such as Nike and Michael
Kors. These brands rely on fresh, stand-out,
and personalized customer experiences to
communicate their message which has to retain
its character and appeal across the full spectrum
of touchpoints.
The advantage of discrete front and backend
development also works the other way. In
headless eCommerce, backend revisions or
upgrades can be built without disruption to the
webshop. This was the experience at Walmart
which introduced headless as part of a long
campaign to phase out its legacy eCommerce
system and re-platform to a best-of-breed
solution.
3
 Traditional vs Headless eCommerce
Before we compare the headless approach with traditional or “classic” eCommerce, it should be em-
phasized that “traditional” here must not be confused with “outdated”, much less “legacy”. For a lot of
eCommerce businesses, probably most, an eCommerce tool with front and backend happily married is
the modern solution they need.

But the differences are profound. The three main areas of divergence are:

Traditional Headless

Developers are constrained in Your own developers or those from

what they can do. “Monolith” an agency you have chosen yourself
eCommerce platforms come with Development can create new user experiences
predefined designs, although more from scratch without worrying about
advanced, non-standard frontends reconfiguring backend logic, or
are often deployed as part of being restricted to the code used in
the implementation processes. an end-to-end solution.
However, further development
can be complicated and is carried
out by the eCommerce platform
provider or a technology partner.
Adventurous plans with the
frontend may soon hit technical
roadblocks, slowing down time-to-
market.

Headless: The unstoppable rise of modern eCommerce 4

 Traditional Headless

eCommerce innovation is Because headless solutions

developing fast and traditional
platforms sometimes lack the
flexibility and infrastructure to
respond. The tightly coupled front
and backend systems make it
difficult and time-consuming to edit
databases and layers of code.
are completely decoupled, it is
Flexibility straightforward for frontend
developers to make updates to the
content layer of the platform. This
increased flexibility allows brands to
add new products, launch marketing
campaigns, or implement a custom
checkout flow without having to
reconfigure backend technology.

Traditional Headless

End-to-end solutions with coupled A decoupled approach allows

infrastructure leave less room for
customization and personalization.
Brands are often limited to
using predefined “template”
customer experiences – when
personalization is making every
customer unique. Creating unique
customer experiences is costly,
time-consuming, and could lead to
disruption of the backend which is
the last thing you want.
for limitless customization and
Customization complete control over the look and
feel of the customer experience.
Frontend developers can make rapid
changes to headless platforms with
simple API calls. As a result, brands
can attract and retain customers
with unique user experiences that
never grow stale, because they are
refreshed regularly.

Looking ahead to our section on why headless eCommerce is not the best solution for every B2B or
B2C business, we note that the customization is only as “limitless” or effective as the team of frontend
developers that you can hire to make it happen.

For businesses that have this talent, or know where to find it, headless eCommerce is very attractive. In
the next section, we highlight more of the benefits.

Headless: The unstoppable rise of modern eCommerce 5

The benefits of headless eCommerce
Headless eCommerce is a future-proof strategy
to deliver exactly what today’s shoppers are
looking for. Shoppers want to be completely
unconstrained in where they research, browse,
compare, inquire, and buy – with 85% of
customer journeys starting on one device but
ending on another. With headless eCommerce,
brands can deliver a unified tone of voice at every
touchpoint of that journey without having to
re-architect their platform when they add another
channel. Omnichannel as a marketing practice
also has to prepare your brand for channels and
devices that are not yet mainstream, or have not
even been invented yet.
It is crucial to keep omnichannel customers
happy. A groundbreaking study by Harvard
Business Review showed that, out of more than
46,000 shoppers surveyed, those who used
multiple channels purchased more online than
those who only used a single channel. Also,
shoppers who used multiple online channels
purchased more at brick-and-mortar stores than
those who used only a single channel – proof, if
you needed it, that omnichannel works.
Modern consumers look for superior brand
experiences that they cannot always find through
reseller channels or hectic marketplaces such
Amazon. With headless eCommerce, brands are
freer to express themselves with remarkable and
even quirky customer experiences.
Headless eCommerce not only offers a better
experience (or has that potential), it can also
easily improve and perfect the UX through
testing and experimentation. New designs can
be “road-tested” without changing a line of code
to the backend which would risk slowing down
the site.
Headless: The unstoppable rise of modern eCommerce
This is a big reason why online fashion retailer
Net-a-Porter switched to a headless eCommerce
solution. The end-to-end eCommerce tool in
place was seriously hampering Net-a-Porter’s
ability to quickly test its designs and release code,
especially when it was running a sale. With the
headless solution, the retailer is better able to
handle traffic spikes during Black Friday or other
sales events. The process and habit of testing
have also improved the overall performance of
the Net-a-Porter’s site.
Site performance is a benefit of headless
eCommerce that is sometimes overlooked. With
headless, loading times are significantly shorter,
and there is a well-established correlation
between speed and conversion – or rather,
lack of speed and bored users moving on to
another (faster) site. Google ranking algorithms
are a well-kept secret but we know that speed
improves SEO. Businesses that have transitioned
to headless eCommerce are seeing loading times
of the home page come down by as much as
70%. Product detail pages are coming in at less
than half the time compared with traditional
eCommerce, which is a particular advantage for
B2B deployments.
Headless eCommerce has many powerful
benefits, but the decision to adopt this approach
is obviously far-reaching. Before taking this
step, businesses need to know what the
implementation of a headless eCommerce project
involves. This is what we explore in the following
section.
6
The process of a headless implementation
As with any business strategy, implementing a headless eCommerce approach requires careful plan-
ning. You will need clarity across the business about why you are switching to headless, and have real-
istic and agreed targets and expectations of the project.

1
Who writes the code?

You need to be very clear that headless

eCommerce requires dedicated coding skills
because those frontends won’t write themselves.
2
Channel and integrations

You are moving to headless eCommerce to

If you have the right development skills inhouse,
great – but be upfront about the effort required
to build, manage, and adapt your frontend –and
not just for the implementation of your headless
solution but going forward as you change your
products and messaging, or deploy new sales
channels. Businesses that do not have dedicated
development and design skills will have to
contract outside help, or buy frontend solutions
out of the box. This is one of the disadvantages
of headless: you have several choices to make
instead of one because a traditional eCommerce
solution will come with in-built designs for
your frontend, although most will have some
headroom to deploy more advanced designs.
perfect your omnichannel marketing strategy.
Which channels will you be targeting in particular
along with your own webshop? Marketplaces,
voice search, social media, an app? Also, are you
able to integrate with your existing ERP, CRM,
CSM, OMS (order management solution), and
financial infrastructure?
To determine which headless eCommerce
platform has the right capabilities, it is essential
to identify which channels you have in your sights
and to which core systems you need to connect.

Headless: The unstoppable rise of modern eCommerce 7

3
Select your headless platform
If you are transitioning from a traditional
eCommerce solution this may be the time to
select a different provider. Many businesses
on the Magento platform are irritated by the
(more or less) enforced upgrade to Magento 2
or concerned what its acquisition by Adobe will
mean for costs going forward.
Price is a consideration but not the most
important. Functionality, understanding of
the sector, support, and cultural fit are what
determines if the collaboration with your provider
is successful. Backend does not mean back of
mind; you will need to have a responsive solution
provider even after the initial planning around
workflow automation and systems integrations is
in place.
Headless: The unstoppable rise of modern eCommerce
4
Implementation
Transitioning to a headless eCommerce system
could involve an overhaul of large parts of your
existing architecture. You will need to transfer
and collate data from different systems –
inventory, pricing, content, and so on – to one
central database, while also integrating core
systems so they can communicate with your new
platform.
You will want to have a clear overview of how
your new architecture will look before forging
ahead.
This only leaves one question: yes or no? Will
headless eCommerce give my business a
competitive lift?
8
Is headless eCommerce right for your business?
The emergence and popularity of headless architectures for content management and eCommerce
is part of a marked shift away from end-to-end or so-called monolithic systems to the “best of breed”
model. Forrester and others argue that businesses have to abandon the dream of simplicity and accept
that dealing with multiple vendors is an inescapable reality, not least because best-of-breed stacks are
often more effective than a system that does everything – but not quite in the way that you would like.

Certainly, headless is a move away from simplicity. Instead of dealing with a single vendor, you are
dealing with at least two – unless you can develop, manage, and adapt your own frontends.

If not two vendors, then certainly two systems, and no matter how solid your backend, and how
dynamic your frontend, both will take time to secure, support, and update.

As we mentioned earlier, all the amazing benefits of headless eCommerce depend on whether you
have access to frontend designers with the right caliber and vision. They will be expensive; even poor
designers are an additional cost if you go down the headless route. You can buy frontend designs out
of the box but this blunts what is the key benefit of the headless approach: that you can tailor your
frontend exactly to your target audience.

Unless frontend development is carefully managed, it could become a barrier to innovation as the
frontend code becomes bloated with developer resources stretched to breaking point across a
growing business. There is a danger that the development bottlenecks you wanted headless to resolve
are recreated at the frontend.

An approach that claims to get around these issues is “decoupled eCommerce” – a confusing name as
in pure headless, front and backend are fully decoupled. In “decoupled eCommerce”, this would still
be the case but frontend architecture is “predetermined” with a specified “delivery environment” – that
is to say, with templates. While “decoupled eCommerce” markets itself as the best of both worlds, it
seems to offer none of the strengths of traditional eCommerce (simplicity) or pure headless (greater
freedom).

Headless: The unstoppable rise of modern eCommerce 9

A more pragmatic hybrid approach was taken by the Dutch manufacturer of minimal wallets Secrid
which opted to deploy its B2B site on a traditional platform but implemented a headless approach for
B2C. This makes sense because B2B customer journeys are much longer, and B2B relationships much
longer-term, so there is not the same urgency to engage customers with ever-changing content and
design.

Every business will have to weigh carefully, as Secrid did, whether the undoubted advantages of head-
less eCommerce compensate for the initial and ongoing costs, and the dependency on talented
frontend developers.

There are no rules but in general headless eCommerce is recognized as being more suitable for:

• Large businesses with complex or unique business rules and ordering processes
• Brands with a lot of constantly changing content (Secrid, Nike, Michael Kors)
• Businesses that need unconventional eCommerce design
• Businesses experiencing rapid growth (again, Secrid)
• Large companies with many businesses, brands or divisions in their portfolio

If you recognize yourself in any of these broad-brush generalizations, it is worth having a conversation
with a provider that has a foot in both camps – i.e. offers both a headless and a traditional eCommerce
solution. They will be able to advise you on whether the timing is right for you to take advantage of the
benefits of headless.

Headless: The unstoppable rise of modern eCommerce 10

 Headless eCommerce ticks a lot of boxes that businesses are
Conclusion expected to tick: agility, omnichannel, short time-to-market,
vibrant customer experiences, and so on.

While these goals are important for every business, headless is

not the best way for every business to achieve them. The case for
headless eCommerce is most compelling for consumer brands that
need a very experience-led and design-driven message to stand out
in the market. For these brands, headless is probably a matter of
survival.

For other businesses, the arguments will be much more finely

balanced. Headless is a marathon, not a sprint and you are unlikely
to see conversions shoot up from day one, as is almost always the
case with personalization. What headless eCommerce will do is
prepare you for the new channels and challenges of the future.

And help you stay ahead.

Sources
https://blog.newrelic.com/technology/data-culture-survey-results-faster-deployment/
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/micro-moments/mobile-shoppers-consumer-decision-journey/
https://hbr.org/2017/01/a-study-of-46000-shoppers-shows-that-omnichannel-retailing-works
https://www.ipraxa.com/blog/headless-ecommerce-guide/

Headless: The unstoppable rise of modern eCommerce 11

 About CloudSuite

The cornerstone of your eCommerce strategy

CloudSuite is an eCommerce platform for B2B and B2C. It was built from the ground up by a group of
digital obsessives who had set themselves the task of reinventing B2B, and make it fit for the digital era.
We did not make a single decision – nor write a snippet of code – that did not get us closer to an
eCommerce platform that drove innovation, rivalled B2C for customer experience, and had a smart
back-end.
Our work is never done, but the CloudSuite platform is ready to support and implement any
eCommerce strategy – ground-breaking for B2B, broad and flexible enough for B2C and B2B2C

CloudSuite has three core competences. It is agile. It creates great shopping experiences. It is smart.

Business CloudSuite changes the way you work – not only with your customers,
but also with each other as a team, where everyone has ownership
agility
of your eCommerce strategy. CloudSuite drives innovation – whether
you want to take your products global, sell through marketplaces or
acquire a rival B2B or B2C business. Agility means nothing more or
less than to be open to change, and make change happen fast. And if
you aren’t agile, you will soon be overtaken by the competition.

Shopping B2B has been ‘digital’ for a long time, but its mindset has been stuck
in analogue. For a long time, e-commerce sites were little more than
experience
a long, detailed product catalogue that you could access on your PC.
The thinking was: ‘We are B2B. We don’t need these frills’. But design
is never merely window dressing, it is a way of communicating your
brand identity. With CloudSuite you create shopping experiences that
are as elegant and frictionless as the best of B2C. You can personalize
your product catalogue, capture complex pricing structures, increase
spend per basket and speed up payment. If you don’t deliver these,
you make yourself irrelevant.

5Headless:
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 Smart An eCommerce platform is only as smart as the IT behind it. For
both back- and front-end, CloudSuite delivers complexity that is
performance
transparent and simple to manage. Through our API Connect module,
our eCommerce platform integrates seamlessly with your existing
ERP system, payment providers, shopping feeds, accounting tools and
email marketing software. CloudSuite lets you set up and run multiple
webshops from a single server. The platform is stable and secure, but
has the virtuosity to put you in control. The CloudSuite eCommerce
platform is there for just one reason: to showcase your brand and to
make your vision of it come alive in eCommerce.

5 trends inThe
Headless: eCommerce for Home
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 This whitepaper is offered to you by:

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