Over the years eCommerce has continued to evolve. Businesses are realizing more than ever that they need to change their strategies to keep up with their customers’ expectations. B2B businesses are becoming aware that they are handcuffed by legacy monolithic eCommerce platforms. Between the limited flexibility for customization, and long implementation times, they are choosing to migrate away from monolithic platforms. Headless eCommerce is becoming the go-to solution for growing businesses who want to sell online and do it right in the most cost-effective way. There are many benefits of Headless eCommerce Vs traditional Monolithic eCommerce that empowers your business.
When eCommerce was first introduced, most purchasers placed their online orders via a desktop browser. Then came the new era of smartphones. This challenged businesses to find new ways to deliver new buying experiences. The struggle was that their eCommerce platform was not equipped to deliver these tailored experiences through smart devices. Developers used to build eCommerce platforms specifically with a web first approach. Thus, the need for a new eCommerce flexible platform structure arose.
Headless eCommerce Vs. Monolithic eCommerce: What’s the difference?
The major difference between headless and traditional commerce is the architecture of the technology.
Traditional Monolithic eCommerce architecture is structured set pieces or tools in the front and back end. These tools fit together to support a predetermined user experience, mainly a desktop web-based. The frontend interface user experiences are tightly coupled to the backend commerce functionalities. That is to say, the architecture is very solid. In other words, if upgrades or any changes are required, it can be a long and expensive process. Furthermore, it makes it difficult for businesses to integrate all other channels for other buying experiences such as social, voice purchase, or chatbots. All these are key channels that customers value and look for today.
Headless eCommerce has a more agile structure. The decoupling of the front and back end simply allows for easier adoption of new technologies and API integrations. This means businesses can respond faster to industry market innovations and the dynamic customers’ needs. Businesses are not limited to one channel. On the other hand, they can easily and seamlessly enable the same experience to all sorts of devices. Since all customer experiences leverage the same back end commerce data. They are seamless for customers at all touchpoints. Thus, focusing on user experiences and meeting customer expectations are key advantages for Headless eCommerce.
What are the reasons to migrate from monolithic to headless eCommerce?
There are many reasons migrating from monolithic to headless will be beneficial for your business. Here are some of the main benefits of Headless vs. Monolithic eCommerce:
Agility and Speed
With monolithic architecture, developers work with many different layers. Thus, accomplishing a seemingly simple task often takes a long time. For example, building a new promotion and displaying it in the front end-user experience, takes back end developers a few days to implement.
However, with headless architecture, the front end is completely separated and decoupled from the back end. Changes and updates to the front end-user experience can happen much faster and with less risk to break a back end code. Headless commerce has a greater flexible environment that allows businesses to switch gears quickly to deliver a better customer experience without heavily relying on their IT.
Fast Integration
Unlike monolithic platforms, headless eCommerce platforms harness the power and agility of APIs allowing you to create unique experiences for your customers. Headless API platforms enable you to have control to pick and choose the best capabilities across the board. So that your software can accomplish what you need it to do for your business. Also, it is easy to integrate 3rd party applications. The beauty of headless eCommerce, it facilitates fast integrations with applications. In other words, APIs allow platforms to communicate with each other easily and smoothly. You can simply switch apps out as your business needs.
Speed to the Market
With a headless platform structure, businesses can integrate and implement new features as they wish whenever their business requires them. Simply, with minimal cost and disruption to the back end business logic, new features can be launched quickly and easily. Indeed, this is a great advantage for businesses to keep pace with market trends and meet their customers’ expectations as they evolve.
Unlike traditional monolithic platform that has solid, rigid structure vs headless, which needs you to reinvent the wheel almost every time you need to update or implement a new feature. Unfortunately, this is a great disadvantage for businesses which can make them miss the boat. If they are not fast enough to capture new customers and compete with their competitors.
Expanding Ordering to New Channels & Smart Devices
With headless eCommerce, multiple front ends can connect to the same back end. You can run and manage multiple user experiences across multiple devices without having to manage the complexity of communication between different systems. For example, allowing businesses to open and extend their selling on different new channels; such as smartphones, smart fridges, smart cars, vending machines, tablets, web apps, social media apps, wearable devices such as smartwatches, medical devices, loT, and more, you can name it.
A key advantage of implementing Headless eCommerce vs. Monolithic eCommerce, it allows you to alter the presentation of your products and services for each channel, without having to change the back end architecture for each of these completely. This means less investment in channels that may or may not bear fruit.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
With monolithic software, businesses are locked into a contract for a fixed amount of time. Typically, this software is sold in the form of licenses. Thus, businesses face the problem of incremental added costs. For example, if your business grows, then you will need more hardware to handle this growth. Thus, you need to buy more licenses. In addition, monolithic software vendors typically release a few new versions every year. So, businesses would want to take advantage of these upgrades. Therefore, businesses would constantly need to review and re-write their code to make sure they are compatible with the upgrades and work with the new versions. Besides, switching vendors can be costly and complicated. Many businesses opt for hassle which might make them miss the boat.
On the other hand, Headless commerce offers less cost of ownership. It is less expensive than fully re-platforming. Identifying the specific solutions that fit your business’s needs and requirements can minimize the costs. This is a great advantage for businesses in the long term. Not only does it allow them to save money, and manage their budget. But also by capitalizing on revenue by picking and choosing the right solutions and having a selling edge to attract new customers.
Improve Time to Value
By nature, no matter what your eCommerce platform is, usually the back-end business logic, functionality, and capabilities comprise up to 85% of a software development process. However, with a headless commerce platform, you are starting from the point of completion. Your focus is different. The headless architecture allows you to focus on advancing the user experience for far less cost, time, and effort.
At the end of the day, Headless eCommerce seems almost inevitable. As technology advances, the days of monolithic online architecture are fast fading. Legacy eCommerce platforms are not advancing at the same rate. You may suddenly realize that your monolithic platform is lacking capabilities that you didn’t know your business needed. Despite the high costs of implementing or converting to a headless commerce system, the long-term payback may be well worth the investment, if it fits your business model.
Now that you are clear on the reasons why migrating from a monolithic platform to headless eCommerce might benefit businesses like yours. Indeed, there are many benefits of Headless eCommerce vs. Monolithic eCommerce.
Is it time to make the switch?
Here is where a consulting agency comes into place. A consulting agency, like DigiCommerce, can guide you with the right solution for your business. DigiCommerce experts can facilitate the transition process to help you have a smooth migration and avoid the complexity of implementations.
Whether you are a B2B or B2C business looking for eCommerce solutions that fit your business needs. Or you may be searching for the right platform for your brand comparing Headless eCommerce vs. Monolithic eCommerce. You can take the privilege of our free demo to answer your questions and be well prepared for your decisions.
B2B Connect:
A headless pre-composed, business-ready solution powered by DigiCommerce for B2B, B2C, and D2C Commerce. It enables businesses to quickly implement and deploy B2B Solutions within their preferred headless platform. This solution is pre-integrated to commercetools, BigCommerce, and Elastic Path headless platforms.