The Future is Headless | 7 ways commercetools is Leading Ecommerce Industry into the Next Generation

Written by Shelanne Augustine

Technical Content Writer

If you could describe 2020, what words would come to mind? “Unprecedented?” We’ve heard that one a lot. How about “Unpredictable?” We’re now months into the 2020 pandemic and our economic and political leaders are still trying to make sense of how to move forward.

While we don’t know how long we’ll be wearing masks or limiting storefront traffic, we do know that this pandemic has forever changed the digital landscape of commerce.

Take a look at this statistic from Selligent: 36% of consumers now shop online weekly, an increase from 28% before the pandemic.

According to Bazaarvoice, 49% of consumers shop online more now than they did pre-COVID-19, globally. And 62% of U.S. shoppers say they shop more online now than they did before the pandemic.

More and more, buyers are using e-Commerce sites and mobile apps to shop, making tools like commercetools essential for retail businesses. In this article, we’ll dive into why commercetools is leading the e-commerce industry. But before we get there, let’s explain headless commerce and how commercetools uses it.

In this article, you’ll find:


1. The Importance of Headless Commerce

So what does commerce look like in the post-COVID world? Simply put, it’s Headless.

What is Headless Commerce?

While it may be hard to put a face to the concept (pun intended), headless commerce allows you to detach the front-end of your commerce business (what your customers see and interact with) from the back-end of your business (the internal systems like data crunching, customer management, pricing/taxation, distribution and delivery.)

While the front-end can refer to what your customers see when they visit your website or mobile app, it can also refer to the interaction they have with your brand through voice-search devices like Google Home, in-vehicle displays, in-game/in-app transactions, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Traditionally, the front-end (head) and back-end (body) have been embedded in a unified but often rigid system. But thanks to a programming advancement called Application Programming Interface (API), that system has been replaced.

What is API? Simply put, it’s the intermediary that interprets data requests between applications and decides what and how data is communicated between them.


2. The Benefits of Modern Commerce

1. Flexibility: From apps to voice-operated systems, social sites and wearable devices, there are so many ways to order goods and services outside of the traditional website. Headless commerce makes that possible.

2. Consistency: No matter what device your customers use to make a purchase, they’ll have a consistent user experience.

3. Scalability: As new channels come available, your business can expand there simply.


3. What is commercetools?

What does commercetools have to do with Headless Commerce and API? Everything! You can thank commercetools for creating this modern commerce solution. They have led and continue to commerce into the next generation, with solutions that allow businesses to grow and adapt like never before.

Industry analysts agree. In fact, The Forrester Wave rates commercetools among the three top commerce platforms on the market today.


4. How commercetools is leading the next generation of E-Commerce

1. Individually consumable and priced “on-demand”: With commercetools, your price is based on your usage. commercetools' scalable pricing allows you to pay as you go, only for what you use.

2. Cloud-native: commercetools is built like a solution and offered as a service. With their cloud-native system, there’s no need for installation or on-premise housing.

3. Headless and built for omnichannel commerce landscape: With commercetools, your customers can make returns anywhere, regardless of where they made their initial purchase. They can purchase online through your website, mobile app, social media, or IoT device and return offline, in-store, or vice versa.

4. Programming language agnostic: Your programmers can rest easy with commercetools’ language-agnostic programming system. Coding software is simple, regardless of their coding background – No special site developers are needed.

5. Microservices based: With commercetools’ versatile headless structure, you can add and update your services as you please and add different modules and applications as needed. Without a heavy, monolithic structure, you can shape your platform as you please.

6. Multi-tenant: This multi-tenant architecture offers cost-efficiency, elasticity, and freedom from version-updates.

7. API First and API Only: With commercetools, everything is API-based, freeing you from content limitations. Now you can use multiple platforms or bring an API from another platform to your system without redoing your website.

At Royal Cyber, we’re not just fans of commercetools. We’re certified commercetools experts, offering service and customized solutions for B2B and B2C businesses.

Click here to check out our latest commerce solution

It’s time to lead your organization’s commerce platform to into next generation. We’re here to help.

Click here to sign up for a 2-Week Complementary Assessment

1 Comment

  1. alexdev says:

    Simply amazing info guys! cool stuffs also

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