Shopify is one of the known eCommerce platform to build an eCommerce website. And as it is a SaaS (Sofware as a Service) solution, it requires very less time and technical knowledge to get ready for the market.
A general person who wants to build an eCommerce store can adopt Shopify for several reasons. And the affordability, less requirement of capital in the first go is one of the key factors towards the popularity.
Apart from that, Shopify is having a large community of dedicated developers. It helps Shopify to have a large supporting module to fulfil the specific business needs of the users.
What is headless commerce?
Headless commerce is an architecture where the store’s front end is separate from the store’s back end. In general, the “head” is referred to as front end. Hence, in this case, the front end is decoupled from the back end.
Why opt for headless commerce?
To begin with eCommerce the monolithic architecture is okay. Where the front end and the back end are tightly coupled. But when the business grows there are additional areas that need to be explored by the business.
One of the main reasons is to go ahead with the omni channel approach. Where the information needs to be shared with several touch points such as mobile app, POS (Point of Sale), CRM, PIM, etc.
The other reasons can be as follows:
- Enhance the customer experience
- Scalability
- Better security
- Performance improvement
- Improve marketing options
How to begin with Shopify headless development?
The first step to moving forward with the headless is to identify your requirements to move forward. There can be several reasons to adopt the Shopify headless development for the business.
But, the identification, of whether you really need to go ahead is the critical point. And once you decide to adopt the headless, can move forward with it.
Here, you can go ahead with doing it yourself or can seek help from an agency to build it for you.
Shopify also introduced Shopify Plus to meet the requirements of headless development. It provides additional resources in terms of required APIs, integrations, and developer resources to help in the process.
Shopify headless life cycle
The life cycle of headless Shopify requires the below steps :
- Information gathering and data analysis
- Planning and wireframing
- Prototyping and design
- Synchronize APIs
- Headless commerce implementation
- Headless commerce testing and integration
Introduction of Shopify Hydrogen
In 2021, Shopify announced a new React based framework “Hydrogen”. It helps to build custom storefronts powered by Shopify. And it will support largely the Shopify headless development.
Hydrogen provides Shopify specific components, hooks, and commerce tools. It provides utilities that are ready to use with built in industry best practices and Shopify integrations.
Shopify introduced Oxygen as well, a hosting service to host the stores that are created with Hydrogen.
Final words
Headless architecture is emerging today as the need to fulfil the needs of a business that is difficult for traditional architecture.
It provides the flexibility of integration with the help of APIs. Now, different isolated channels can be combined and can work collaboratively.
And it gives an advantage towards the automation as well. As a centralized system provides the required information on the go, which is difficult earlier.
