Why is Headless Commerce the future for Brands and Retailers
Dec 16, 2021
10 min read
With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, the eCommerce industry saw a massive rise in terms of sales. Since COVID-19 had shut down retail stores, the online eCommerce world saw a significant transformation. The global lockdown led to an increase in global retail sales. According to Statista, the expected eCommerce growth will reach an industry worth $26.7 trillion by 2022. Increase of $23.6 trillion from 2018! With more and more online shopping options, customers have found different channels to purchase products. Today, there are numerous devices they can shop from: mobile, computers, and intelligent devices.
According to a study conducted by Microsoft, around 58% of the shoppers don't prefer buying from an online shop that offers a poor customer experience. Offering seamless, fast, and intuitive user experiences throughout the shopping process are challenging for many eCommerce businesses.
Do you know that Headless commerce can create a significant impact on enhancing user experiences? Today, headless commerce is transforming the eCommerce world by offering customer-focused technology that enables online businesses to develop future-proof shopping experiences. If eCommerce brands and retailers want to scale their digital channels, they need a robust technology like headless commerce. Let's understand the concept of headless commerce and how it can offer a future-proof eCommerce solution to online businesses.
What is Headless Commerce?
Before we jump onto the concept of headless eCommerce, let's find out the features that traditional eCommerce platforms lack. Conventional eCommerce platforms like Magento are developed on a monolithic architecture. It is tightly coupled with the back-end and front-end. It allows businesses to sell their products via a web-based shopping experience. However, customer demands and behavior are changing.
Shopping behaviors have changed drastically. With the growth of smartphone users worldwide, more customers tend to purchase or surf across the web through their smart devices. The demand for smartphones is quite evident if we see the figures. According to Gartner, the worldwide growth in sales for smartphones went up by 26% in the first quarter of 2021.
Therefore, eCommerce businesses have a multi-channel approach. They need to provide personalized shopping experiences to match the prevailing level of customer satisfaction. If brands and retailers want to keep up with the evolving customer expectations, they'll need a flexible and agile eCommerce solution. The answer to that is headless eCommerce!
An eCommerce business with a headless commerce setup will fully decouple the front-end and back-end. They communicate via APIs (the acronym for Application Programming Interface). Headless eCommerce has different features too. It utilizes headless CMS and a headless eCommerce platform to run various operations.
These features enable eCommerce businesses to simplify product logistics, inventory management, marketing, etc. They can distribute content through APIs across various devices and channels with just a push button. These features allow businesses to streamline content easily. It will enable them to offer a seamless shopping experience across all devices.
Why Should You Consider Headless Commerce? How Does It Make Them Future-Ready?
Headless commerce can help eCommerce businesses meet modern market demands. They allow online companies to gain an omnichannel approach and offer personalized experiences. Many small businesses can quickly meet small customer demands through their small online shop and a website. However, the problems start rising when their business scales or expands to new platforms.
Comparing headless CMS and traditional CMS
The most significant advantage of headless commerce is that it allows businesses to create content once and utilize it across all channels. With traditional content management, eCommerce businesses were not allowed to do so. Headless eCommerce setup will enable enterprises to:
- Handle storefronts across multiple channels.
- Offer enticing UI and apply visual editing.
- Use technology to boost performance & security.
- Develop flexible, customized storefronts.
- Focus on customer solutions
The Key Benefits Of headless commerce
1. Improved user experiences
As mentioned above, the headless setup allows eCommerce businesses to manage content using two critical components. These components enable your business to maximize users' experience and integrate a headless CMS with your eCommerce platform. Once you integrate your content with your headless CMS, you can quickly deliver the same content across multiple channels. Therefore, your brand will be able to provide an omnichannel experience.
Source: Unsplash
You also get a centralized content management system that is very helpful in creating multilingual content to internationalize your offerings. You get to modernize your CMS by adding social media services with an API. How does that benefit you? With an omnichannel approach, marketers use language as a marketing tool to engage new audiences from new markets without spending loads of money on a translation team.
2. E-commerce Personalization
E-commerce personalization can help your eCommerce business to cater to individual needs. You can offer services that align with your customer's intent. It also allows companies to provide context to different customers from various other channels.
3. Enhanced security and performance
Stores developed on the top of a headless architecture tend to load faster than traditional architectures. They also offer a greater level of security. How do these things affect customer experience? A fast-loading website that is responsive to its viewers has a more significant influence on them.
Source: Unsplash
When a website loads quickly, it adds up to the user experience and boosts the organic and SEO performance of the website. Today, many eCommerce storefronts are developed using statically-generated sites. These websites have increased efficiency because a headless configuration works relentlessly to reduce the website's loading time and boost performance. As loading time decreases, businesses offer a better user experience that improves quality scores and decreases ad spend.
4. Flexibility and faster deployments
The headless architecture offers high flexibility and complete control to front-end developers. Developers can curate user experiences from scratch as per their customer demands and help you meet your eCommerce store needs. Front-end developers working with headless don't have to worry about back-end limitations because they cab fetch enough data from an API call. When we talk about smaller-to-larger changes, a front-end developer can operate independently via any back-end system. How Does that help your business? It allows you to make efficient storefront updates.
5. Quick time to market
Unlike the traditional architectures, a headless commerce setup is entirely indifferent to the kind of technology you are using. The headless commerce setup shall remain independent of any future changes too. Due to this reason, developers get a lot of freedom regarding their decisions related to technology. How will that benefit your team? When developers get the space to make decisions, your marketing team has more time to take new initiatives and create new marketing campaigns. Hence, your marketing team has more time to work across multiple channels across various devices.
6. How do you decide when to go headless?
Many businesses struggle to find the best time to shift to headless. It can be difficult for your business to realize the best time. If you have a custom eCommerce platform or eCommerce solutions like Shopify, WooCommerce, or Adobe Experience Manager, having a headless architecture can make your business more manageable, efficient, and profitable. A CMS/eCommerce solution is very reliable compared to the above cases. There are a few questions that you must ask yourself before implementing your headless eCommerce architecture. What are your targeted devices? What technology do you want to use? Do you expect redesigning at some point in time? These questions are critical to ask before taking your first step towards headless commerce.
Conclusion
Do you think you want to implement headless eCommerce for accelerated growth? If you are planning to do so, wait no more! With the propelling rise of eCommerce adoption among customers, brands and retailers need to provide their shoppers with a notch higher online shopping experience. Headless commerce allows you to deliver an enhanced shopping experience and increase eCommerce efficiency at scale. At Saffron Edge, we can help your business adopt necessary technological changes. We have built over dozen custom-field types with headless eCommerce. Get in touch with our experts and initiate your practice towards a future-proof eCommerce business.
Drive Exceptional Growth without an In-House Marketing Team
We drive business growth by optimizing every inbound channel to attract and convert high-quality clients for you
Share with Friends
Creating Timeless Brands That Last Longer
Putting our most successful strategies at work with branding experts who can tell your story better.
Talk to Experts
Dental App Marketing Is Most Effective Ways To Encourage Users To Download Your App
Trust us; if you think that your traditional dental marketing techniques are going to make patients prefer your service over others, then you are living in a bubble. Dental marketing, similar to any business, needs an adept and capable digital marketing technique to create a long-lasting impact. One such effective tool, which every business, big or small, is leveraging is a mobile application. Per Statista's 2019-2023 global mobile user statistical reports, by 2021, there will be roughly 7 million mobile users. The figure, without any doubt, comprises a considerable population that would require dental treatment at one point in their lives. Also, knowing that mobile application accounts for 57% of the total digital usage, it would only be a massive loss of opportunity to overlook this tool. Your dental practice needs a robust mobile application to reach out to the broader base of patients, who might not even know that there is a credible dental clinic in their locality. If you already have a mobile application and you are getting desirable traffic, leads, and conversions, then kudos to you!But if you don’t have, allow us to enlighten you with the ways in which your practice can benefit from having a mobile application: We are living in a world that is always in a hurry to be somewhere. Having a mobile app to book a dental appointment quickly is the convenience your patient needs. This will thereby reduce the frustration people face with last-minute appointment scheduling. Having push notifications to remind patients of their appointments, follow-ups will help with patient retention. Mobile applications are an engaging way of establishing and fostering a strong connection with the patients. The mobile application is an excellent way of providing impeccable customer service to the patient by staying connected with them round the clock. A dental practice can use this platform to build their rapport by encouraging patients to drop reviews that can bolster the credibility of the application and drive more traffic through the application store. Ideating, designing, planning, and developing an application is a daunting task in itself. But that is not it; the real uphill battle starts after you launch the app and have to hit the bull's eye with your marketing efforts. Dental application marketing is not a set and forget it implementation. You can't just sit folded arms and expect the app to be installed and used in the count of thousands and lakhs. If you are one of those practitioners who are struggling to market their mobile application effectively, then we bring you a list of efficacious marketing tips that will promote your patient to download and use your dental application. Market your app If you think that only making the application available on the app store is enough, then you are highly mistaken, doc. Because you are not the only dentist with an application there, and it is easy to get lost in the crowd. Create a well-researched and effective marketing strategy to promote your app on a different platform. Marketing is a continuous effort, so you need to make sure that you are periodically checking up on it and working on the techniques as and when required. The app should be a solution Your goal behind creating an application should be to address and resolve your patient's dilemma related to their dental hygiene. People tend to overlook their dental health until it becomes serious. Your app can help them take better care of their teeth and mouth with regular dos and don'ts, tips, and facts. A patient using a dental application won't really care about the features that it can offer but whether or not it can resolve their urgent dental needs. If your app will target the issues, it is sure to get downloaded and used by millions. Leverage social media presence Social media is not just for retail stores, manufacturing industries, but healthcare practices can also leverage this cost-effective means of increasing awareness and conversion rates. There are lakhs of people logged on to one or the other social media handles at a point in time. This could include a percentage of your patients. But you need to be meticulous in your social media approach- know the pain points, talk about them, be more interactive. This can help build a rapport of your dental practice as approachable and credible. Give incentives to your patients Part of the reason why many people refrain from going to a dentist is their high fees and expensive dental treatment. The expense will increase even more if they have to download a premium application. Offer them a discount on app download and installation. What you can also do is, ease their burden by offering them a discount on their revisit or adding a treatment theirs to their already existing package. Ensure compatibility on all devices All your patients won't be just using one mobile device or operating system, right? You need to make sure that your application is accessible across all leading devices and platforms. Create an application that runs smoothly on all devices and operating systems. This will further encourage the user to download and use your app. Add CTA or download app option Make sure that whatever content you post on the application has a clear and visible call to action. Be it an image, a blog post, or a landing page. Every page in the application should have an appropriate call to action so that patients do not have to look for ways to reach out to you in case of an emergency. Leave no stone unturned. Promote your app on your social media handles, blog posts, visual content, website everywhere for maximum visibility. The aforementioned tips will undoubtedly help to ensure that you get a higher return on investment with your mobile application. But a more profitable and practical choice would be to let an agency specializing in dental marketing services develop and strengthen your mobile presence with effective application marketing. SaffronEdge holds considerable experience in successfully dispensing supreme quality dental marketing services, guaranteeing maximum visibility, and a higher conversion rate. Check how we helped a dental practitioner establish and strengthen their web and mobile presence with our exhaustive and strategic marketing approach. ...
read more
5 Benefits of Hiring Mobile Application Developer for your Business
Mobile Application Development in today’s digital era is essential for an overall successful business growth. The constant advancement in technology has made digital presence equally crucial as your tangible presence. Having a digital presence on all digital platforms is vital for a business and additionally for potential customers. Mobile Applications have become a necessity for new as well as established businesses. They are a useful marketing tool for various platforms, promoting a faster business growth, brand promotion, product exposure and attracting and retaining potential customers. They are also helpful in improving communications, boosting productivity and maintaining coordination within the workplace and between customers, staff members, and overall management. If you also own an established business or have just started off with new business, getting a mobile app developed by hiring Mobile Application Developers can offer you many multiple benefits including: 1. Expert services This quality is a crucial factor in the Mobile App Development. The Mobile App Development Companies have several years of experience in the same field. Their highly skilled developers can provide you quality product and services. Their proficiency and years of experience give them an added advantage to know what’s best for whom. 2. Business Analysis These skilled developers understand and analyze what you want for your business, and what you aim to achieve through the app. Once you get the right developers, you can accomplish your desired business goals. The developers are experts who observe market trends, best designs that appeal to your business type to develop a pleasing yet error-free device application. 3. Control over quality When you hire a team of developers for your business project, their primary goal is to deliver the kind of work that appeals to you. You are in direct contact with the developers and can coordinate and interact with these techies on a regular basis. You can do a quick check up on their work and get updates from them. You can also get them to make required changes according to your choice and test the quality of the app. Your regular interaction can also help in developing the device on time and within the budget. 4. Getting the job done When you hire a team of developers, it is upon them to get your project remitted within the right time and budget, as guaranteed. Their primary goal is to get the job done, and working as a team helps them work on different aspects of the app together, keeping the progress going. 5. Completely secure The respective developers undertake the responsibility of your mobile application's security. Your data and project are secured and protected by applying internet safety protocols as well as latest security features that use mobile devices. To sum it up, these were only some of the benefits of hiring Mobile Application Developer for your business. At Saffron Edge, our highly skilled iOS and Android developers design and develop qualitative mobile apps to offer a new platform and increase the online presence of your business. If you have any queries related to Mobile App Development, get in touch with us! ...
read more
Healthcare Marketing Strategy - A Comprehensive Guide
A healthcare marketing strategy involves inbound marketing techniques to facilitate the attainment of better healthcare business objectives over a while, say twelve months or more. With an organized blueprint of your stick-to plan, your business organization puts in efforts, required resources- monetary and human both, lays down the procedural steps to perform better and much more efficiently than the last annual estimate. If you are associated with a healthcare business, you may be indulged in exceeding your present-day productivity to expand your operational territory. Just like any other business, you may also have to deal with the potential opportunities and threats coming your way, have to design the plan of action for an effective operational framework, run marketing campaigns supported by field expertise and tactics, and emerge with an approach to increase patient base leading to rapid increment in ROI graphs. The healthcare industry has turned up to be dynamic and vigorous since the medical needs of people have gradually increased and they now expect the best of service, that too with prompt action to their inquiry. This has only been possible because of the technological progress we see today that makes our lives easy and helps people resolve their medical issues with just one click over the Internet. According to many online portals and reports, most of the general public look for medical concerns over these web portals and explore to get home remedies. The need for introducing marketing strategies in the healthcare sector emerged when chronic problems took over and the average patient handling ratio of a particular healthcare business organization went down. The effectiveness of marketing techniques can only be measured by reflecting a healthy society, where the majority of people are irrelative to sickness and disease. An impactful healthcare marketing strategy calls for an extensive probing of a patient’s requirements and what he needs, these needs can be tangible (medicinal support) and intangible (emotional and psychological support), basis which its success could be computed. Why Do You Need A Marketing Strategy? Enhance Customer Service In the recent past, the idea of patient delight at the time of any medical activity has evolved from just providing medical assistance to giving a pleasant experience, though the provision of necessary medical treatment is a priority. A marketing strategy helps a healthcare business to expand its customer service base along with giving the required remedial cure, which ensures brand loyalty by transforming them into frequent customers rather than occasional patients. The frequently visiting patients would expect the value to their concern, like you to deliver as per their assumptions, providing superior client services that make their lives easy and less challenging. Improve Brand Awareness An effective and promising healthcare marketing strategy should help your business to expand your loyal customer base, where you deliver as per their expectations, boost the customer inflow, and keep the cycle running. Since your business needs brand awareness, you may begin with glorifying your online reach on social media platforms, so they are viewed by a greater population. Word-of-mouth referrals and online participation bring your brand a sense of recognition and service inquiries, thus inviting the masses briskly. Add Value To Your Brand You can shape your brand’s ethical value by creating a powerful platform for customers to reach out for medical support. The more comforting and secure their experience is, the longer they’ll stick to your brand. From a patient’s perspective, a satisfactory experience, especially related to remedial activity, allows them to trust the brand’s credibility and associate with it for the long-term. Source: Unsplash Root Benefits Of Having A Healthcare Marketing Strategy Once your healthcare marketing strategy comes into effect, your business can observe numerous advantages coming its way. For keeping that inflow alive, a tried and tested plan should be extensively used to ensure ongoing marketing success. The following are some of the benefits of the healthcare marketing strategy your business might opt for Meeting Goals And Objectives- Once you plan out to expand the functional boundaries of your business, you tend to follow an organized series of actions that helps you achieve the anticipated goals and business objectives. Operational Efficiency- Streamlining your business functionalities refrains you to allocate abundant resources into any particular activity and ensure that everything is going as per the plan, thus boosting operational efficiency. If your healthcare business adopts an efficient marketing plan for its daily operations, you may be able to clutch in more opportunities than your competitors in no time. Risk Management- It refers to the practice of extenuating the possibilities of financial risk for an organization. In reference to a healthcare business, risk management adds itself as an advantage via the marketing strategy it adopts, since a strategized plan includes classified patient records and monitors the anticipated process malfunctions which may arise in the near future. Effective Service Line Decisions- In the healthcare field, a service-line refers to a particular group of similar patients, classified on the basis of inpatient and outpatient procedures. While you manage your healthcare business’s daily functions, deal with patients, and provide services with the help of comprehensive marketing plans, service-line decisions communicate the purpose of your marketing plans and showcase your image as a brand to the general public. Develop A Marketing Strategy For Your Healthcare Brand An effective healthcare marketing strategy is an asset for medical practitioners, hospital staff, and their network. For that entire process to work in harmony, there are several ways to plan that marketing strategy. Every healthcare business offers a similar remedy to any medical issue, what sets you apart is your expertise and service level you provide to the patient, because he/she may consider your white coat as the same as they may find someplace else. Therefore, there should be something unique in your assistance that creates your brand image and attracts patients in the long run. Presenting your healthcare business over the web invites many inquiries and appointments, given that the information you put there seems promising and impressive to prospective patients. Websites have turned to be gateways for every business and healthcare is no longer away from this fact. If you consider yourself as a patient, observe your business website and look over the pages for those details that quickly help you resolve your concern, maybe an optimized procedure to book an appointment, getting primary location guidance in a few moments, these minute attributes of the website makes your prospect’s online journey quick and trouble-free. Create chatbots and fill-in forms for the patient’s to send out responses against their concerns so they feel responsive when they visit your website. Your healthcare marketing strategy shall allow you to take over these concepts conveniently. A thriving healthcare marketing strategy allows you to retain your current patient base and increase potential engagement if you bring forward all the necessary resources at the right time. Even with the possible threats coming your way, you can take your healthcare business to great heights with this comprehensive marketing guide that helps you to engage with your loyal patients constructively. Connect with us to market your healthcare business the right way. We have an expertise of over 12 years dealing with healthcare clients and know exactly what it takes to scale your business. ...
read more
Subscribe to our newsletter
Get fresh stories, case studies, and
advice
from successful creators and industry experts.
Subscribe now
Creating Timeless Brands That Last Longer
Putting our most successful strategies at work with branding experts who can tell your story better.
Talk to Experts