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.
7 Ways to Ace Your SEO in 2019
The way search engines like Google rank websites changes everyday. Yes, you heard that right! Apart from the big algorithm changes that Google announces once in a while, certain little tweaks and optimizations are made to their algorithms everyday to provide better results to searchers which you don’t even know about. And 2019 is going to be no different! With a few new algorithms introduced this year, Google will give more importance to those websites that adhere to those algorithms for sure in some time to come. Also, Google is focusing more on providing the best search experience to their searchers and if your website doesn’t, you will lose a few rankings on the SERPs for sure in the year to come. So, what should you do exactly to stay in the good books of Google and ace your Search Engine Optimization in 2019? This post is all about that and a lot more. So, let’s dive right in - Rankbrain is going to be more prominent than ever Rankbrain is one of the most prominent algorithms Google has released in recent years. But what exactly is it? It is a Google indexing algorithm backed up with AI which promotes/demotes websites on SERPs based on a certain set of factors. It is designed in a way to make sure that the best results come first for searchers searching for a specific query. Since it’s a machine learning algorithm, it automatically adjusts websites on the SERPs and doesn’t require human intervention at all and can make changes to SERP almost instantly. But what’s it based on? The algorithm was implemented to make sure users get the best search engine experience and the websites that they click on do that as well. So, websites that focused more on providing the best UX to visitors were rewarded by gaining Google’s top real estate, which gets the most clicks. Doing all of that is handled by Rankbrain now. So, you’ll have to keep Rankbrain in mind and optimize the UX of your entire website to provide a better experience to the people who stumble on your website after searching on Google. Doing this is going to be extremely important in 2019! But to ace Rankbrain, you need to know the exact factors on the basis of which it grades websites on the SERPs, which are - 1. Dwell Time Dwell time is the time a visitor spends on your website. Obviously, a visitor won’t stay on your web page or blog if the content is irrelevant to them or is of bad quality. So, providing quality content that aligns with searchers intent is of utmost importance to excel in the Rankbrain era. 2. Click-Through-Rate Rankbrain is designed to look closely at the CTR of each and every web page on the internet to give an appropriate ranking to them. For example, if a search engine result on the 6th position is getting a higher number of clicks than a result on the 3rd position for the same query, Rankbrain would notice and bump up the rankings of the result on the 6th position. But since dwell time is a factor as well, just getting a higher number of clicks on your web pages will not be enough, you will have to provide the kind of content that makes users stay as well to improve your search engine rankings. Take care of these two factors for all your webpages & blogs and Rankbrain would do the rest. Go Mobile or go obsolete Google cares about their searchers. And apparently, a majority of them search for queries from their mobile devices. Mobile searchers have long surpassed desktop searchers and Google wants to provide them with the best user experience. For the same, Google rolled out the Mobile-first indexing algorithm in March this year which changed how the algorithm accessed websites forever. Under this new algorithm, Google crawlers would prefer a mobile website first for indexation and ranking to primarily provide better results to their mobile searchers. So, having a mobile website that properly supports your desktop website is not something you can procrastinate anymore, it has become an absolute necessity under this new algorithm. Google prefers having a mobile responsive website over other methods of going mobile because of its ease. But having a mobile website is not enough, you’ll have to provide a great user experience on your mobile website as well (remember, Rankbrain) to make an impact in 2019. Focus on working on the speed of your website According to a study performed by Google themselves, a website’s speed is the greatest factor that determines if a website’s UX is satisfactory or not. And since, Google has been lately focusing so much on providing a great user experience to all their users, they rolled out an update that ranked websites based on this sole factor. They called it the ‘Speed Update’. While the factor is not the heaviest, focusing on optimizing the speed of your website will certainly give you a advantage and it would greatly improve the UX of your website, which is always a nice thing to do under the watch of Rankbrain. To make your site load faster, you can get rid of heavy elements on your website or minify or combine scripts. Or else, you can use Google’s own tool to check and optimize the speed on your desktop and mobile website - PageSpeed Insights. This tool will tell you everything there is you can do to make your website load faster and perform better in SERPs. The increasing relevance of unlinked Brand mentions Google has long been solely dependant on backlinks for determining the authority of websites over the web. The general idea is, the more backlinks a website has, higher will be it’s authority in the eyes of Google, and higher it will be placed in SERPs. And it has been like this since the inception of Google. But all of this is going to change. The way your brand is mentioned over the web on social media conversations, blog posts, forums and any other medium is closely looked over by Google. It takes into account the tone, intent and context of each brand mention over the web to ascertain if it’s positive or negative and the way people talk about you over the web will certainly affect your ranking in 2019. ‘Unlinked brand mentions’ over the web are gaining relevance each day and it calls for social listening. You’ll have to jump on each and every conversation happening about your brand over the web and make sure it’s in positive light to maintain your brand reputation in the eyes of Google. Google’s Gary Illyes mentioned it himself. So, if you’re not actively monitoring your brand mentions over the web and making sure they add to the overall reputation of your brand, you will struggle to increase your search engine rankings is some time to come. To monitor your brand mentions over the web, you can make use of tools like ‘Awario’ and ‘Brand Mentions’ that would help you do just that with ease! Searchers are consuming more video content than ever People preferring to consume video content over any other type of content is nothing new and has long been a trend that’s still going strong. If you are looking to gain a lot of engagement from your audience on your website, social media or blogs, then video is certainly your best bet because people simply prefer video over anything else. Obviously, quickly watching a video about something is always easier than reading a ton of content and that’s why video is still so popular. In this world, where every brand is throwing up a lot of content on the web and is seeking attention from their audience, people have found a better way to consume content on a daily basis that quickly gives them the facts and is engaging to consume. So, if you’re not making use of Video, you're definitely missing out on a lot of engagement and additional SEO benefits. I would suggest you quickly start creating some video content for your brand and publish it on Youtube. Since, Youtube is owned by Google, you can also enjoy some obvious search engine benefits in the time to come. Target people searching for answers on Google Assistant Optimizing your content for voice searchers is currently a hot topic. And it has all the reasons to be. Voice searches globally are on a tremendous rise and you’ll be missing out if you don’t write content that targets those users head-on. But how do you target them? Here are 3 ways that would help Google Assistant pick your content over others when it comes to answering voice search queries put up by searchers - You need to be on the top 3 results for Google Assistant to even consider picking up your content. If your content appears in the featured snippet, your chances to get picked up by the Google Assistant increases by folds. Here’s how you can get featured in the featured snippet. Answer your own questions in your content. Usually, most of the voice queries start with a question and to answer that question, Google Assistant usually picks up the content that revolves around that exact question. So, try answering the most basic questions people might have around your focused keyword. To know more about what else you can do to target those voice searchers, Forbes compiled a list of best advices from 15 members of the Forbes Communications Council… do have a look at it. Quality content and backlinks are still important While the above suggested ways are vital to ace your SEO in 2019, don’t forget that content and backlinks are still the top ranking factors that matter the most to Google. With Google placing more importance on the user experience that each search engine result provides to users (Rankbrain), I think creating quality content should be your top priority for acing SEO In 2019. If your content provides real value to your target audience, they will be inclined more to read it all. And when they dwell more on your content, Google will notice via Rankbrain that you have a knack of providing quality content to all your users. Which I think is the point of SEO in general. Link building and providing quality content goes hand-in-hand as only when people love your content, they’ll want to share that content on their own blogs and within their own social circles, expanding the reach of your content and building some valuable backlinks along the way. If you continue to provide awesome content to your audience, the biggies in your industry will notice and would want to link to you too. That’s the essence of natural link building right there, and it’s not going to lose value in 2019 and beyond! If you are looking to approach your SEO in 2019 with a bang, the above mentioned ways are the perfect way to do it. But before you start implementing them, keep this in mind, Rankbrain ranks website keeping in mind the response of your audience to your content. If they bounce even before your site loads completely, Rankbrain would not even let you reach the first page of Google, let alone acing it. It’s a machine learning algorithm that does it all for Google and looks at the UX signals of your website really closely to award rankings. And it’s not easy to game Rankbrain because of it’s self-learning mechanism. You’ll have to provide quality content to your audience to get your SEO ball rolling in 2019 and there’s no escaping it now! Having said that, I hope the above mentioned ways will help you greatly in improving your website’s overall SEO potential! Being a SEO agency ourselves, we’ll rely greatly on these tactics as well to provide the best services to all our clients. If you think there are other ways (I know there are) that have helped you greatly in achieving SEO success lately and you're confident that they’ll be of equal importance in 2019 when it comes to increasing a website’s search engine rankings, do let us know about them in the comments. ...
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From Retail to Direct: The Shift in Brand Strategy
The shift towards Direct-to-Consumer business models by big retail brands is a significant development in the world of commerce. This change is a reflection of the evolving needs of modern consumers, the impact of e-commerce, and the desire for greater control over the customer experience. The rise of DTC models has disrupted the traditional retail landscape, forcing established brands to rethink their strategies and embrace new and innovative ways of reaching their customers. DTC business models allow brands to connect directly with customers, offering a more personalized shopping experience, maintaining a consistent brand image, and ultimately increasing profits. By cutting out intermediaries and selling products directly to consumers online, retailers have the ability to offer a unique and engaging customer experience. This article will delve into the reasons why big retail brands are moving their presence to DTC business models and the benefits they bring to both retailers and consumers. What is the DTC Model of Business? The DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) business model is a modern approach to marketing and selling products that focuses on building direct relationships with customers, bypassing intermediaries like distributors, wholesalers, and retailers. The aim is to create a direct connection with end-users, providing them with a more personalized, seamless, and engaging shopping experience. By eliminating traditional distribution channels, companies can offer their products at lower prices, control their brand image, and collect valuable data about their customers. The DTC model has become increasingly popular among big retail brands that are looking to disrupt the traditional retail landscape, capitalize on changing consumer habits and increase their profit margins. By utilizing the latest in technology, retail brands can establish an online presence, reach new customers, and build a loyal customer base that values their brand and product offerings. The Difference Between Traditional Marketing and the DTC Model of Marketing Traditional marketing, also known as indirect marketing, involves selling products through intermediaries such as wholesalers, distributors, and retailers. This model has been used for decades and has proven to be effective in reaching a large target market. In a traditional marketing model, the manufacturer focuses on producing products, while intermediaries handle the distribution and promotion of the products to consumers. In contrast, DTC marketing involves selling products directly to consumers, bypassing intermediaries. This model is made possible by advancements in technology and e-commerce, which have enabled businesses to reach consumers directly through online platforms, such as websites and social media. In a DTC model, manufacturers are in direct contact with customers and have greater control over the entire customer experience. The difference between traditional marketing and the DTC model of marketing lies in the direct interaction between the business and the customer. While traditional marketing is a proven model with a long history of success, DTC marketing offers the opportunity for greater control over the customer experience, increased personalization and targeting, and a more flexible and agile approach to marketing. Benefits of a DTC Model Direct-to-consumer is the way to go in the current economic landscape. There are multiple benefits to switching or investing in a DTC model. Here we discuss them in some detail; Overhead Costs Compared to traditional brick-and-mortar retail businesses, DTC businesses do not require large amounts of capital for physical store spaces, inventory, and staffing. The absence of these costs can lead to significantly lower overhead, allowing businesses to invest more in marketing and product development and ultimately drive growth. Additionally, DTC businesses have the advantage of being able to reach customers directly. This eliminates the need for additional markups and commissions, which results in lower costs and higher margins. Furthermore, the increasing popularity of e-commerce and digital marketing has made it easier and more cost-effective for DTC businesses to reach their target customers through targeted online advertising, email marketing, and social media marketing. These channels offer a much more cost-effective way to reach customers compared to traditional advertising methods such as television and print media. Connection with the Audience This direct connection with the customer also enables the business to build a strong, personalized relationship with the consumer. Brands can use this relationship to understand their customers' needs and preferences and use that information to continually improve their products and services. This can lead to higher customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, which are key factors in building a successful and sustainable business. Additionally, with a DTC model, the manufacturer has the ability to offer unique promotions, discounts, and rewards directly to their customers, creating an added value that sets them apart from their competitors. This type of targeted marketing and personalization can drive repeat purchases and increase brand loyalty, which can be difficult to achieve in a traditional retail model. The DTC model gives you the ability to control the customer experience, build personal relationships, offer unique promotions, and reduce overhead costs. Brands that adopt a DTC strategy can not only improve their bottom line but also create a stronger, more engaged customer base. Broadens Your Horizons In a traditional retail model, a business's reach is limited by the number of stores it operates and the geographic locations of those stores. A DTC model, however, allows a business to reach a much wider market. By taking the sales process online, a business can sell its products to customers anywhere in the world with an internet connection. This opens up tremendous opportunities for growth and expansion, enabling a business to reach customers it may have never been able to reach before. The DTC model allows a business to reach a wider market, target specific customer segments, and gain valuable insights into customer behavior, which can all result in increased sales and growth. Quick Adaptation One of the key benefits of the DTC model is that it allows businesses to be nimble and adapt to changing market conditions in real time. Unlike traditional marketing, which may involve lengthy processes and approvals, the direct-to-consumer model enables businesses to test and refine their marketing strategies quickly and efficiently. This is because the direct connection with consumers provides businesses with valuable insights and feedback that they can use to optimize their approach. For example, if a business finds that its email marketing campaign isn't resonating with customers, it can quickly change the messaging or format of the campaign and see the results almost immediately. This is in contrast to traditional marketing, where changes to a campaign may take several weeks or even months to implement. The ability to quickly test and iterate on marketing strategies not only helps businesses stay ahead of the curve but also enables them to maximize their return on investment. By constantly refining their approach, businesses can identify what works and what doesn't, allowing them to allocate resources more effectively and ultimately achieve better results. In Conclusion The DTC model of retail is a game-changer in the retail industry. It offers businesses greater control over the customer experience, an expanded market reach, and a lower cost structure. The DTC model also provides valuable data and insights into consumer behavior, allowing for real-time optimization of marketing strategies, and making it a gleaming trailblazer of future trends. If you are looking to take your business to an omnipresent level, contact Saffron Edge. we are a digital marketing agency, specializing in helping businesses fly and thrice in the DTC space. Reach out today! ...
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A Closer Look At The Importance Of Dental Marketing
Dentistry has now become a competitive industry and is a wonderful profession to work for. But, just like other industries it also has its fair set of challenges. One of the major challenges faced by most of the dentists is acquiring new patients. No matter you are one of the best dentists in the city, but without new patients coming to you on a daily basis, your practice is not fulfilled. Fortunately, a well-designed and effective advertising and marketing strategy can make your services stand out from others. Dental marketing is a process that can help dentists get more patients by raising visibility and creating awareness for their services. Let's take a closer look at the importance of dental marketing : ENGAGE NEW PATIENTS If done correctly, dental marketing can bring new patients to your office. There are several ways the dentist can accomplish this. One of the best effective ways is posting constantly on Social media platforms and making the use of local SEO to get your services out there. Another effective technique is making the use of social media advertising to reach more patients. You can use Facebook for its paid advertising feature to target specific groups of people in your locality or town. PROMOTING DISCOUNT AND OTHER OFFERS If you want to offer discounts, special offers and other rewards on any dental service during specific days of a week, there is no other better way to spread this message then posting on Social Media platforms. You can also make use of effective marketing programs to alert group of people. Undoubtedly, dental marketing can greatly benefit the profession of a dentist. APPOINTMENTS REMINDER Sometimes a patient may make an appointment on phone but fails to make it. Most people either forget while others might postpone the appointments and this results to a number of cancellations made by patients at the end of each month. Fortunately, with the help of marketing programs dentist can reduce monthly cancellations. These marketing programs come with advanced features like automatic text messages and email reminders. ESTABLISH TRUST AMONG PATIENTS The top and foremost priority of any business is to create a reputable and trusted brand. Social media is a beautiful thing and using effective dental marketing techniques helps dentists to develop trust among their patients. Post images, offers, discounts, status updates and videos on matters that can interest people. You should also share helpful blogs and articles that are relevant to your practice. This will keep your clientele looking forward and engaged to your next post. To sum it up, a marketing strategy can make or break a business, this is the reason why it is essential to develop an effective and well-designed marketing campaign for your business. To know the other benefits of the marketing campaign, contact us! ...
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