E-commerce is no longer a trend—it’s here to stay. And if you’re running an online store, congratulations! But here’s the thing: the online space is incredibly competitive. There are many sellers, and the customers’ demands are also high. As such, sellers need fresh ideas to keep up with the ever-rising market demands.
The good news? There are plenty of powerful tools to help you stay competitive, and two of the most talked-about solutions in the e-commerce world are Composable and Headless e-commerce. Both work well, but they have slight differences, which we will discuss in this article.
Let’s break them down so you can decide which one is right for your business.
Understanding the Composable and Headless Ecommerce
What’s the difference between headless and composable approaches? You may wonder. To answer this question, we will define each one of them. We will also discuss the benefits and compare composable vs headless based on how they work. Let’s start with headless ecommerce.
1. Headless Ecommerce
Headless e-commerce is the more established model. For starters, the front end is also known as the client side. It is the part that clients see and interact with, such as the product page design. On the other end, the back end includes activities a business does in the background to make the front end operational.
Both the front and back ends are connected using an API. While the API helps with the connection, it can sometimes reduce flexibility. As such, adding a new application without affecting the other because of the connection becomes hard.
The headless approach disconnects these two ends, making it easy to change the front end without impacting the back end. Here are the main benefits this approach offers to online businesses.
Better upgrades: Headless ecommerce makes upgrading the front or back end easy since you don’t have to jeopardize the other.
More flexibility and freedom: The decoupling allows you to adjust things as needed without overhauling your entire system. No need to shut everything down for a significant redesign!
Easier personalization: This approach allows you to try many designs to offer a more personalized customer experience.
Faster loading speed: Because the front end is independent of the back end, you can streamline performance, resulting in faster page loading—something every e-commerce business wants.
2. Composable E-Commerce
It’s very close to headless but provides more flexibility. It breaks down the back end into smaller, individual blocks, such as a cart, checkout, or even payment processing units, which could be made individually.
As such, the composable approach is more flexible and agile than a headless approach. It does away with the monolithic approach and offers a distinctively higher independence rate, making it easy to test different ways of improving customer experience. These are the main advantages this ecommerce approach provides to online businesses.
More adaptability and flexibility: You can change or upgrade in the front or back end without a hitch.
Personalized customer experience: A composite approach helps businesses test different modules to see which would impress customers.
Cost Efficiency: With composable e-commerce, you don’t pay for anything except the necessary modules. This means that you’re not wasting money to keep unnecessary systems running. Instead of focusing on all of the units with issues, your focus will be on only the units with the issues, thus saving on the costs.
Choosing Between Headless and Composite Ecommerce Infrastructure
Choosing between the headless and composite infrastructure can be hard because both options work well. Therefore, you should first understand your business objectives to pick the most suitable one for your e-commerce store. Every business has its goals and objectives. The composable approach would be the best flexible option where adaptability and scalability are key. However, you can choose headless if you focus on front-end design and presentation.
Besides goals, you may also consider budget and long-term costs. The composable approach is the best if your business has a tight budget or needs a cost-effective approach. Composable makes removing or adding some components easy without making huge investments.
Conclusion
It is hard to imagine business success without e-commerce. So, it’s no longer a question of whether you should have it but how to optimize it to stand above your competitors, which means adopting modern solutions like headless and composable ecommerce architecture. Choosing between headless or composable e-commerce depends on your current needs and what it will need over the years.
If performance is an issue and you want the best way to present your content, Headless will be best. But if you want to move quickly to meet the move in the market, composable would be the perfect option. Therefore, start by creating goals first to choose the right solution for your business. You can also hire an IT expert to assess your current ecommerce architecture and advise on the best-fit solution to implement for your needs.
