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The average B2B buyer now interacts with an average of 10 channels during their buying journey, with an estimate of 80% of B2B sales interactions moving to digital commerce channels by 2025. Unfortunately, inflexible legacy B2B eCommerce platforms designed to deliver content to one channel, holding businesses back from being able to deliver on the demand for omnichannel experiences.
Today, more than 59% of B2B businesses have invested in headless commerce to create personalized experiences, unlock agility, and scale businesses quickly as the commerce marketplace changes. Read on to learn if headless commerce is right for your B2B online store.
What Is Headless B2B eCommerce?
Headless commerce refers to an eCommerce architecture approach where the user interface (front-ends, your storefront) is decoupled from the functional systems (back-end) that run your eCommerce store. Headless commerce improves eCommerce performance and scalability across channels and introduces greater technical agility, allowing greater customization of the tech stack and ultimately the user experience.
Headless architecture allows front-end processes to run independently of the back-end, allowing developers to update each without impacting the entire system. This decoupling allows B2B brands the freedom to tailor the front-end for each channel to optimize the user experience, all without impacting the back-end.
Let’s compare a headless B2B commerce platform to a traditional one, to make the distinction clearer.
What Are the Differences Between Headless B2B eCommerce and Traditional B2B eCommerce?
Every content management system (CMS) or eCommerce platform has an architecture comprising two parts, the organization of which can greatly influence its capabilities. These parts are:
- The front-end: the digital storefront(s) buyers see and interact with on each channel (web, mobile, social, wearables)
- The back-end: the server-side infrastructure including the logic of the platform and databases that store product, order and customer data
If you’re reading this, you probably have a traditional B2B eCommerce platform. So, to assist in your decision, we’ll compare headless B2B eCommerce vs traditional B2B eCommerce platforms.
Headless B2B eCommerce
Headless commerce architecture refers to a “decoupling” or separation of the front-end and back-end systems. Headless technology uses APIs to connect and communicate between the back-end and the front-end(s), allowing developers to create optimized front-ends for each channel while still working on the same content base. This can be called an API-first strategy. Many headless commerce platforms also incorporate a headless CMS, which allows content to be managed and delivered independently of the presentation layer, enhancing flexibility and scalability.
Headless eCommerce platforms are designed to streamline backend operations by simplifying how B2B businesses can market to multiple channels to support omnichannel retailing. They also make it easier to personalize eCommerce experiences, sell to new and wider markets, and adjust technologies more easily. A headless commerce solution is known for development flexibility.
Traditional B2B eCommerce
A traditional or monolithic B2B eCommerce platform tightly couples the front- and back-ends, an all-in-one platform that makes it easy to create, launch and manage an online store. A traditional commerce platform is optimized for one channel (usually the web), often resulting in less-than-optimal experiences on other channels or leading to the need for additional CMS / eCommerce platforms to manage other channels, creating operational inefficiencies and risking unsynced information. Furthermore, a tightly coupled architecture makes customizations or new technology integrations more complex, often requiring updates to both the front and back-end.
While a traditional B2B eCommerce platform is great for B2B eCommerce website development for small businesses with few products or only high-value, long sales cycles, the majority of businesses are considering headless B2B because they are driven by a need for more flexible technology that can streamline operations and improve the buying experience for today’s multi-device, multi-channel buyers.
What Are the Benefits of Headless B2B eCommerce for Businesses?
B2B businesses, whether manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, B2B marketplace operators or all-of-the-above (and perhaps mixed in with B2C too), headless B2B eCommerce developed out of a need to simplify operations, reduce duplicated effort across channels, and deliver on improved user experiences.
As trends in B2B eCommerce continue to shift toward multi-channel sales. If you recall, the average B2B buyer now touches 10 channels including email, mobile, mobile app, online chat, online portal, social media, video chat, marketplace and more. Optimizing each touchpoint is the impetus of headless commerce.
While there are many benefits to B2B eCommerce, the benefits of headless B2B eCommerce platforms are amplified, including:
1. Increased flexibility
Separating the front and back-ends of the system introduces greater flexibility to make changes to either without impacting the entire system, either in terms of performance or unanticipated bugs. Furthermore, headless commerce gives developers the flexibility to customize the tech stack, using different frameworks and languages to create front end(s) that are optimal for each channel. When the back-end is based upon microservices architecture (common for headless), this also gives developers the ability to swap in new technologies as they emerge without extensive development.
2. Customizable
With increased flexibility comes increased customizability. Without the risk of impacting the back-end, developers can create and make changes to the front-end to match channel needs and evolving buyer needs.
3. Increased performance
Slow site performance has a big impact on customer conversion and satisfaction, and also has an impact on search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. Headless architecture stores content in one place and delivers it simultaneously to multiple channel front-ends via a global content delivery network (CDN), rather than storing the content altogether with the front-end. This both optimizes how quickly the front-end is able to respond and also takes advantage of the benefits of a global CDN, which reduces latency between a client and the requested data.
4. Omnichannel readiness
With headless, your tech stack is not stuck in a single framework or language, but instead allows you to create front-ends to support as many sales channels as you would like, optimizing each. This capability is critical for omnichannel and multichannel retailing, which B2B decision makers say is 94% more effective than non-digital sales processes.
A headless B2B eCommerce platform helps simplify the back-office operations for all these channels, ensuring that inventory and pricing remain in sync and that customers have a fluid experience as they cross channels. Furthermore, as 34% of B2B businesses also focus on B2C channels, it’s critical to find an eCommerce solution that gives you a single-pane view of the entire business.
“80% of B2B buyers expect a consistent experience across channels.”
5. Agile sales & marketing
A headless digital commerce platform can provide a number of advanced capabilities to support sales and marketing, including (depending on platform):
- The ability to create customer experiences without the need for development, allowing a faster response to changing trends
- Changes in content push seamlessly and quickly to all channels
- Reduced time-to-market to respond to new channels or geographic regions
- Unified commerce solutions that integrate CRM, channels and operational functions offer deep analytics to inform sales and marketing
- Customer segmentation and personalization that flows across channels, including dynamic pricing, cross/up-selling opportunities, personalized catalogs, and more
6. Seamless integrations
Headless architecture is designed to use APIs, making it easier to connect with third-party systems. Most headless B2B eCommerce platforms provide extensive marketplaces of integrations that can be added with little to no effort to extend capabilities of the platform. Headless B2B platforms also reduce the workload required to integrate with internal systems (e.g. CRM, ERP, inventory management) and provide a coherent picture of all critical commerce data in one place.
7. Enhanced buying experience
With headless B2B eCommerce, front-end developers can choose the optimal technologies for each channel to enable the greatest performance and rich, personalized customer experiences. Furthermore, UI and UX developers can additionally optimize the experience for each channel.
A headless B2B eCommerce platform will ensure that content is synced across each channel, ensuring the customer always receives the same content and price (even personalized) and that their experiences flow seamlessly between channels (e.g. shopping carts).
8. Scalable & future-proof
Headless eCommerce platforms are scalable solutions, helping your B2B business adjust to changing technology and user preferences. With the ability to continually roll out new updates to the system, you are able to future-proof your business and remain competitive.
As we continue, we’ll look at some of the challenges that can come with implementing a headless B2B eCommerce platform.
What Are the Challenges of Headless B2B eCommerce for Businesses?
As B2B eCommerce businesses address the challenges in the marketplace, headless commerce seems like a perfect solution. However, headless commerce comes with its own set of challenges:
1. Technical complexity
Headless commerce requires more technical knowledge to manage APIs, create customized front-end(s), and integrate systems. In some cases, this will require specialized development teams or teams to manage the different tech stacks. For B2B brands already on a traditional eCommerce platform, there are added complexities associated with B2B eCommerce replatforming.
For smaller B2B brands with small IT teams, consider partnering with an experienced eCommerce development partner who can assist in building and supporting your eCommerce needs.
2. Greater resource requirements
As noted above, with greater technical complexity, you can expect greater time and cost associated with setting up and continually updating your front-end experiences. This is often offset by greater improvements in KPIs.
3. Greater maintenance requirements
Since you are no longer on a single tech stack, but instead are splitting tech stacks and potentially integrating with microservices or other third-party services, you may find a greater amount of maintenance falls on your IT team to ensure the front-end(s), back-end and APIs remain up to date, to continually optimize performance and to avoid security vulnerabilities.
4. Integration challenges
Generally speaking, headless eCommerce platforms make integration easier, but in the case of legacy systems, there could be challenges associated with differentiated content structures. When created for custom needs, these integrations must be maintained.
5. SEO considerations
Dynamic content and pagination may lead to incomplete indexing, requiring careful oversight to preserve SEO. Furthermore, other considerations include ensuring the URL structure and content organization are planned, include appropriate metadata, and that search engines can crawl the site without issue (this may require some server-side rendering).
6. Potentially increased complexity
The complexity of headless architecture applies also to business operations, requiring greater oversight over all the moving pieces to ensure everything continues to be maintained and optimized.
Anticipating these challenges can help you create an internal plan to increase resources, create a detailed plan, and/or work with a skilled partner to ensure your success.
Should My B2B eCommerce Business Go Headless?
These are some of the factors that can help you decide whether you should invest in headless B2B ecommerce:
1. How mature is your business?
Small, single-product or limited product organizations may not need the complexity of a headless system, even if there are some benefits for omnichannel retailing. Start-ups or small brands probably should start with a traditional eCommerce offering, though larger retailers (even those with small product lines) may have the competitive drive, resources, use cases, or interest to invest in headless.
2. How complex is your product offering?
As the number of products increases, it can become increasingly difficult to ensure products remain updated across channels in real-time (especially between web & marketplace), often triggering the need for a more robust, headless approach.
3. Can you afford the cost and commitment?
Consider if you have the resources (people, time, money) to invest in headless and the project management necessary to continually push your headless strategy forward.
Now It’s Up to You
Headless B2B eCommerce platforms can help deliver personalized, optimized experiences to your customers across channels and help optimize your internal processes and workflows. If you are ready to take the next step, but lack the resources in one or more areas, working with an experienced eCommerce development company like Net Solutions can help jumpstart the process and mitigate costs in time and money in the long term.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Here are some answers to commonly asked questions about headless B2B eCommerce.
1. Is headless architecture the future of B2B eCommerce?
Today, headless architecture remains a future-proof way to support B2B eCommerce. A variation of headless architecture is composable commerce, which more specifically decouples elements of the back-end for customization. The two are often a part of the same platform.
2. Is a headless B2B eCommerce beneficial for all types of businesses?
Headless commerce is not the solution for all B2B companies, as it requires significant investment in time, money and developers to ensure success. A firm understanding of your business needs today and into the future is necessary to help you decide if headless commerce is right for your business type.
3. What are some headless B2B eCommerce platforms?
Some of the top headless B2B eCommerce platforms include Adobe Commerce (Magento), BigCommerce, Shopware, commercetools, Spryker, nopCommerce, Contentful, Sanity, and Shopware.
