Customer Experience with Headless Commerce

Introduction

Although e-commerce has dramatically witnessed a whopping revenue in the last decade, there are several challenges most businesses need to encounter. One of these issues concerns the intertwined amalgamation of front-end and back-end services. Any UI change directly impacts the backend functions like the CRM, application code bases, databases, API functions, and so on. Therefore, whenever one specific platform needs upgrades or new additions, one must change the end-to-end functionalities.

This has sparked several concerns amongst businesses because they need to take down the websites for hours until the updates are integrated with both the front and backend. That’s why a new solution has been adopted, also termed headless ecommerce. This system separates the front end from the back end, ensuring independent performance. So, if any change is done in either platform, no impact will be present on the other.

While many headless ecommerce platforms are active at the present, SAP Commerce cloud 2205 packs unmatched benefits for every version. With customizable background and themes, integrated back office Compare View, separate access to development and production environments, and the inclusion of omni commerce connect APIs provide more leverage to the business for agility, performance, and usability.

What is Spartacus?

To implement the headless ecommerce solution, every business needs a proper tool to facilitate the process. While many tools are already in circulation, not all can offer flexibility or promise excellent performance. This is why Spartacus was launched in the market. It is an Angular storefront with which businesses can easily establish a headless ecommerce system and separate frontend and backend functionalities. The communication between both these platforms is facilitated using Rest APIs.

Architecture of Spartacus

Spartacus has a decoupled architecture. It means the storefront functions independently and separately from the base layers representing the functional and coded parts of the entire application. Instead, APIs establish communication between the storefront elements, the backend codes and repositories, and any third-party integrated tool like the database.

Thanks to this unique architecture, front-end developers can easily focus on upgrading the user interface without working closely with the backend developers or handling the codebases themselves. A web service layer is incorporated between the two platforms. It is a common development and code deployment platform based on scheduled integration. With the help of decoupled storefront, it becomes possible for the frontend developers to completely focus on the UI and develop custom features that can easily enhance the user experience and drive more revenues to the businesses.

Apart from this, both frontend and backend codes are deployed in separate packages, which is why one can easily scale the process per the business requirement.

Key features of Spartacus

To use Spartacus in the best possible way, you need to understand the key features of this wonderful tool. With no knowledge about the features, you won’t be able to know how this tool can bring forth the best in your ecommerce plan.

Keeping this in mind, we have discussed here some of the main characteristics of Spartacus.

• This is an open-source storefront so you will have complete access to the community. Sharing ideas and opinions is possible on Spartacus.
• It is based on Angular technology, a JavaScript framework. Therefore, the storefront can easily be accessed across multiple platforms, from PCs to mobiles.
• It is based on the SAP PWA concept, where the application has a single page and ensures the contents are gradually displayed with the scroll action.
• Spartacus gets regular updates. Therefore, you can easily integrate the modifications or new additions with your storefront without using any end-to-end codebase changes or alterations in the backend code.
• It features decoupled architecture, so the storefront operates separately without any connection with the backend. You can customize the UI elements as necessary.
• Another interesting feature is the custom-built option for the library functions. You can also reuse all the elements on other sites without changing them completely.

Related: 10 Reasons to move to a headless architecture

Business Value of Spartacus

 Spartacus offers outstanding benefits to every ecommerce business. Therefore, you can easily add more value to your business and take it to new heights without putting too much effort. In this section, we have shed light on the three major benefits of Spartacus from a business perspective.

Strategic Planning

Thanks to Spartacus, you can now develop strategic planning for the growth of your business, be it sales, marketing, user experience, etc. There is no need to use an additional tool for the same purpose. Besides, the strategies will be based on modern market trends and at par with the headless ecommerce protocols.

Feature Gap Analysis

You can also extract different reports to understand the gap between different features and the storefront’s performance. With in-depth analysis, it won’t take much time for you to draw plans to merge the gap and offer an exceptional customer experience to your users.

In addition, the release of the new SAP commerce cloud 2205 version enables businesses to leverage their operations and provide a seamless and more immersive experience to the users. Below is a brief analysis of the most potent benefits of the new version that you must not overlook.

• With the carousel UI, recommended and most viewed products can be displayed in a slideshow pattern to give users a more personalized shopping experience.
• The inclusion of AI-based elements has made it possible to share the product list on multiple sites simultaneously.
• SAP Quartz Light and Dark are the two primary and default themes in the new version that can be customized in 10 ways according to the business needs.
• Users can use the Compare View BackOffice feature to drag and drop different comparison features and check the differences between similar looking products for a better decision.
• User access restrictions and 2-factor authentication layout can be integrated to protect the development and production environments further.
• Thanks to the Private Git Support, you can now connect the private code repository with SAP commerce cloud in a secure way.
• From Future Stock to Bulk Order, several new APIs have been integrated for enhanced performance and better productivity.

Implementation and Deployment Strategy

Apart from this, you can also design new strategies for independent code implementation and deploy packages and repositories onto the server for storefronts only.

Benefits of SAP Commerce Cloud 2205 Version

SAP Commerce cloud 2205 offers a plethora of benefits to the ecommerce businesses. Below we have listed some of the major ways it can transform your business.

• With the new APIs, you can easily add more new features and offer the users an immersive experience.
• The new version is more agile and ensures all business operations can be completed in no time.
• Security and privacy of data and other components are ensured with the integration of authentication system
• In future, the SAP commerce cloud 2205 will help in customizing the headless ecommerce themes and backgrounds.
• With the help of AI-based recommendations, the SAP commerce cloud will help you focus on customer experience and retain prospects.
• Both back office and front office operations can be streamlined with the integration of different SAP-based products.

The Advantages of Headless eCommerce

Headless ecommerce has changed the way the market used to operate. In this section, we have been briefed on the advantages of this new concept for your further clarification.

• There is no need to focus on end-to-end development every time the UI is customized, or a new upgrade is introduced.
• Any headless ecommerce business can be scaled according to the business requirements, ensuring the market demands can be met on time.
• It is a far more cost-effective concept because you don’t have to invest in different developers to handle both the frontend and backend.

Conclusion

Thanks to the integration of headless ecommerce, businesses can now focus on improving the customer experience and make potential UI changes without affecting the storefront’s core functionalities. Besides, when the Spartacus tool is available for implementing the SAP-based composable commerce storefront, every business can easily take its services to the next level.