Prakash Kumar, Co-founder & Product Architect, Kartmax

Prakash Kumar, Co -Founder & CTO at Kartmax, a leading eCommerce solutions company, where he led tech implementation for 50+ D2C brands from India and western countries.Techpreneur with a passion for building Technology that scales D2C businesses faster. For more than a decade and half, Prakash has been on a passionate journey to unlock the potential of eCommerce businesses through technology and democratizing the ecosystem by helping businesses to start, and establish their online presence in both the established and the emerging markets across the globe.

 

 

“Headless Commerce” is the new buzzword you might have been hearing recently. Does it sound like hype, or does it have some merit? Not sure? No worries. We will examine it in detail today.

It appears that Technology in general has a fascination with new jargons. And it is for a reason. The advancements in technology keep this space moving fast. To explain these new advancements, newer words are required, and that is why a new jargon every other week!

Software systems can be architected in many ways. Headless is one such new way of Architecture Design. Ecommerce built on this new architecture is called Headless Commerce.

As a business owner should you bother about this geeky tech stuff?

The short answer is yes! Because it can potentially affect your bottom line – the profits! Now, with this intro let’s dive deeper into it.

Headless is an alternative to the legacy Monolithic Architecture.

In this architecture, logically separate modules of software are created ground-up as independent pieces of applications. These independent applications can be hosted and maintained as separate units.

Since the modules are independent of each other they can be hosted separately.

  • It makes their maintenance easier.
  • Troubleshooting of bugs also becomes more predictable.
  • And you are able to leverage the best of technology for different modules.

For example, in a Headless Commerce setup, your Checkout module could be on PHP, however, your Reports module could be built on Python to leverage its Data Science capabilities.

Had it been on Monolithic Commerce, your Reports module would have been developed in the same language that is being used for the entire eCommerce platform.

Examples of Monolithic vs Headless Commerce applications.

Magento, WordPress, WooCommerce, Opencart are some examples of Monolithic Commerce applications. All the necessary pieces of eCommerce – CX platform, PIM, Checkout, Reports, etc are built into one single monolithic application. If one fails, every other part of your commerce fails, at once.

KartmaX and Fabric are examples of Headless Commerce applications. All logically separate eCommerce features are built as independent applications leading to better performance.

Businesses can take specific modules of KartmaX, for example its Checkout or its PIM, and mix it with their current platform instead of doing a complete re-platforming. Its APIs make it easy to integrate with any piece of software irrespective of their underlying technologies.

But how does Headless Commerce impact your profits?

Higher Uptime. Predictability. Easy maintenance. all these lead to a positive impact on your bottom line – the profits.

On top of it, it gives you the flexibility to leverage advancements in different Technologies in different parts of your ecommerce. For example, use R or Python for Reports, use Nuxt.js for the frontend, while use PHP for your Cart.

For the businesses who are just starting with ecommerce, solutions like Magento or Shopify works. However, if your business has an ambitious sales target, you should start right away with Headless Commerce. You can’t go wrong with it.

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