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What Is Headless Commerce?

A guide to understanding common components of a headless commerce system.

By Lauren Wallace

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Get insights to move your business forward

Learn how 2,700 commerce leaders are finding success in a changing market.

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Keep your headless project on track and within budget

Learn five ways to minimize your total cost of ownership.

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Good news: You can ease into headless commerce

Follow these three steps to implement it in stages.

Headless commerce FAQ

If your current architecture is holding you back from innovating or getting new experiences to market as fast as you’d like, you could definitely benefit from headless. Similarly, if your development and IT teams are strained and drowning in requests from design, marketing, and other teams — it might be time to consider a headless approach.

Composable commerce is another popular term when it comes to ecommerce architecture. Headless mainly refers to the decoupling of the front and back end of an ecommerce application. Composable, on the other hand, is what’s enabled by headless: It means that every component is independent, and that businesses can choose each one separately.

While every business may have different goals when they implement headless commerce, the main benefit and purpose typically comes down to flexibility, speed, and the freedom to innovate.