Shopify Plus, a sought-after SaaS eCommerce platform, has won the hearts of some of the world’s leading brands, including Tesla, Victoria Beckham Beauty, Staples, Oreo/Mondelez, Red Bull, etc. The Shopify eCommerce platform provides widespread adoption to its user-friendly interface and remarkable customization options. It boasts extensive options of plugins and APIs, supported by a highly responsive customer service team – all crucial factors for a successful Shopify eCommerce website. Whether running a Shopify store or any other online store, one thing remains constant: the importance of lightning-fast page load times and exceptional SEO to outshine competitors.
In the fiercely competitive world of eCommerce, even the most visually appealing Shopify Plus store needs to optimize for sub-second speeds. Else, slow page loading may lead to a high bounce rate. Prioritizing the speed optimization of your Shopify Plus store is the key to climbing up the search engine results pages (SERPs) and achieving higher conversion rates. A seamless and superior shopping experience for customers can significantly impact the success of your online store.
By focusing on speed and optimizing the overall performance of your Shopify Plus store, you can create a user-friendly and efficient shopping environment that will not only boost your search engine rankings but also enhance customer satisfaction and drive business growth. Develop your eCommerce dream into a reality now by hiring a Shopify plus agency.
Adopt a Headless Approach with Shopify Plus for the Best Buyer Experience
Numerous eCommerce platforms such as Shopify Plus, Magento, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud have been primarily developed with a backend and data-centric approach, often skipping the crucial aspect of customer experience. Their primary focus lies on SKUs rather than catering to the needs of individual customers. These held everyone responsible for website speed optimization on platform users, system integrators, designers, and developers.
The best way to achieve the fastest and most efficient user experience, regardless of the eCommerce platform or backend system you use, adopting advanced speed-focused web technologies becomes essential. Embracing a headless approach is the first step toward achieving this goal. By decoupling the front-end and back-end, businesses can unlock the potential for unparalleled speed and performance, ensuring a seamless and responsive online shopping experience for their customers. Get a Shopify Plus Consultation from an expert at 18th Digitech who will provide eCommerce website optimization for speed and integrations.
Headless eCommerce Advantages of Shopify Plus Development:
1. Increase Speed and Seamless Browsing: Implementing speed-focused technologies necessitates going headless. By transferring display logic to the client side and optimizing the backend, faster content delivery is achievable. By prioritizing speed in the front end rather than burdening the browser, you can attain a more responsive and efficient user experience. Going headless empowers businesses to achieve top-notch performance and deliver a seamless browsing experience to their customers.
2. Independent Front-end Development and Break Limitations: Unlike traditional eCommerce platforms with proprietary frontends, Shopify Plus offers responsive themes based on Shopify’s Liquid templating language. Adopting a headless approach liberates businesses from vendor lock-in, enabling them to break free from the limitations encountered due to the platform’s front-end tooling. This newfound freedom results directly by increasing agility, allowing independent front-end development without being tied to the eCommerce platform’s roadmap. Embracing headless architecture empowers businesses to tailor their frontend experience and stay ahead in the ever-evolving eCommerce landscape. Shopify solutions backed by a headless approach are best suited for long-term success in the online market.
3. Backend Freedom: Opting for a headless website is a good investment that ensures future-proofing your online store. Owning the front-end code allows the freedom to develop and invest confidently. This flexibility ensures seamless migration to a cost-effective and superior eCommerce platform. Even with numerous integrations with third-party tools, there’s no need to rewrite them for the new platform. Simply swapping out the APIs of the old eCommerce platform ensures a smooth transition and uninterrupted functionality.
4. Effective SEO Performance: Beyond its speed advantages, a headless website offers superior SEO capabilities. The headless architecture in your website allows you to have complete control over handling URLs, metadata, robots.txt files, and other critical aspects of technical SEO. Unlike Shopify Plus, which lacks native support for these customizations, a headless approach empowers you to optimize your site for search engines and improve your online visibility, ultimately driving more organic traffic to your eCommerce store. Shopify consultation is necessary for getting the right SEO strategy to craft a winning formula for your online store.
5. Adaptable to Future Technologies and its Features: Empower your store’s future with a headless frontend like Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)/Single-Page Applications (SPAs). Seamlessly add new endpoints and features while staying ahead in the game. Connect to APIs effortlessly, allowing integration with various devices and platforms. Embrace the freedom of going headless and optimize your checkout process for an enhanced shopping experience. Stay agile and adaptable, ensuring your online store remains at the cutting edge of technology.
6. Portable Frontends: Combine the unbeatable speed of Shopify Plus and the portability of a PWA frontend for lightning-fast mobile browsing. Your customers will love the seamless, instant page transitions. Though PWAs may have longer initial load times, fear not! You can overcome this hurdle by incorporating server-side rendering and AMP support. The result? A blazingly-fast journey from landing to checkout, providing your users with an unparalleled experience of speed and efficiency. Embrace the future of e-commerce with a headless approach and watch your online store thrive.
7. Accelerated Mobile Pages: Google AMP is an open-source framework that turbocharges mobile web pages, simplifying HTML and setting strict CSS and JavaScript limits. With an impressive 500 millisecond load time from search, AMP pages are cached and pre-rendered on Google servers, ensuring lightning-fast delivery.
Unfortunately, Shopify Plus lacks built-in AMP and real SSR support, impacting first-page load optimization on mobile. To rectify this, you must add these capabilities manually. For both AMP and SSR, consider a backend for the front end. Investing in these enhancements will supercharge your website’s mobile performance. You can provide users with an exceptional browsing experience and boost your online success.
Conclusion
Leading retailers like Macy’s, Walmart, Target, Nike, Airbnb, and others are embracing headless commerce architecture. The trend is gaining momentum due to three core reasons. Firstly, it liberates businesses from the constraints of eCommerce platform frontend tools. Secondly, it enables the integration of cutting-edge web technologies to enhance website speed and SEO. Lastly, it facilitates the smooth implementation of future use cases. Join the movement and unlock the potential of a flexible and innovative commerce approach for your business’s success.
Adopting a headless approach in your Shopify Plus eCommerce website opens up a world of possibilities and advantages. In the process of decoupling the front end from the back end, you gain the flexibility to leverage best-of-breed technologies.
While it requires additional effort to set up, the headless approach empowers your business to stay at the forefront of e-commerce innovation and deliver unparalleled shopping experiences to your customers.
Connect with 18th DigiTech for a complimentary Shopify Plus Consultation. As a leading Shopify Plus development company, our experts are here to help you thrive!
