MACH for Modern Retail: Omnichannel and Headless Commerce
Posted by Amanda McLaughlin on Mar 1, 2022
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This is part 4 of our MACH series where we discuss how headless commerce can help retailers unite their physical and digital retail. Check out the other pieces on microservices, APIs, and cloud technology.
Ecommerce is in the limelight – online sales are up, and shopping journeys now often include digital along the way in some form. Retail brands are thinking seriously about headless architecture as they come to terms with the fact that they must think harder and invest faster to meet customers where they want to shop.
Online retail is growing in popularity, but focusing purely on digital experiences is not the move. Physical stores haven’t winked out of existence. In fact, they’re shining brightly. Omnichannel retailing gives brands a way to unify physical and digital, helping them work in harmony. Headless architecture offers significant help to businesses on this journey.
Headless architecture (anecdotally referred to as ‘going headless’) means separating the front-end of your ecommerce solution (the pretty bit customers see) from your back-end (your business logic). API calls make this possible by exposing your application’s data. They then sit between your front- and back-end and work as interpreters to help different tech and frameworks talk to and understand each other.
You might now be thinking, “do I need headless architecture if I have stores?”
The answer is yes. These days, commerce is connected. Omnichannel reigns supreme and offline and online retail are symbiotic — or fast becoming so. Focus too much on one and the other will falter. A headless commerce platform makes finding that sweet spot in the middle much, much simpler.
With a headless commerce solution, if something has a front-end, you can bring it into the omnichannel experience. That means as omnichannel commerce gathers momentum (finally!), even devices like wearable technologies can be used to push your content to consumers. Recent predictions from Statista show that in 2022, the number of internet-connected wearable devices will reach one billion worldwide.
Being able to throw your content out to such devices and other customer touchpoints will become increasingly important.
Imagine you’re walking past one of your favorite stores, when suddenly your Apple Watch pings. A quick glance down will show a well-timed push notification from the brand you’re strolling past, reminding you that their sale is about to end. Or they have that top you wanted in stock, or that you can pick up the items you’ve got saved in your basket now, instead of waiting for delivery.
Whatever the use-case, the benefits of headless commerce architecture for physical retail are established and convincing:
Omnichannel is here to stay. Headless commerce grants you the flexibility to tackle omnichannel challenges, like BOPIS, curbside pickup, inventory management, cross-channel pricing, loyalty programs, and personalization.
Physical stores provide a crucial social element to shopping that customers crave. However, omnichannel growth now means many see technology as integral to in-store experiences too, choosing to whip out their smartphones as they set foot inside.
Consumers use their mobile devices in-store for a growing number of reasons. Loyalty cards, reading reviews, BOPIS, contactless payments, and website browsing to compare prices are among the most frequently listed reasons.
Brands can use this to their advantage, but they must ensure their brand experience is cohesive across physical and digital. Fortunately, the customization possible with headless makes designing mobile experiences that bring customers closer to brands easy.
For example, content changes can happen incredibly quickly, which makes localizing content and crafting specific messaging based on demographic data trivial. Just imagine how effective localized push notifications serving the latest outfits bought by other young shoppers would be to Gen Z shoppers strolling down the high street.
This customization also extends to the website front-end too. Retailers can plug-in best-of-breed tech that suits mobile-first shoppers, giving consumers an intuitive mobile experience from which they can browse stock and prices while shopping in-store.
Physical stores aren’t going to fade into obscurity. The opposite, in fact – as Forrester predicts that by 2024, 72% of all sales could come from in-store shopping.
But in order for that to come true, or even close to it, retailers must be proactive. You must create experiences worthy of customers’ time. They have to live up to the hype of the exceptional experiences shoppers experience online. At home and from their couches.
Headless architecture makes building more powerful, more versatile, and more adaptive commerce experiences easy and unique to your brand. But it’s just one small part of a much, much more exciting hole – MACH.
To learn more about headless and where it fits into MACH, the MACH Alliance offers exceptional information and insights.
