Shopify E-Commerce – Marrying a great front-end, with a powerful e-commerce platform

by Julia Jackle - Jun 23, 2020

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Marrying a great front-end, a powerful e-commerce platform, and the technology to power it all and boost revenues

Let’s face it! The rapid development of internet technology is drastically transforming  e-commerce as we knew it. And with so much development, online buyers have numerous ways of making purchases and consuming content via a wide array of touch points, including progressive web applications and Iot devices. As a result, “traditional” online stores are finding it hard to fulfill the demands of most consumers. Unquestionably, this can be attributed to the fact that consumers are quickly embracing the shift to Iot while most online sellers are yet to.

However, sellers are in tandem with this emergent trend are certainly reaping the abundant and fruitful results. On the other hand, those that are yet to implement it are grappling with the question of how to get a portion of the cake without necessarily having to invest a fortune. On that note, the answer is marrying a great front-end, a powerful e-commerce platform, and the technology to power it all and boost revenues. 

But how?

Leveraging latest e-commerce technology

This is an e-commerce solution featuring a headless content and product management capability. In a nutshell, this implies a Content management system that manages, stores and delivers content without involving the front end delivery layer. 

Under this architecture, the front end is decoupled, shifting to the backend to enable developers to use APIs so as to present services, products, posts, and reviews to any device or screen. And most importantly, front end developers get the opportunity to present this same content using the most suitable framework.

By so doing, consumers are able to access reviews, products, and services and content from several touchpoints hence smoothening their user experience.

Separating and specializing front end CMS from the back end E-commerce System

Unlike traditional full stack solutions which force businesses to adopt technology, API-oriented solutions permit businesses to integrate most advanced technology which matches their needs and preferences. By adopting these, your business becomes flexible enough to adopt new technologies without having to modify your traditional system or interrupting the user experience. Therefore, go for a system which decouples content management from the front end.

The front end provides or CMS takes care of the customer experience while the e-commerce platform deals with merchandising, transactional and back end information. By doing so, the risk of functional overlap is minimized. Eventually, this separation of responsibilities and roles fosters and promotes speed and consistency on both ends.

Making customer experiences consistent

Consumers demand an intuitive and responsive experience along the entire purchasing journey regardless of when or how they interact with your business. By decoupling customer experience and the e-commerce platform, every aspect touching on user experience, including UX design and URLs are taken care of by the content management system. By this, front end designers can express their creative side to express your business’s values and qualities while marketers can manage and present content in such a way that they don’t interfere with the e-commerce platform.

Personalizing customer experience

Consumers are interested in buying only from businesses that take their personal needs and preferences into consideration and express in all of their touch points. And this goes beyond the mediocre “People who purchased this also bought that”. I mean, an advanced backend system should be in a position to identify how each buyer made their purchase. With this, it can help personalization systems that drive mobile applications, Customer Management systems, POS and even social media channels with identifying offers for a specific buyer. Marketers can also formulate innovative customer experiences without having to disrupt the back end or requiring high levels of software development.

Taking advantage of agile marketing

Through separating back end systems from front end systems, a merchant assumes absolute control of the entire process. Through this, marketing can be launched on several geographies, sites, across brands, portfolios, and divisions. For instance, when expanding to new regions, brands can set up personalized sites in just weeks as opposed to months. 

This can be achieved by theming the front end CMS only once and let it take care of posting and publishing. This also brings the freedom and autonomy to tactically tailor marketing efforts depending on trends and opportunities.

When formulating new buyer experiences, this strategy has the capacity to be compatible with new technological trends as they develop. Therefore, marketing can cut across various touchpoints and channels. At the back end, big data analytics and personalization engines can be integrated with the e-commerce platform to enable personalized buyer experiences.

For businesses with complex customer needs and content, merging a great front end CMS with a well engineered back end e-commerce system and modern technology, it is possible to deliver innovative and tailored user experiences. For merchants grappling with how to integrate new touchpoints with developing technologies such as Iot and Smart devices, the headless commerce architecture is the ultimate future proof solution to personalize and improve customer experience.

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About the Author:
Julia Jackle
Julia is the co-founder and CEO of Creative971 and has written blogs in the past for the Entrepreneur Magazine UAE. Her extensive knowledge in the E-Commerce industry in the UAE and GCC is widely appreciated.

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