5 reasons to migrate from monolithic e-commerce to headless e-commerce

As the need to digitally transform and meet customer expectations online becomes more essential to long-term success, B2B businesses are quickly realizing that they are handcuffed by legacy monolithic e-commerce. 

Between the lack of customization, long implementation timelines and hefty costs B2B businesses are choosing to migrate away from monolithic software. Headless e-commerce platforms have quickly become the go-to solution for businesses that want to sell online and do it well. 

For complex businesses, there are many reasons why migrating from monolithic to headless will be beneficial for your business. Here are some of the main benefits:

Minimize total cost of ownership (TCO) with headless e-commerce:

Typically on-premise solutions are sold in the form of core-based licenses. This cost model often becomes a problem for scale. As you grow and more hardware is needed to handle that growth, you need to buy more licenses. Additionally, monolithic software vendors typically release new versions a few times a year, and typically these changes are fundamental to the core. So businesses wanting to take advantage of these upgrades need to constantly review and rewrite parts of their custom code to make sure it works with the new version. 

Gain agility and speed:

Monolithic architecture requires developers to work with many different layers. So accomplishing a seemingly simple task, like building a new, custom promotion and displaying it in the frontend user experience, often takes backend developers a few days to implement.

Because the frontend is completely separated from the backend on a headless e-commerce platform, changes to the frontend user experience can happen a lot more quickly and with a lot less risk to the backend code.

Integrate efficiently and effectively:

Unlike traditional, monolithic software, headless e-commerce platforms harness the power and agility of APIs to allow you to create a tech stack unique to your business. Headless, API-first platforms enable what’s called a “best-of-breed” technology strategy. Through integration, you’re able to create your own “virtual suite” of best-in-class software. 

The beauty of a best-of-breed approach is that you’re not relying on the capabilities of an all-in-one suite option. You have the control to choose the best-of-the-best capabilities across the board so that your software does what you need it to do for your business. And you can switch applications out as your business needs change or as the software changes.

Easily extend ordering to new channels, devices, customers, and more:

With headless e-commerce, multiple frontends can be connected to the same backend. You can run and manage multiple user experiences across multiple devices without managing a mess of different systems - think wearable devices, IoT, vending machines, and more.

Improve time-to-value:

No matter your e-сommerce platform, the back-end business logic, functionality, and capabilities usually comprise up to 85% of a software development process. With a headless commerce platform, you are starting from the point of completion which is allowing you to focus on the user experience and deliver a final solution for far less cost, time, and effort.