The world of traditional Commerce is rapidly evolving, and companies either need to change with it or fall behind.
So how are companies around the world staying ahead in the digital commerce game?
Two words – headless commerce.
Even giants like Nike and Target have both adopted a headless e commerce platform and received massive returns!
Increased conversion rates, greater year-on-year growth, and better brand image make using a headless commerce platform a no-brainer for companies in 2022.
We’ll go over eight headless commerce examples that successfully benefited from making the change, and why you should too!
We will also go over what a headless commerce platform is, the benefits of going headless, how to get started, and more.
Let’s dive right in.
This Article Contains:
8 Incredible Headless Commerce Examples of Successful Companies
In a world where headless commerce architecture is leading the online retail industry, some companies have jump-started their success by joining the trend early.
Here are eight examples of companies that are actively benefiting from using headless architecture:
1. Cuts Clothing
From humble beginnings as a startup in 2016, Cuts Clothing has transformed into a D2C (direct-to-consumer) apparel space leader.
Cuts started its journey by using a Shopify Plus themed digital commerce solution to gain traction. But they soon felt restricted in their ability to expand their product range and creative flow.
Cuts knew they needed to make some changes in order to amplify company growth.
Soon after, Cuts partnered with Pack and transitioned from a traditional eCommerce CMS to a headless commerce approach. They were now able to free up developmental resources, test new marketing campaigns, and evolve their brand!
The results?
By adopting the headless solution, Cuts Clothing was able to:
- Increase year-on-year growth by 200%
- Increase conversion rates by 21%
- Increase their average order value (AOV) by 9%
2. Liquid.I.V
This fast-paced CPG (consumer-packaged goods) company grew rapidly across multiple channels early on. While the company was growing rapidly, so were the challenges of maintaining its existing D2C channel and keeping up with content delivery.
On top of having a sluggish traditional eCommerce platform, Liquid IV felt that its website’s experience was severely limiting its control over brand evolution.
So they reached out to Pack to redesign their company’s brand vision with the headless approach.
Apart from improving their technology stack and content workflow, Pack removed their WordPress integration (back end) from their Shopify plus integration (front end).
This integration allowed Pack to implement a Shopify PWA (progressive web app) headless storefront.
And the results were outstanding!
Liquid-I.V.’s new headless commerce platform was able to increase their:
- Year-on-year growth of 400%
- Conversion rates by 24%
- Average order value by 12%
3. Public Rec.
Public Rec, a comfort-first leisure clothing brand, used their massive product line and excellent marketing strategy to go from zero to hero — very quickly!
Almost too quickly.
Public Rec soon found itself with an overwhelming number of products in different colors and sizes. Aside from having an overly complex frontend for their eCommerce store, Republic Rec also found it challenging to keep up with intricate operations and business logic.
Their traditional commerce platform led to sub-optimal website loading times and a website experience that was difficult for their internal team to manage.
Together with Pack, Public Rec was able to move past these limitations by implementing a new and improved PWA headless architecture.
This new progressive web app was able to:
- Do a better job of conveying their brand’s identity
- Helped customers see clearer product differentiation
- Fully supported their ever-growing and evolving product range.
Public Rec introduced a new site design that could better tell their brand’s story and product differentiation. It also structurally supports their growing product range catalog with new additions like their women’s range.
In their decision for going headless, Public Rec was able to:
- Improve loading speeds by 52%
- Increase conversion rates by 26%
- Increase average order value by 10%
4. Sand Cloud
Using only a basic Shopify Plus theme at first, Sand Cloud managed to take their sustainable brand to new heights in the early days.
While they were able to quickly build a large community of loyal and involved customers, their traditional eCommerce platform was struggling to convey their mission and brand effectively.
On top of that, they also had a slow site speed, and company growth was starting to slack.
Bottom line?
Sand Cloud knew they needed to take a big step to improve their traditional commerce platform and boost company growth.
The solution?
In partnership with Pack, Sand Cloud redesigned their traditional platform into a headless architecture eCommerce store.
This new design was able to:
- Give the marketing team free rein over testing new products
- Improve site speed and user experience
- Increased year-on-year growth by 500%
- Increased conversion rates by 43%
- Increased average order value by 47%
But implementing headless commerce architecture isn’t only a go-to game charger for small startups. Large, internationally recognized brands are making the change as well!
6. Nike
Everyone knows about Nike, the international leader in footwear and sports apparel.
But not everyone knows that they’ve gone headless too!
Since the world is changing towards a mobile-first approach to online activity, Nike knew they needed to redesign their strategy toward online store sales.
They decided to transition to using headless commerce architecture. While the results were slow-coming, Nike noticed a gradual increase in market shares from their rival company Adidas.
These results further solidified Nike’s position as the sports apparel industry leader and are keeping them well on track to achieving the goal of $50 billion in sales by the end of 2022.
6. Target
Online shoppers often search for a product on their phones and make purchases on their laptops.
Target figured out that roughly 80% of their customers do this, leading to tough competition from brands like Walmart and Amazon.
That’s why they adopted a new headless approach to their commerce platform, hoping to unify their customer experience across devices and make the overall purchase process for customers easier.
And it was a massive success!
Since using a headless eCommerce solution, Target has steadily increased site conversion rates over time.
7. Overstock
They wanted to avoid this at all costs and worked towards making their website more interactive and user-friendly.
While Overstock has a large collection of customer data ready to be used, they felt limited in their ability to apply it in a way that would drive more sales.
That was until they took the headless approach!
Overstock decided to transform their traditional commerce landing and product pages into interactive SPA pages (single-page applications) to achieve their goals.
Here’s the kicker.
Their goals were not only met — but exceeded!
What they thought might be a momentary jump in success soon became a long-term rapid growth pattern.
Overstock’s success with their new headless eCommerce platform led them to become a multi-billion dollar online retailer, ranked as one of the world’s top 100 most trusted companies.
Their transition to a headless commerce system also:
- Increased revenue by 36%
- Increased conversion rates by 8%
8. Lancôme
Lancôme was searching for ways to capitalize on the growing increase of mobile online store engagements.
This French luxury perfume and cosmetics brand had previously attempted to tap into the mobile app market. However, they were not too impressed with their current 15% mobile conversion rate (compared to 38% on desktop).
Following the steps of other large brands, Lancôme decided to enhance their customer experience by implementing PWAs into their current commerce platform.
In a nutshell, they took the headless commerce approach!
After integrating the new headless solution, their new website design became a more reflective, engaging, and responsive mobile app inspired digital experience for customers.
The results?
Lancôme’s decision to use a headless system resulted in:
- 84% decrease in interactive page times
- 17% increase in conversions
- 53% increase in mobile sessions on iOS
- 8% increase in push-notification conversion rates
Now that we’ve covered the success stories, let’s answer some questions about headless eCommerce to understand this growing industry better.
5 FAQs about Headless Commerce
We’ve spoken a lot about headless eCommerce and mentioned a few confusing phrases along the way.
These answers will help you better grasp the concept of headless eCommerce, and help you understand more about this rapidly growing eCommerce platform.
1. What Is A Headless Commerce platform?
In most traditional eCommerce solutions, your website has two main layers, the frontend, and the back end.
- The frontend: Also called the “head,” the part of the website that the user sees and interacts with. It holds the graphic design (website look) and user interface (website user experience).
- The back end: Also called the “body,” holds the website’s server and acts as the brain of the website. The back end receives requests from the frontend (like CTA’s) and sends the appropriate data back to the frontend — like product pricing.
A headless system essentially removes the “head” of the website, leaving you with only the back-end platform.
Here’s the good part.
Software developers can now freely use an API (application program interfaces) commerce layer to deliver things like products, push notifications, and blog posts to any screen or device!
This also allows frontend developers to present this content using any framework that best suits the website’s needs.
2. What Are The Benefits Of Headless Commerce?
Here are some more ways you can benefit from a headless commerce solution:
- Greater flexibility, agility, and performance (improves site speed!)
- Provides complete control over how and where your content appears
- Great all-round user experience
- Secure third-party integrations
- Allows developers to use their favorite tools and frameworks
- Future-proof (integrates easily with new headless technology and innovations)
- Minimizes the risks of DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) & malware attacks
3. What Is The Hybrid Concept?
Simply put, the hybrid concept combines offline and online retail shopping. It is a new adaption to the composable commerce approach.
It is created by merging a limited content management system, with a powerful API interface. This new design creates a fully-rounded digital experience for customers. It makes each shopping experience a unique and personalized journey.
As a store owner, this method also allows you to easily manage the content on your frontend while getting the most out of your backend headless commerce system!
4. How Do I Get Started With Headless Commerce?
There are three steps to follow when adopting headless technology:
- Determine if you want to keep your current eCommerce platform: Smaller startups might prefer adding an API commerce layer to their existing traditional platform. On the other hand, larger companies usually lean towards using a SaaS (Software as a Service) headless solution.
- Pick a headless CMS: You can either choose to use an open-source CMS (community developed) or a headless eCommerce solution from a SaaS provider.
A SaaS headless platform is a convenient option if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to go headless.
- Sync your APIs and CMS: This means “attaching a head” to your headless CMS — which is crucial in smoothly integrating your front and back ends.
Try syncing APIs to smaller parts of your CMS, like a landing page or blog posts — instead of trying to do it all at once.
5. Which SaaS Headless eCommerce Platform Should I Pick?
Look no further than Pack!
Pack is a headless SaaS provider with years of deep experience designing, building, developing, and optimizing headless storefront platforms.
Pack offers a composable frontend headless platform optimized for your business, allowing you to connect more with your customers and confidently tell your brand’s story.
But don’t take our word for it.
See how Pack has helped companies like Cuts Clothing and Sand Cloud improve their year-on-year growth, brand image, conversion rates, and more!
Go Headless. It’s A No Brainer!
A traditional commerce platform is a thing of the past, as the headless commerce solution is quickly becoming the service of choice for companies worldwide.
The success of companies like Nike and Sand Cloud speaks volumes for the potential to benefit from using a headless CMS, and the facts don’t lie!
When companies choose to use eCommerce brands, they often have to choose between flexibility or agility for their site.
But with Pack, you can have both!
Contact Pack today, and see how high you can climb tomorrow.