In the bustling e-commerce landscape, a fierce debate is brewing among direct-to-consumer (DTC) companies about how best to build their online presence. The choice between taking a “headless” approach to content management systems (CMS) or using a full platform like Shopify or Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) has become a critical decision for brands looking to maximize profitability and efficiency and, at the same time, offer perfect customer service. experience.
Arthur's root
In recent years we have witnessed an increase in venture capital investment in both DTC brands and e-commerce-related technology companies, particularly those that specialize in headless CMS solutions. Fueled by this wave of funding in the era of “free money,” some DTC brands have invested hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in creating custom, headless websites that enable extreme site customization and speed. While it is undoubtedly possible to create a fantastic website with a headless CMS, the current funding environment has raised justified questions about the sensitivity of such investments to ever-improving alternatives.
Not having a head means owning the technology from scratch. It involves significant software installation costs, ongoing maintenance costs since you own the development, and unreasonable investments in infrastructure. Unlike platforms like Shopify, there is no drag and drop editor; you own the front end, and this adds enormous unnecessary complexity to a brand's daily operations. While having a significant engineering team and associated line item was normal at a time when every DTC brand was positioning itself as a technology company, shrinking budgets and more limited access to capital have exposed the madness of this expense. The great founders of DTC are marketers, marketers with an exceptional ability to germinate and scale consumer movements. They are not technologists. Going headless means dedicating enormous financial and time resources to a field outside the core competency of e-commerce founders.
Think of this like you would cars. Headless sites are custom-made supercars: beautiful, fast, expensive and impractical. Platforms, on the other hand, are the Ford 150s of the world, reliable products built for the mass market that can then be developed to more specifically meet customer needs. The apps in this metaphor are inexpensive add-ons that complement the feature set that comes standard on your F150: a head-up display, full leather seats, etc. They're great and certainly increase your quality of life, but they can't fundamentally change the performance of your mass-market car. That's where new IaaS + SaaS edge delivery solutions come in. While they are easily installed on an F150 (a platform site), they fundamentally change the way the car operates. They replace the entire drivetrain, giving these vehicles the performance of their supercar peers without sacrificing built-in practicality.
Platforms like Shopify and SFCC, while not without drawbacks, offer an ever-improving alternative to headless builds. They provide an affordable website foundation for millions of eCommerce stores, trading off extreme customization and top-notch performance for ease of use and low costs. The beauty of platforms is that they can address many of their shortcomings through applications and plugins that, when leveraged and combined correctly, are increasingly capable of matching the feature sets of headless versions. As platforms have matured, so have the ecosystems around them, and software vendors have made enormous fortunes creating value for brands by specializing in areas outside of both the platforms' feature sets and the core competencies of the founders.
The current economic environment, coupled with the growing native and augmented capabilities of platforms, has led to a clear shift away from the popularity of headless versions. However, there remains one key area where headless sites have maintained their advantage until very recently: technical performance.
The technical performance of an e-commerce website has always had a direct impact on brands' bottom lines. Studies by industry giants like Amazon, Google, and Walmart have established correlations dating back to the early 2000s, and the impact (and benchmarks) of performance have only grown with the prevalence of mobile e-commerce. . Site speed impacts a litany of key metrics, including conversion rate (CVR), average order value (AOV), and cost per click (CPC), all of which have a profound impact on revenue. and costs of a brand. While platforms are aware of these well-established facts, their architecture and “one-size-fits-all” approach have historically placed them at a notable disadvantage compared to headless sites.
While many DTC founders long for the free money days of the late 2010s, the recent market correction should be seen as medicine. It has forced operators to refocus on their core competency in a way that is beneficial to their long-term growth, putting aside the old-fashioned shenanigans of technology companies. In this context, headless sites should be seen as an irresponsible and impractical luxury compared to constantly improving alternatives.
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