Headless Drupal Commerce

Separation of e-commerce functionalities and frontend interfaces to create flexible, centrally managed, and modern shopping experiences

What is Headless Drupal Commerce?

Headless Commerce refers to an architecture in e-commerce where the frontend user interface ("head") is separated from the backend trading platform ("body").

This separation allows different frontends, whether a website, a mobile app, or other applications, to be created independently of the underlying e-commerce platform.

How do Drupal and Headless Commerce work together?

Drupal is a widely used content management system (CMS) that's often used for building websites and web applications.

In the context of Drupal, "Headless" means that Drupal serves as the backend to flexibly manage product catalogs, order management, inventory, and other e-commerce functions, while the user interface is created separately.

This user interface could be developed using various technologies such as React, Vue.js, or other frontend frameworks.

What are my advantages?

Headless Commerce allows businesses to achieve faster innovation in user interface design while simultaneously leveraging the robust e-commerce functions offered by platforms such as Drupal.

Schematic Representation of a Headless Drupal Commerce Architecture

Why Your Shop Doesn’t Need a Head

Scalability

Headless Drupal Commerce enables better scalability because backend and frontend systems can be scaled independently of each other. This is particularly important as your e-commerce business grows and requirements change.

Reusable Content

Since Drupal is a powerful Content Management System (CMS), you can create reusable content for different front-ends. This facilitates consistency and management of your content across various channels.

Centrally Configured Structures

Headless Drupal Commerce allows you to utilize centrally configured data management structures across all your content distributions.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Product Information Management (PIM)
Media Asset Management (MAM)
Order Management System (OMS)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Additional Integrations

You can easily integrate third-party services and technologies to leverage advanced features such as personalized recommendations, payment gateways, analytics tools, and more.

Flexibility in User Interface Design

With a headless architecture, you can design the user interface independently of the backend platform. This means that you can create modern, responsive user interfaces with the latest technologies and frameworks without the constraints of an integrated frontend. Why Drupal is also great as a front-end framework can be found here.

Versatility of Front-End Technologies

By separating the frontend from the backend, you can choose the best frontend technologies for your requirements. Whether seamless interaction with Drupal even in the frontend or other frameworks like React, Angular, Vue.js, Nuxt.js, Next.js - you have the flexibility to choose the most suitable tool for your project.

Improved User Experience

As you have control over the user experience, you can create a smooth and engaging user interface that seamlessly adapts to the needs of your target audience.

Time and Cost Savings

By leveraging the backend functions of Drupal Commerce, you can save time and costs in developing e-commerce-specific logic and focus on the design of the user interface.

Future-Proofing

Since you are independent of the frontend technology, you can more easily respond to new trends and technologies in the future without having to change the entire backend system.

Drupal – CMS and Framework

Our Favorite Approach: Progressive Decoupled Drupal

"Progressive Decoupled Drupal" is an architectural approach that allows website editors to utilize management interfaces, content workflows, and all other traditional methods for creating, editing, and publishing content through Drupal.

This achieves a seamless interaction between the front (Drupal) and backend (Drupal) with maximum flexibility.