What is a Headless CMS in e-commerce?

All websites use content management systems (CMS) to circulate content or offers to customers, for all e-commerce operations. Unfortunately, standard management tools have a hard time integrating emerging sales formats (on mobile devices, or via a voice assistant for instance). This is why developers opt more and more often now for “headless” CMS. 

CMS: a little background history

In the Internet’s early years, digital platforms were built from A to Z and information systems were added as needed. Then came the creation of showcase sites, or e-commerce sites, which was rationalised and industrialised in the middle of the 2000s. Turnkey solutions started to appear, such as CMS software, used to design and quickly update websites, as well as programming interfaces (APIs) – used to add more functionalities very easily.

The headless CMS revolution

The arrival of headless architectures came as a new stage in the construction of e-commerce websites, pushing the “API approach” to its maximum. In a headless CMS, there are no more front-office systems. The content is published on an API or third-party web service, capable of sending them to any device. The advantage of this is that the same content can be used for the company’s website, mobile app, and new sales channels using the IoT – possibly even artificial intelligence. This is because the content is no longer linked to a predefined structure and can easily be exported to (or imported from) tools such as Lengow.

Why are developers such big fans?

The “head” in headless CMS refers here to the front-office which has now disappeared. Indeed, this type of CMS relies first and foremost on an API for circulating content, and a back-office for storage and management. As the e-commerce site’s content is provided as a service, the headless approach is sometimes known as “Caas” (content as a service). Developers no longer need to use specific programming languages, and can choose any coding base to present the content. Within the framework of an e-commerce site, the product data can be generated by a PIM and orders placed on marketplaces can be imported from Lengow.