First, let us define what a headless solution is:

It is commonly associated with terms such as microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native, SaaS. Most headless solutions are hosted in the cloud. Headless solutions are typically easy to integrate while being developed, marketed, and maintained independently from each other. Each of them addresses a specific business problem and communicates via APIs (application programming interfaces) with other headless applications. 

Now, let us have a look at typical characteristics of a monolithic e-commerce suite:

• Users are dependent on very few or even single vendors and their development roadmap for their monolithic software suites. 

• It is designed to address the most common use cases. 

• The user has limited options (if any at all in some directions) to customize the solution. 

• Adapting a monolithic suite to ever-changing requirements and environments is often slow and expensive. In some cases, this is even impossible. 

• As the various system components (for example, product information and inventory, price lists, shopping cart, or delivery options) are entangled with each other it is very hard to replace or heavily customize them to address customer-specific use cases. 

• Integrating third-party solutions can be expensive, hard, or simply impossible. 

• Scalability is often limited, as is the ability to deal with traffic spikes. Even if the suite is hosted in the cloud, this does not guarantee that it can scale perfectly and automatically with your business. This is especially true for vendors that have moved their previously on-premise software into the cloud. 

• For initial use cases and simple implementations, a suite may be cheaper than buying and implementing each component separately, but adapting it later to changing business needs can quickly become very expensive and eat up all the initial savings. 

In short: A monolithic e-commerce suite is often inflexible, hard to extend or scale, and may not be future-proof. This can make it a more costly option in the long term, especially if your business needs to customize the system to specific needs. 

That is why most companies want to have a modular system architecture that allows them to replace components and functions, with the ability to scale the system according to business needs. Headless solutions are ideal in this regard. 

Here are the benefits of a headless solution for e-commerce:

• When the headless solution is hosted in the cloud the user does not need to handle installing, hosting, maintaining, and securing it. The application typically will scale automatically according to business demand. 

• The vendors of headless e-commerce applications are specialists on specific business problems so they usually have more knowledge and resources in their fields than a software vendor who is a generalist, or an in-house team with limited resources. 

• The frontend (the presentation layer/user interface of software) is decoupled from the backend (the databases and application logic). This allows easier addition and customization of functionalities. 

• It is substantially less effort to serve your clients (with a unified customer experience) across all digital channels, for example, implementation of shop-in-shop or click-and-collect functionalities. 

• Due to its flexibility and adaptability a headless software architecture is much more future-proof compared with traditional architectures. 

• Each part of a headless system architecture is typically designed to scale independently from each other. 

• The integration of third-party systems is always possible through fully-featured integrated APIs. 

• You can completely adapt the digital customer experience to your brand and needs – and you can address various target groups individually with highly customized experiences. 

• Headless solutions are built from the ground up with APIs in mind, instead of by trying to add an API to an already existing monolithic software solution. This “API-First” principle guarantees that each system function is available in the API. In more traditional software, that is often not the case and APIs - if available - are limited in scope and functionality. 

Grocery businesses have specific needs and challenges which deviate from typical online shops. A few of these examples include:

• Huge and quickly changing product assortment 

• Unique demands from producers with regards to product presentation 

• Connecting the own systems with the various ordering systems of various producers 

• Non-standard ordering and payment process for their customers 

• Limitations in storage (such as best-before dates) and delivery (such as delivery area) of ordered goods 

• Custom delivery options like Click &amp; Collect. 

With headless commerce solutions, many of these challenges can be tackled independently. The solutions can be built to scale with your business, and the integrated APIs will allow you to expand your solution in all directions. 

Even if you have a small budget and you are comfortable with the limits imposed by traditional software, you might only save money in the short run. The future is hard to predict, and the headaches and hassles saved by going headless may be cheaper in the long run. 

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What are the benefits of using a non-monolith system for developing the E-Commerce?