Let's start with the primary distinction between back-end and front-end meaning. The first one refers to the server, application and database working behind the scenes of your e-commerce; the second one refers to the user interface (conceptatech.com). Traditional CMSs (Content Management System) couples FE and BE systems. They often provide slow front-end solutions, which means a bad user shopping experience, and they require frequent coding activity to keep the system properly working. Instead, a headless CMS allows you to decouple FE and BE systems with two significant advantages: smaller coding activity and easier professional content management. You and your team can fully concentrate on the aesthetics and usability of your website! (strapi.io).
A PWA (Progressive Web App) is the technology that will bring consistency between web and native apps and replace both with a single instance. In other words, it consists of a website that behaves in the same way as a native app: so it's incredibly fast, engaging and usable. Moreover, it can be added to your smartphone home screen, can send notifications and even work offline. Moreover, because PWA is web-based, it can influence SEO: Speed, user engagement, and content relevance are major factors for triggering search engines. So, a PWA will automatically result in higher SEO rankings. Which properties does your website need to be classified as PWA? In 2015, Alex Russel introduced the term progressive web app, identifying ten proper attributes: progressive, responsive, connectivity independent, app-like, fresh, safe, discoverable, re-engageable, installable, linkable (bigcommerce.com). So, the difference between a headless technology and a PWA is simply that the first one doesn't work offline. But PWA can be considered a headless solution. SKIN is a headless platform that may easily become a PWA, but currently, it is not our priority in the technology development process.
As you may have guessed from the previous sections, building a PWA with a headless front-end approach can bring many advantages to your business. Why? Because this is the way to improve the user shopping experience with consequent growth in Conversion Rate and revenues. Now, we'll introduce three reasons that, in our opinion, will enable you to know better just how good is installing a headless solution: 1. The impact on e-commerce performances: as anticipated before, you need to upgrade your e-commerce features to boost online sales. Speeding up your website is the first step. One second conquered in page load time means +7% of sales per day. SKIN can guarantee up to seven times faster page load compared to competitors technologies. Discover how to test your e-commerce speed and which metrics you should keep monitoring.
2. User experience: usability is the most important product feature together with speed. Look and feel must be positive if you want to optimize the Conversion Rate. SKIN allows you to build a fresh and clear layout and provides you with a range of essential features like autocomplete address, abandoned cart recall, expressed checkout and others. Discover if your e-commerce has all the features offered by SKIN.
3. Content builder without code: enjoy the visual components to create your website contents. With a headless front-end solution, the only thing you have to be worried about is improving your web pages' usability and aesthetics. You don't need to make heavy code activity to keep your e-commerce updated. It's a killer feature to have timeliness in those maintenance interventions aimed at keeping your website performing and new.
A headless front-end technology and a PWA solution are the path you should take if you desire to boost your e-commerce performance, for three reasons in particular: Increase sales by speeding up your website. Optimize the Conversion Rate by upgrading the user experience. Keep your web pages new and performing by using visual components without any coding activity. And that's what SKIN is going to do.
