3 Integrations that take your eCommerce to the next level

eCommerce has become a new habit

At Reign, we are convinced that the headless approach is vital when creating eCommerce platforms when a brand wants to project itself into the future. We will tell you about the benefits of headless a little later, but for now, we want you to know a couple of facts to keep in mind.

In December 2021, PwC released a report from its Global Consumer Insights Pulse Survey focused on consumer behavior. It identified that mobile shopping was at an all-time high: 41% of participants reported shopping daily or weekly from their mobiles.

At the country level, Deloitte launched a Christmas report jointly with the Santiago Chamber of Commerce, which indicates that 47% state a high or very high probability of using electronic shopping platforms within the next 12 months.

Recently, the eCommerce growth in Chile has been astonishing, but beyond the figure itself, the real value lies in incorporating online shopping into people's daily lives. So, are you in a position to meet the expectations?

The features that make Headless the best option for your eCommerce

Headless is a way of developing web architecture in which the backend is decoupled from the frontend. The whole headless analogy refers to separating the head from the body. In other words, there is autonomy between your systems (backend) and the functionality you integrate into the UI (frontend). It frees teams to customize each side of the platform flexibly, leaving behind the limitations of framework or vendor exclusivity.

The communication between the frontend applications and your backend systems is done through APIs, ensuring high compatibility between the components because it is a widespread protocol in web development. Integrations such as Algolia (the best predictive search engine according to us) or other third-party applications communicate with your platform and operate as part of it.

This type of web architecture drives companies to grow in their digital experience strategies. Headless is the best way to implement omnichannel in an organization. It allows linking different channels to the same system, reducing complexity, and increasing backend performance by keeping the structure simple.

Moreover, being able to build an eCommerce tailored to the needs of each brand makes this architecture future-proof as it is ready to be adjusted, modified, and rebuilt.

A virtuous triangle: Contentful, Algolia, and Elastic Path

When companies approach us looking for platform alternatives, the first thing we seek to identify is how clear they are about the strategies for their digital channels. Mainly because when we propose solutions, we always strive to promote the brand through the platform, not accommodate it.

So let's imagine now that you represent the brand in such a situation, and let us present you with a foolproof alternative to creating a first-class eCommerce, where not only the customer experience is enhanced, but your teams also perceive the virtues of headless. This platform is based on 3 key integrations to get your brand ready to make the global leap. Yes, that's right, ready to go global.

1. Contentful for an atomic deployment

At Reign, we create, think and breathe headless, so the logistical heart of any of our proposals must be born from the same philosophy. In that sense, Contentful is a headless CMS that brings your content to a content model. In other words, it structures, links, and defines the element hierarchy that makes up the platform content.

Thus, through Contentful’s 5 APIs, you will be able to manage your assets in a transversal way without double work**; once you have created a new entry, you will be able to publish it in all the channels you want.** In addition, since it is based on a content model, the site is not affected when you need to update a particular entry.

Our personal touch is to nurture this headless CMS with a design system that contemplates all types of content. To achieve this, we use Atomic Design, which gives a double boost to the creative, content, and marketing teams as they acquire a tool that will allow them to manage the content of your platform at any scale.

2. Algolia to always find what you need

Having covered the content and products that make up your platform, it's time to move on to delight people. You may do this by helping them find what they want and what they might want with Algolia. A search engine that uses artificial intelligence to autocomplete your searches from the first character entered.

If you want, you can find out how it operates in eCommerce. Go to the search bar and enter just the first letter to get several results. With this integration, you will help people quickly find what they want. Thanks to the algorithms behind it, the platform will return related results, allowing you to complement or diversify your shopping alternatives.

With this integration, you will have a CMS with the ability to take your content to any channel and a tool that will allow people to find it in a matter of milliseconds.

3. Elastic Path for a more sophisticated shopping experience.

This solution allows you to link multiple sales channels in the same internal system. Whether you use different product catalogs in your several channels or the same one, this application will allow you to manage them. Moreover, due to its high compatibility with other applications, you will be able to link them with the two integrations already mentioned easily.

Besides how fast it manages the check-out, what we like most about this application is its flexibility. Elastic Path will provide you with all the information you need to achieve if your brand requires deep customization, for example, promotions. The direct result you get is eCommerce with the best technology to deploy on the web.

But the additional results are varied: all of these services mentioned are cloud-based, so they automatically scale if demand requires it, allowing for better cost management and the assurance that your platform will remain operational by not relying exclusively on a server.

At Reign, we use headless because it is a technology that aims at two objectives. The first is that the platform is flexible enough to meet our customer's needs, and the second is that we ensure the operation both now and in the future, regardless of the changes, your system can adapt to them.