Vue Storefront: eCommerce without limitations

E-commerce is an aspect of technology that has undergone a rigorous revolution over the years, an ongoing process of intricate development.

We recognize that performance and delivery, customer engagement, and detailed personalization are vital to the success of ecommerce platforms. Clients keep close in mind factors like speed of delivery, service quality, and fast access to services. To support this growing need of changing demand, eCommerce entrepreneurs are always looking for new technologies to push these metrics and improve the ecommerce environment.

One of these great new techs is PWA (Progressive Web Application), and by now, most developers know about its compatibility with Headless Commerce. Progressive Web Application is the hybrid between a native mobile application and traditional website applications. The feel and intuitiveness of native applications lie in the convenience it gives to users. PWA brings together mobile apps and headless commerce and offers the best mobile and desktop application feel.

Progressive Web Applications support push notifications, and the applications go directly on your home screen, with mobile-friendly navigation akin to mobile devices. PWAs are also platform-agnostic, do not require installation before use or updates. Additionally, since mobile shoppers are greatly concerned with sharing sensitive information, PWA also comes with enhanced security, making it an incredible asset towards gaining customer’s trust.

Why headless commerce and mobile

Headless commerce is a technology architecture that separates the backend from the frontend of an application. It uses APIs to allow communication between the backend and frontend without them being dependent on each other.
The front end consists of the interface, user experience, site layout, and general aesthetics. At the same time, the backend has servers, databases, and logic that control the application’s functionalities.
The frontend and backend are like night and day. They have tightly interwoven processes and share common factors. Frequently, if one of the two environments undergoes some changes, these changes inevitably affect the other. Backend and frontend developers work together during development, upgrades, updates, and maintenance. Without the delicate collaboration between these two teams in crucial phases, no successful eCommerce applications would be possible.
Having an architecture that separates the frontend from the backend is a giant leap in development. It saves time, costs and makes for better application performance. Since microservices are decoupled from the application, the benefits also include incredible flexibility.

One significant benefit of headless commerce is the flexibility it gives businesses to tailor their resources to fit their business needs. It is enabling them to grow their online space to meet consumer needs and expectations.

The innate power of Vue Storefront

But this article isn’t about the incredible benefits of headless commerce or progressive web applications as standalone methods. It is about Vue Storefront (VSF), the frontend service framework that combines the power of both PWA and headless commerce. Their combined effect boosts site performance, increases customer engagement and growth potential. Moreover, thanks to VSF, you have the luxury to explore limitless opportunities for customization, enabling you to produce the unforgettable shopping experience your customers deserve.
Vue Storefront hasn’t been around for a long time. It was launched in 2017 by developers who sought to make a quality improvement in online experiences and deliver it faster. Today, it is the fastest-growing open ecommerce project on GitHub supported by an active community. In a short time, it has become a trendsetter, a powerful framework ready to meet even the most ambitious ecommerce goals.
Vue Storefront is described on its official website as a”; Lightning Fast Front-End as a Service for eCommerce. Built with a PWA and headless approach, using a modern JS stack.”

Some experts in online business consider VSF the future of ecommerce. Built with a PWA and headless approach, it uses robust technologies like VueJs and NextJS to promote the idea of a single frontend API-first architecture that meets all frontend needs. It is lightning fast, multi-platform, and provides near-native application functionalities on desktop.

With progressive web applications and headless commerce features, developers can give consumers seamless experiences across both mobile and desktop while customizing the front end to precisely meet consumer expectations. VSF allows integration to any backend with API. It integrates nicely with Salesforce, Magneto, Shopify, and Shopware 6. Other payment services and tools can connect via API.

Why your business needs VSF

1. Open-source

The open-source approach of Vue Storefront means its source code and its rights are publicly available for use. Every developer is free to use, modify, improve and redistribute the source. Great addons come to light precisely after a few of such improvement layers - a result of a contribution by a whole team of independent professionals.

It doesn’t take a template style, nor is it limited to the specifications and work of its initial developers. The opportunities to restructure, design, or customize it are endless. Your eCommerce can look and feel exactly how you want it to be.

2. No vendor lock-in

Vendor locks are restrictions imposed on a service or infrastructure that limits their flexibility in configuration and integration.

Vendor lock-in does not allow free flow of connections unless those are acceptable to the vendor. This condition affects users too - they may feel trapped using a particular provider even when they wish to switch.

Also, vendor lock-in may cause otherwise effortless data migration a complete nightmare. This option comes as a post-effect from the open-source approach of Vue Storefront, making it flexible for customization for every vendor.

3. Performance

Vue Storefront takes performance seriously. It is specifically built to boost the performance of eCommerce.

Poor performance in eCommerce stores is a leading reason for cart abandonment and low conversion rate. Stats show that 57% of users will abandon a cart if a page takes more than 3 seconds to load, and mobile applications sometimes take longer. Walmart concluded that their business would get a 2% increase in conversion rates for every second of improved loading time.
Online stores suffer because of the underlying technologies they use. Traditional ecommerce and native applications take too much time to load. They are too slow to keep up with consumer needs and expectations. The monolith architecture they operate on has too much load and is too dependent on each other to move independently or fast.
VSF’s separation of both frontend and backend allows for lightning-speed loading. Images and text are also cached to allow the pages to load without loading static content (which often causes a delay in load time). This technique significantly boosts the loading time of a page and increases user experience.

4. Mobile-first focus

Business Insider states that m-commerce (mobile commerce) is the next frontier for online shopping. mCommerce is the mobile equivalent to eCommerce, and it involves buying from a mobile device on a native app.
According to their stats and intelligence, they predicted mCommerce will become mainstream thanks advanced technology and that it will reach $284 billion soon (that is 45% of the total e-commerce market).
As app usage increases, mCommerce opens a vast unexplored channel with different consumer shopping habits. Vue StoreFront puts mobile performance as one of its core value initiatives.
On mobile, it starts with the application access. Rather than depending on an app store for download and access, mCommerce apps launch conveniently from your desktop screen. Application updates occur automatically, without prompting the user, giving them the latest features without much hassle.
With PWA features, the mobile application is designed to feel like both a native mobile application and a desktop application, giving users the best user interface and user experience. Pages can be loaded offline while maintaining other responsive site attributes like security, push notifications, and speed.

5. High engagement and conversion

The goal of every eCommerce website is to make sales. Every other thing comes as a supporting effort to this cause. Businesses quickly adopt any software or practice that helps them convert hesitant customers into buying ones.
Vue Storefront comes with a complete set of advantages for improved customer retainment. It has tremendous loading speed, and it is platform agnostic - buyers can access it from any device and have the same experience. It outperforms conventional apps, and its mobile-first approach favors new shopping trends and practices.

6. Low development cost

Traditionally, native mobile applications run on both Android and iOS. In contrast, traditional websites have a different build. Businesses spend money and time developing, maintaining, and regularly updating their applications to be available on all platforms.
Vue Storefront significantly reduces the workload and financial burden on businesses by being platform agnostic. Let your clients choose the platform or device, and you can adapt the technology to this trend. The application does not have to choose either iOS, Android, or responsive websites. Instead, developers build the frontend components and connect them to a backend and other services with APIs.
The application offers the same user experience and interfaces across all devices and platforms. This type of consistency is valuable when giving users a continuous and seamless experience across all possible devices that can be their best choice.
Vue Storefront developers release updates periodically across all other platforms. Users only receive a push notification about the new update and do not need to action it or confirm it.

7. Search Engine Rankings

Search engines visibility is crucial for any eCommerce. The ability to be indexed significantly affects sales and popularity. The lightning speed at which VSF operates allows a page to be indexed and optimized faster than regular sites. People have little tolerance for sites that load slow. They would bail on a sluggish page, even if they use it as a source for alternative product reviews.
In eCommerce, the slow speed effect is even more pronounced and visible in metrics like shopping cart abandonment. Would you trust a slow-loading website site that also claims your payment information is processed safely? Every second counts when it comes to content display. To tackle that aspect, VSF has an inbuilt ability to deliver flash-like performance and responsiveness.
The open-source approach has an incredible impact on the effectiveness of the SEO capabilities of VSF - only the proven best practices become part of the platform. And with the help of refined PWA SEO techniques, your eCommerce can rival even the most intense competitors.

Conclusion

Vue Storefront is an out-of-the-box kind of service designed to precisely cater to the ecommerce ecosystem and issues.
“It is also the core product in an entire ecosystem built around it, which includes Vue Storefront Next, the creative genius behind Shopware and PWA, Storefront API, and Storefront UI.” It considers security, performance, reliability, payment, third party integrations, frontend, backend, and development concerns to create a system that allows e-commerce to perform better, increase conversion rate, and deliver the best possible user experience.