Headless Commerce Plugin for OFBiz

[Arpit Mor <ar...@hotwaxsystems.com>]

Hi Devs,

Hope everyone is safe and healthy amidst Covid-19 pandemic

Most of you might have heard about “Headless Commerce” or API first
commerce, but in case you haven’t, here is a brief summary of what headless
commerce is and why it is the need of the hour.

What is Headless Commerce?

In its simplest form, headless commerce is the decoupling of the
presentation layer (frontend) of an eCommerce from backend such that both
are able to function independently. This decoupling is achieved by using
APIs to expose core backend functionalities.

Why Headless Commerce?

Today, customers are consuming context from various channels and
touch-points. Gone are the days when customers primarily needed to visit a
website to buy online. With the rise of smartphones and the Internet of
Things (IoT), customers can now shop from multiple channels like IoT
devices, progressive web apps (PWAs), social media platforms, mobile apps,
smart assistants, smart TV, kiosks, and many more.

By decoupling frontend from backend - user interface, social commerce,
mobile apps, IoT, and many more – can be changed or updated individually,
without interfering with backend. Data is available to separate frontend
applications via API calls and the backend runs invisibly in the background.

Benefits of Headless Commerce

   -

   Unlimited Channels and Touchpoints: With API first Headless Commerce,
   integration with the new channels and touchpoints becomes easy, economical,
   and quick.



   -

   Innovation and Engaging User Experience: With traditional monolithic
   Commerce, making user-centric changes to your website requires both a front
   and backend transformation. But with headless commerce, all the
   frontend/app developers have to focus on is user experience,
   personalization, and consistency without having to worry about changes to
   the backend.



   -

   Easy-to-Manage Integrations: Headless commerce not only includes
   providing API support to the frontend, but it also includes communication
   between various components (like ERP, WMS, OMS, CRM, POS, etc.) via APIs.
   This will reduce the complexity of this integration and its maintenance.



   -

   Business Agility & less time to market: Companies must be able to
   respond quickly to new market opportunities by constantly releasing new
   features. In traditional commerce, each component is tightly coupled with
   another which makes changes a complex task. But with Headless commerce
   different components communicate via APIs, which make changes to one
   component easy without having to worry about changes to other components.


I’d like to put forward a suggestion for developing a headless commerce
plugin, to keep the competitive edge of OFBiz with the rapidly changing
technological trends by exposing core backend functionalities via APIs (The
REST capabilities are already added to OFBiz recently).

Looking forward to suggestions and feedback.


-- 
Kind Regards,
Arpit Mor
Enterprise Quality Engineer

*HotWax Systems*
*Enterprise open source experts*
cell: +91-9098005893
office: 0731-409-3684
http://www.hotwaxsystems.com