The best Visual headless CMS for E-commerce
Pairing a headless e-commerce with a modern frontend framework is a great way to create a high-performance e-commerce website.
Let's explore why React Bricks is the ideal content management companion for a headless e-commerce system, and how it can help build an engaging online store that drives conversions.
Content should be on a CMS
Typically, e-commerce systems allow managing some product content such as descriptions, images, and paragraphs. However, they often do this poorly.
An e-commerce system should not be blamed for lacking a *good* integrated content management system. The opposite, it should be blamed for attempting to include content management at all! 😊
We believe each system should focus on its primary function. An e-commerce system should manage the cart and checkout, while a CMS should handle content.
The Single Source of Truth ✨
While you can manage some product content within the e-commerce interface, a CMS is still necessary to handle the content of pages like "About Us" and "Terms and Conditions". You will also use the CMS to enhance the content of your products, especially for creating attractive landing pages with appealing graphics and carousels, right?
The challenge arises when you have to synchronize data between your e-commerce platform and your CMS. And syncing data is always a bad idea, something that you should try to avoid whenever it is possible.
Moreover, if content is stored in two places, the marketing team will need to use two different systems: the headless commerce and the headless CMS.
That's why it's best to have a CMS serve as the single source of truth for content. For a product page, you can simply store a reference to the SKU within the CMS, enabling you to fetch data like the price from the headless commerce APIs.
Content Management requirements for an Ecommerce website
Now that we've established the need for a CMS in our ecommerce architecture, let's explore the key features it should have for effective content management.
1. Easy of use
The marketing team at an e-commerce site needs to create content easily to enhance user engagement. However, content editors are not developers. They don't want to deal with the tables and relationships typically found in a headless CMS. They should be able to compose the content of pages as they would in a Word document. Based on our experience, direct inline visual editing provides the most effective user experience.
2. Integration with the frontend technology
Naturally, we require a CMS that can integrate with our chosen framework. For instance, if we're developing the frontend in React with Next.js, we need a CMS compatible with a Next.js project. Utilizing the latest frontend technology can enhance performance and potentially improve the conversion rate.
3. Integration with the e-commerce data
Of course, it's essential to retrieve product data from the e-commerce APIs and merge it with the data from the CMS to create the content for the Product Details Pages (PDP).
4. Preserve the brand identity
For e-commerce, it's essential that the content created by the marketing team adheres to the design system to preserve the store's brand identity.
Why React Bricks
React Bricks successfully meets all the requirements we outlined above.
Inline Visual Editing
React Bricks offers the best visual editing interface for a headless CMS in React. No training is necessary, as content editors feel immediately at home with the point and click interface.
Learn more about Visual Editing »
Compatibility with Next.js or Remix
React Bricks is compatible with both Next.js and Remix, which are today's top platforms for building React e-commerce. For Next.js, React Bricks also supports React Server components with the new App Router.
Learn more about supported frameworks »
E-commerce integration
React Bricks can integrate with any external API. It has the capability to fetch external data at either the page or brick (content block) level. This feature enables editors to use bricks that retrieve some data from headless commerce APIs.
Learn more about external API integration »
Brand identity
With React Bricks, developers create each content block in code. A content block, or brick, is a React component enhanced with visual editing. This prevents content editors from compromising the design, as they are guided by good constraints while composing the pages.
The case of Beara Beara
Explore the success story of Beara Beara, a British luxury fashion brand that specializes in handcrafted satchels and bags. The brand uses React Bricks in combination with Swell for their Next.js-based e-commerce platform, leveraging React Server Components.