As a developer, you probably know what it’s like to inherit existing software and try to add new features or fix bugs in them.
It is never easy because the legacy application might be poorly designed (or not designed at all) and fragile; we often encounter weird quirks that make us wonder how they ever worked in the first place.
It’s equally frustrating to see the same typo on your company website for months because of a CMS limitation, or worse yet discover that it is impossible to implement some functionalities you are eager to build.
On top of all these problems, there are multiple tools needed to run an eCommerce business (marketing automation software, CRM, inventory management, etc.) and the costs of integrating between them can be a nightmare.
Ecommerce is a fast-growing market and the competition is increasingly fierce.
Managing an eCommerce business can be complex, especially when you are just starting out with no technical background or experience in building web applications.
It is not uncommon for startups to run into issues for months because of a CMS platform that is too cumbersome to use.
We have been there too. This is where Strapi, a form of headless CMS, comes in.
In this article, you will learn about five reasons that will make you choose Strapi to power your online shops.
What is Strapi?
Headless CMS is not a buzzword.
It is rather an evolution of the traditional eCommerce world where users are used to browsing, selecting, and purchasing items through websites (desktop or mobile).
Strapi is one of these headless CMSes that make it easy for developers to create custom eCommerce applications without having to deal with complex infrastructures.
Strapi brings unique features to the headless eCommerce world that are already available in traditional websites, but only used by a very limited amount of people:
- Content Management System (CMS): Strapi’s Admin panel is extremely intuitive and easy to use for content editors. It allows them to manage complex content structures, categories, and subcategories with simple drag & drop operations.
- Content Relationships: As Strapi is using GraphQL under the hood to display content on pages (we will see this later), it’s trivial for developers to manage relations between objects of different data types within a single endpoint. For instance, you can have an article with multiple authors.
- Content Search: By using the ElasticSearch tool, you can easily index your content and create powerful search features. As a consequence, it’s easier for users to find what they are looking for in a simple way.
- User Authentication & Authorization: Strapi has built-in authentication tools that allow developers to easily control what a user is allowed to do. Thanks to these tools, you can lock down your API and create users with different levels of rights (e.g: admin vs anonymous).
It is an open-source Node.js API framework to build powerful backends for eCommerce businesses without any frontend constraints.
It’s not just great for developers, it also offers an interface for non-technical users.
This means that you can create your own custom eCommerce without any coding knowledge.
With Strapi, you can build your own application tailored for eCommerce rather than being stuck with a platform built by someone else without any customization possibilities.
This way, you will have the freedom of choice when it comes to choosing or modifying features and functionalities provided by an open-source API framework.
Reasons Why Strapi Matters for Ecommerce
1. Ability to manage content on multiple channels
Before the digital revolution, content management included newspapers, magazines, billboards, and so on.
In today’s world, native phone applications and other IoT device channels are all part of content management.
Nowadays when eCommerce becomes a multi-channel phenomenon, it is even more important to have an easy way to manage all of these channels in one place.
Strapi makes it really simple for you to create different types of content (texts, images, or videos) while helping you focus on your business.
It is really easy for you to create and edit text, images, or videos directly from your admin panel while having full control of what will be displayed on each channel (e.g: blog post but also a Facebook page and product description).
Strapi provides a fully customizable experience across all of your marketing channels as it is open source.
This way, you can maintain the content that matters to each audience and increase conversions on social media without juggling between multiple platforms.
Strapi gives you the ability to manage content on all these channels by just installing plugins.
You can leverage Strapi’s power this way, regardless of what your eCommerce business is focused on or where your customers are located.
2. Improved and tailored user experience
Competing brands fight different battles, but one that has become very common is the battle of users’ experience.
Branded eCommerce websites are under constant pressure to deliver an amazing user experience. And this is where Strapi comes in.
Headless CMS enables you to deliver a cutting-edge digital experience across all devices and screen sizes.
This is key for eCommerce businesses to ensure that you are offering the same omnichannel experience to your customers across all channels.
Strapi interface features:
- A rich set of prebuilt components (pagination, filter) to help you build your web app faster
- An advanced administration interface to manage the data on your website
- Flexible permissions system to share parts of your website with other registered users.
All these features allow you to create a tailored user experience, while still being able to scale and add new functionalities easily.
3. Seamless Integration
With a few clicks and minimal configuration, the framework provides you with an admin panel to build your own backend as well as automatically generate documentation for each endpoint.
Strapi Content Management Framework (CMS) is the perfect solution for companies who want to make their data available on mobile and web applications.
We like to compare it with Apple’s App Store: if you build an iOS application, you will need a Mac computer; similarly, in order to integrate your eCommerce platform into different apps, you will need to use Strapi.
The CMS is built with React, an open-source Javascript framework that makes it easy for developers and editors alike to build great user experiences.
It comes with prebuilt libraries like Google Analytics or Stripe in order to ensure your website meets the highest standards of eCommerce platforms.
By using Strapi, you can build the best platform using microservices. Microservices are the future of web development.
They are the perfect solution to build scalable platforms that will be able to easily integrate with other applications or devices (IoT for example).
This means that with Strapi, you can easily stitch together your app using many APIs.
4. Provides an Extra Layer of Security
Security is a top priority as long as eCommerce is concerned. Your store must provide the best security with state of art infrastructures to keep your system safe.
For this, you need an extra layer of protection like Strapi which is very helpful for eCommerce sites by providing essential features like CSRF Protection and XSS Filtering inbuilt into it.
These guarantees that your site is protected from security threats and it will be a lot easier for you to create dynamic websites.
Strapi provides out-of-the-box tools for managing content, users, and permissions.
It also offers authentication modules that make it easy to register new users on your website or app without any development work required from you.
This saves time and money as well as reduces the risk of security vulnerabilities.
With Strapi, you can easily secure your API with any authentication method you like: Oauth provider (Google+, Facebook, etc.), Basic Auth, JWT tokens, or even custom methods.
It’s a great way to keep users’ data safe. Strapi comes with a built-in authentication system.
This is perfect for your eCommerce app because you want to know which users have access to what content.
5. Shorten your time-to-market
With Strapi, you do not have to spend time on backend development. The process is really fast and easy for any kind of usage (CRUD, content management, or real-time APIs).
Imagine you want to refresh your site’s design and you need to update your content. You can do that in a few minutes thanks to Strapi :
- Create or clone an existing project from the marketplace
- Edit configuration file (strapi.conf) with frontend/backend development frameworks, languages used, etc.
- Add new controllers for Content Management
- Add new routes
- Update database fields if needed
That’s it. You don’t need to write any backend code or configuration file for that use case.
Strapi will automatically create the APIs you are looking for and also your frontend side views (admin panel & public website).
Final Words
Now you know the importance of Strapi to eCommerce. It is a painless solution for your eCommerce project.
Whether you are a backend developer or an eCommerce business owner, you will find the benefits of Strapi.
Head over to the official website, and explore what Strapi can do for you.