Vue Storefront is the most recent fascinating project to emerge from the headless content management trend. It’s a major deal for eCommerce developers like us, and it’s something shop owners should be aware of, as it makes significant strides in addressing issues like portability and page speed that some eCommerce services are struggling to curb.
This post provides an overview of Vue Storefront and how it may help you construct a better online shop.
The Big Picture
The objective behind Vue Storefront is to provide a minimalist eCommerce storefront for your online shop that can be used with any backend technology. A simple reusable collection of components to add product carts, listings, checkout, and user profile features to your website (or any site) and connect to any backend that allows a headless connection through an API.
It allows you freedom and flexibility in the design of your business and the certainty that you may change out your gear at any time with relative simplicity.
As a result, you may start your new store with Vue Storefront as the frontend but Shopify as the backend.
If you decide you don’t like Shopify after a while, you can transfer to Magento or BigCommerce (or whatever you choose) and maintain the same front end without affecting the client experience.
Vue Storefront is the next stage in the headless architectural trend and the first significant participant in headless eCommerce. The developers have worked hard to provide a strong collection of tools that work for shop owners (producing quick page loads and a pleasant UI) and on the developer perspective with solid implementation assistance.
Part of the MACH Alliance
Vue Storefront is a member of the MACH Alliance, a non-profit organization devoted to assisting businesses that create or advocate for open, accessible technologies.
They want to shift the focus away from monolithic organizations, where vendor lock-in may make it difficult for enterprises to explore new technologies and toward a more flexible, open, and equitable technological environment.
The Benefits of Using Vue Storefront
The website load speed of Vue Storefront is one of its main selling factors. The platform’s creators recognize this as a key ranking element for search engines and have built it in.
Headless technology, in general, is intended to result in quicker page loads, and Vue Storefront takes a significant step forward for eCommerce by including this as a key component of their service.
Vue Storefront comes with the ability to develop a Progressive Web App (PWA) eCommerce experience right out of the box. It has app-like functionalities (meaning it feels like an app while remaining a website). In addition, it provides offline functionality, allowing consumers to continue shopping even if their internet connection goes down.
It offers lightning-fast performance, so consumers aren’t bothered by page loading. It also offers other features that provide an app-like experience, such as Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), ElasticSearch, Async communication, and is easily extensible.
The third significant advantage is its default theme which is accessible right out of the box. Also, it employs its UI library (Storefront UI), which is completely customizable.
So, if you’re keen to get to market quickly, the out-of-the-box theme includes all of the components needed to build a conventional online shopping experience: cart, product pages, checkout, account section, etc. And this has been thoroughly considered to create a clean mobile-first UI.
Of course, it is completely customizable utilizing modern design methodologies and can be quickly extended for more complicated shop designs.
Connections Available
The speed with which the Vue Storefront team has managed to bring large technology partners on board is truly astonishing. They already provide a large range of plug-and-play extensions for eCommerce, CMS, and payment platforms.
And the list is constantly rising. For example, the following extensions were available:
These alone make the transition to utilizing Vue Storefront a little easier. In addition, you can be confident that support is available from a diverse partner network from a development standpoint. A working store may be set up fast utilizing existing extensions if necessary.
Wrap up
We attempt to remain technology agnostic in our recommendations because different options apply to different enterprises. However, a fully packed eCommerce storefront that can be easily plugged into any business system and portable is a great value.
Vue Storefront is beneficial at other levels as well. For example, the default theme is more than adequate for small projects with a limited budget and a requirement to get something up and running quickly. And if the company is currently using Shopify or WooCommerce, that’s great.
A component-based architecture that can be worked on separately from the backend functionality without having to start from scratch if business requirements change is a strong selling feature for larger projects where customization is crucial.
