Integrating Vue.js Storefront with Magento 2 – Headless eCommerce Approach

Consumers today demand full control over their decision on the purchase. Entering into a website via desktop and purchasing products is getting outdated. Now people want to buy on the go through their smartphones or through any voice-controlled IoT devices, etc. whatever the source, the craze of using e-commerce platforms hasn’t reduced.

• According to the Statista survey, the total value of global e-commerce is expected to reach $3.75T in 2020.

• Around 80% of internet users have made at least one online purchase.

So in the era of e-commerce, we have faced many techniques in building a digital store. The latest technique is the decoupling or headless eCommerce approach.

What is the Decoupling or Headless Ecommerce approach?

The approach in which the front-end and the back-end of the e-commerce website are decoupled which means the CMS stores manage and deliver content without the front-end delivery layer. The front-end is most cases would be a template or a theme and this is removed leaving the back-end alone. Now the developers can use APIs to process the delivery of products, posts blog, and many more. To be clear, the headless eCommerce architecture of e-commerce is mainly built for the IoT age.

The Real Need for Decoupling or Headless Ecommerce Approach for Magento 2

Although Magento is a feature-rich, open-source e-commerce solution, it still lacks a lot that makes the stores difficult to compete with others. It offers the static theme that is used as front-end and it restricts the performance of the online store. The UI also has a lot of performance issues that result in a higher bounce rate of the site. The one and only solution for these issues are to replace the front-end with an efficient alternative. Here comes the need for a headless eCommerce approach.

By using this headless eCommerce approach we can easily separate Magento functionality from the front-end functionality separately. Now you can access the Magento back-end features to the core.  With the help of decoupled Magento approach, we can permit the front-end technologies to function independently.

To make the front-end more effective we have a lot of frameworks like Angular, React.js, Gatsby, Vue.js and many more. Out of all frameworks, Magento always pairs well with Vue.js.

Magento 2 with Vue.js – A Perfect combinatio

 There are many valuable reasons for having Vue.js as front-end while Majento being the back-end. Let us analyze more about Veu.js and also about its outstanding features.

Veu.js is the currently trending JavaScript front-end framework that beats up all other front-end frameworks with a fair margin.

• Gentle learning curve

This attracts the attention of all beginners and advanced developers. Just by going through the official guide one can start working with Vue.js without having any prior knowledge of any other platforms.

• Modular development environment

Vue.js gives a lot of flexibility and adaptability as per the project needs. One can reuse the code as the single-file components are loosely coupled and it reasonably reduces the developing time. Keeping in mind about future scaling this is ideal for building apps.

• Hassle-free development

The developer gets the real pleasure of developing with Vue.js mainly because of the freedom they get to structure the code. So sorting through the code base is totally hassle-free

• Rich ecosystem and versatility

The developers get complete access to the rich collection of libraries and all other sets of tools. Vue owns a set of DevsTools that comes in the form of the browser extension. Debugging and checking the state of the hierarchy is made simple using DevsTools. With this, you can live-edit your app and can also track custom events.

• Vibrant community

Vue has the most blooming and active community that actively contributes to the development team to effectively use the platform for the application

 The merging of Veu.js with Magento 2

The single-page web application has effectively developed the HTML enhanced by veu.js. The working pattern veu.js with Magento 2 is very simple as the veu.js will be an index page to the browser and will access the data on the template using Magento API. The way of implementing veu.js on Magento 2 will be that vue.js will be managing the front-end operations. For faster rendering on the server-side, Nodejs can be used. And finally, to communicate in between the Magento endpoints, custom APIs can be used. This is how you can merge veu.js with Magento 2.

Just to meet out the UI demands of the new IoT age, the Vue storefront has been designed. Vue.js is light-weighted & good at performance, it can meet out the customers’ customization demands. It is also clear that Vue.js is pre-loaded with APIs that support the decoupled Magento 2 to be implemented in a simple manner.

Correlating data

All the data like products, categories, product-to-categories, attributes, reviews and more synchronized using decoupled magento2 and vue storefront. It also supports the correlation of the shopping carts that are not initially done in the conventional approach.

The real benefits of merging Magento2 with Vue.js

The outcomes of merging Magento2 with Vue.js is unbelievably a benefited one for all the users of the platform.

•  Easy to personalize

The key benefit of getting into the headless eCommerce approach of the e-commerce platform is, we can personalize the store as Vue storefront is the most flexible framework for writing templates. The front-end developers will have the total freedom to personalize the store according to the demand of the customers.

•  Boosted performance

The performance is highly guaranteed with Vue.js as front-end. It is capable of handling a large amount of user traffic. It also allows storing the searched components in the cache and it will work effectively offline without downloading it from the server every time they searched.

•  Highly adaptable

The front-end designed with Vue.js is highly compatible with all devices. And people can effectively use the platform that is totally hassle-free.

Progressive web apps

PWA is the acronym of Progressive web application and is a website that can give a look and feel like a mobile app for mobile users. Evolution has created on the mobile web by PWA. One can develop mobile and web app all at once using PWA technology. One can gain all the app-style experience with the help of PWA. So PWA websites are fast, secure and highly responsive and can work offline.

Why Magento PWA?

PWA possesses many unique features that made to stand alone in the crowd. Magento PWA provides a reliable methodology that can work even in offline. A faster approach is another key tool for attracting more customers as they hate to visit a page that takes too much of loading time. The rich feel of the website will make the customer engage with the site.

Magento2 is becoming a progressive web application platform. There is a huge response from Magento users. You need to understand the primary reason to convert your website to Magento PWA.

• Enhanced user experience – the user can get the perfect feel of using a mobile app while using the Magento PWA. One can get instant loading and enjoy faster response time. Users can also use the app even in offline mode.

• Low-cost for development – if you are developing a native app then you need to have two separate codings, one for android and another for IOS. But with PWA you can have a single code that can be operated irrespective of the OS.

• No installation – with the Magento2 PWA store, there is any need to install any native app. All you need is to save the icon on your home screen. When the icon clicked the page opened in the browser. Thus the store felt like a native app and mobile storefront simultaneously.

• Fullscreen mode – the Magento PWA website will never have a browser URL or even a navigation tool at the lower end of the page. We can get a full-screen mobile view that will let us get an experience of using a perfect mobile native app. Even popular apps like Whatsapp and twitter are using the same feature.

• Futuristic technology – PWA is going to be the futuristic technology that all Magento store is going to own. This is mainly because of the satisfaction gained by mobile users.

Vue Storefront Magento2

Vue storefront Magento 2 deals with the most flexible framework and trending technologies to develop faster stores in lesser time. As Vue storefront is platform-agnostic along with Magento2 it can used with any other platforms. Project production can fasten up. Every Magento Vue Storefront website will possess all the below mentioned e-commerce features.

• Smarter Checkout, payment, and shipping process.
• Simple SEO optimization
• Google reports & Analytics
• Easier Marketing & Promotions
• Clear Order Management
• Trustworthy Customer services
• On-time inventory management
• Perfect integration with all third-party software.

Magento Image Optimization

Images are a heavy piece of content. The main reason for the loading issue for any website is because of poor image optimization. A recent survey has proved that most of the mobile users leave the website page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. To reduce the bounce rate, one needs to concentrate on page speed and website performance. The optimized images added as a supplement to all your SEO efforts. Let us check the methods and procedures for Magento image optimization.

Compress images

When images uncompressed they create a huge overhead for your website. Using any of the image optimization tools you need to compress the image or even you can use the content delivery network (CDN) and reduce the size of the image without affecting the quality of the image. Thus you can enhance the loading speed of the website.

Switch to modern compression and File formats

There are many new efficient image formats like WebP that can reduce the image size and support the performance of the website. WebP can save up to 30% in all JPEG images with no image quality loss. 

Use vector images

Vector images offer good image quality, minimum file size, and better scaling. Any Magento store will be highly benefited by using vector images mainly for their icons and other small UI elements.

Use multi-version images based on screen size

The real challenge for any Magento developer is to provide a responsive design. For example, narrowing your screen from 960 pixels to 240 pixels will force the server to convert the wider image to a narrow one. Magento can provide you the version of the images that will suit your device display.

By now, we all are very clear that the future of e-commerce is purely going to be a headless eCommerce approach. You can go for endless customization and gain enriched UI. So it is time to shift your e-commerce platform to headless eCommerce approach and stay along with the technological updation.