eCommerce Front-End Development: The Ultimate Guide to 2024
TABLE OF CONTENT
What is Front-end in eCommerce?
Front-end Technologies for eCommerce
Frame For eCommerce Front-end Development
Conclusion
What is Front-end in eCommerce?
Frontend in eCommerce refers to everything that customers interact with and navigate through the online shopping experience. It includes elements like fonts, colors, images, drop-down menus, search bars, product detail pages, and shopping carts. As the first thing customers see when accessing an online store, the front-end needs to have an intuitive interface, visual appeal, good engagement, and conversion levels. There are 3 key elements in eCommerce front-end development, including:
- Web performance: is one of the pillar elements of the front end. The first thing a customer judges once lands on a webpage is its reliable site performance, load times, and ability to respond quickly to user input, a smooth user experience. That is also a factor that helps bring good SEO results. This approach can help ensure that the final product meets the needs and expectations of users, leading to increased engagement and conversions.
- User experience (UX): The overall experience, evaluation, or feeling of the user, which can also be called the user journey focusing on people interacting with the product. This is extremely important because whether users want to return to the website or not, whether they want to use services or make purchases depends on the optimal design of the user experience. It can be seen that when designing standards and improving UX, users will be able to retain their web usage and thereby prolong their web usage behavior, easily promoting user actions (purchases).
- User interface (UI): can be considered the point of interaction and communication between users and a digital store (bridge between brand and customer). If an interface is not good, it can completely affect user interaction, leading to ineffective use, reducing the value of the product, and negative reviews from users. So a user interface needs to have a streamlined layout that simplifies tasks and fully meets the user’s requirements.
Front-end Technologies for eCommerce
Since the frontend is the layer that users will see and interact with, it is important that eCommerce frontend developers not only make their website look good but also function at its best. Here are several technologies that are usually applied in eCommerce front-end development:
- Angular.js: is a structured framework for dynamic web applications. It allows you to use HTML as a template language and allows you to extend HTML syntax to express your application components clearly and concisely. You need to have in-depth knowledge of javascript because the nature of AngularJS is a Single-Page operation, using API to retrieve data, so you need to know DHTML and AJAX techniques.
- React.js: is an open-source developed by Facebook, which itself is a Javascript library that is dedicated to helping developers create user interfaces and user interfaces. In addition to supporting quick interface construction, limiting errors during coding, and improving website performance, it can also reuse components.
- Vue.js: is an open-source JavaScript framework used to develop interactive web interfaces. VueJS focuses on the view layer. You just need to use Vue’s core library and integrate it with existing libraries or projects, then you can integrate the necessary tools, features, and modern techniques to easily meet your needs. ease the need to build single-page applications with much higher complexity.
- Node.js: is an open source, server-side runtime, with cross-platform support. Node.Js is designed to develop scalable network applications, which is a key element in web programming. It uses JavaScript and a family of modules to provide a cross-platform, asynchronous, event-driven runtime environment.
Frame For eCommerce Front-end Development
Now that you have a clear understanding of what frontend is and how it contributes to improving customer experience, let’s delve further into the realm of eCommerce development and the presentation layer. When it comes to starting eCommerce front-end development, you are faced with two choices: a monolithic legacy solution or a composable commerce stack that begins with a storefront. Let’s explore the key distinctions between these two options and, more importantly, determine which approach aligns better with your business requirements.
Option 1: Monolith legacy platforms
Monolith legacy platforms are a large block of code with many modules, the components contained in the website are linked together as a single version, so even if there are small changes, they will also impact the other components. other components on the web. These platforms work as all-in-one systems. This architecture has three components including database, user interface, and server-side application. However, while monoliths may be simple and streamlined, they also have flaws. Monolithic applications have difficulty keeping up with fast-moving industries because they can be inelastic and difficult to scale, and implementing new features or updates can be very time-consuming and complicated. This brings various benefits for eCommerce front-end development, including:
- Robust IT infrastructure: Companies can use traditional platforms to connect and deploy components and features together as a cohesive unit. This approach simplifies the operations and development process: Integrating components and functions into a single unit simplifies the application building and development process. This way, programmers can develop applications quickly and save more time.
- Effortless scalability: The monolithic architecture enables seamless expansion and deployment of additional application versions, facilitating developers in enhancing the system’s ability to handle increased loads and processing demands.
- Superior performance: Operating as a unified entity, the monolithic model delivers optimal performance by eliminating the need for constant communication between various components, surpassing the efficiency of other distributed architectures.
Option 2: Headless commerce for eCommerce front-end development
As the world of eCommerce continues to change and develop, the birth of Headless Commerce is well received and will become a widely used technology with the ability to distribute content effectively. This is not simply a trend but a revolutionary solution to the way businesses deploy eCommerce website that provides more flexibility and efficiency in providing a seamless shopping experience. circuit for customers. So what is headless commerce? In short, it can be understood as an architectural solution that allows separating frontend and backend to build a customized and unique eCommerce website. Companies and startups can take advantage of this to build great customer experiences across all channels and devices.
Headless commerce is emerging as a forward-looking norm for the eCommerce sector. Businesses understand that sticking to outdated technology approaches can seriously affect their operations, leading to prolonged time-to-market or increased risks in the event of a breakdown.
Embracing a composable approach offers a wide range of advantages such as enhancing website speed, improving customer happiness, and boosting profits through:
- Decoupled user interface
- Personalize/optimize experience
- Flexibility and scalability
- Multi-channel order fulfillment
What’s more, the best part is that you don’t need to undertake a major re-platforming project. Instead, you can start by replacing the user interface and start enjoying the benefits at a much faster rate. But how can you ensure that your user interface is fulfilling its role effectively?
- Put customer experience first: Placing customers at the forefront is the guiding principle of operating a company in a manner that prioritizes making customers feel valued and respected. It is also a key objective in enhancing your eCommerce frontend development project.
- Ensure fast load time: Frontend website optimization is crucial for captivating and retaining user engagement. Slow loading websites are highly disliked by users, and this can result in losing numerous potential customers, opportunities, and revenue. Additionally, websites with faster load times have a higher chance of ranking higher in search results, thus attracting more organic traffic. Therefore, implementing frontend optimization is essential to guarantee smooth browsing experiences and maintain your valuable audience.
- Implement responsive design: No matter how customers use devices such as desktop computers, laptops, or mobile devices, responsive design can adapt. When executing eCommerce front-end development, you need to focus on a responsive design that allows customers can use it across multiple devices and systems.
- Frontend as a Service for eCommerce: FEaaS offers a comprehensive solution for creating an effective storefront, covering everything from construction to launch. By utilizing FEaaS, eCommerce developers can build, test, and deliver engaging frontend experiences in a faster, more efficient, and cost-effective manner. This service primarily focuses on frontend development and cloud infrastructure, operating independently from the commercial backend.
Conclusion
This article aims to provide you with valuable insights into the significance of front-end in eCommerce. The front-end plays a pivotal role in driving conversions in the realm of online business as it directly influences the customer experience. In the face of intensifying development and competition, establishing a website with an exceptional front-end holds -importance for achieving success. AHT Tech provides eCommerce front-end development services with years of experience in the IT market and seasoned developers who are skilled in various technologies. Contact us to tell us what you need!