Headless commerce is fashionable, but not always necessary. We have worked with three clients who migrated to a headless architecture — Next.js frontend, Sanity CMS for content management, and Shopify as the e-commerce backend. The results were mixed.
In one case, the Core Web Vitals improvements were dramatic — LCP dropped from 4.2s to 1.8s, and organic traffic grew by 34% over six months. In a second case, it was a technology project with no measurable business return — maintenance costs tripled and the team lacked the resources to fully leverage the new infrastructure.
The key criterion: if your e-commerce store has reached a point where standard Shopify themes are a technical constraint — in content management, personalisation, or Core Web Vitals — then headless is worth a conversation. If you're still below 50k monthly visitors, focus on foundational optimisation first.
Full article coming soon.