How to increase conversions with a custom architecture on Vercel

How to reap the benefits of headless

You might already know that adopting a headless, composable architecture is a great way to ensure your digital storefront is high-performing, scalable, and increasing in conversions each year. However, let’s recap some of the benefits of headless quickly before exploring how to reap them. 

Achieve peak dev velocity

With a composable architecture, your devs manage less code and less configuration that comes with maintaining a monolithic structure. Plus, they don’t have to maintain infrastructure for things like content delivery or product stock—and you don’t have to pay for it.

Future-proof your company

If you need to switch ecommerce platforms (or other areas of your stack), you can seamlessly swap the backend and make a smooth migration. Adapting to the new provider’s API would require only minor frontend changes, and your users will never notice the difference.

Seamless personalization 

With a headless setup, you can use your favorite frontend platform to create fast, personalized experiences for your customers, without relying on one-size-fits-all monolithic solutions. 

Top security

Using a monolithic frontend implies using the same backend. As such, vulnerabilities can be exploited. Keep your backend infrastructure private by going headless.

Faster time-to-deployment 

Monolithic architecture is slow and difficult to scale. Out-of-the-box code on headless solutions is quick and creates a lighter workload for developers.

Now that we’ve covered the benefits, the question is: How do you make the switch? 

Vercel makes the adoption of a custom architecture simple. By using Vercel as the frontend of your headless infrastructure, you can surpass your competitors and key KPIs. 

Monolith vs. headless architecture

Augmenting your legacy all-in-one infrastructure with a headless approach provides peak flexibility, performance, and speed—all of which are essential to thriving in today’s market. Let’s take a quick look at the differences between the two options. 

A monolithic architecture

A monolithic architecture is an all-in-one solution, made up of a combined frontend and backend. They’re offered by various tech vendors with the promise of simplicity and ease. However, organizations using a monolithic setup often struggle with a lack of flexibility, poor site performance, and trouble customizing their setup to their specific needs. Some of the cons to a monolithic architecture are:

• Tech debt. Growing tech debt can lead to application outages, higher maintenance costs, and security vulnerabilities.
• Legacy monolith applications. Typically, teams using legacy monolithic apps are locked into tech that was brought in a while ago and are hard to replace. Tooling and infrastructure are often built around this, codifying it into place and slowing down the processes behind the app—and the app itself.
• Poor site Performance. Monolithic users often struggle with slow site performance and load times due to API performance, data transfer, and the caching limitations of the legacy platform or homegrown system.

A headless, composable architecture

To combat the limitations that come with monolithic architecture, headless, composable architecture has grown in popularity in the last few years. A composable stack’s modularity allows for more flexibility and better performance.

Rather than using one provider for both the frontend and backend, companies can choose one company for their backend and another for their frontend. These pieces are then combined using an API for a seamless experience that’s been custom-built for the business.

Headless with Vercel

From analytics to zero-config integrations, going headless with Vercel creates a top experience for frontend teams—and their stakeholders. 

Peak performance with Vercel Analytics

See the results of your launch in real time, from real users with Vercel Analytics. With real data over time that developers can map to changes in the code base, your team can quickly pinpoint bottlenecks and make revenue-impacting changes.

64% site performance improvement

With Vercel Analytics, we can track site performance and optimize while developing. This improved our site performance score by 64%!

Seamless collaboration with Vercel Previews

Iterate faster with Vercel Previews. From development to production, Vercel’s built-in CI/CD automatically provides preview deployments for every git push. First-class integrations for GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket enable a top-tier collaborative experience with zero configuration. 

1.2 million

Preview Deployments per week on Vercel

Near-instant updates with ISR

Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) allows you to update blog posts, product pages, and landing pages without redeploying your site. You can even preview these pages using your headless backend of choice. 

Say hello to better performance, heightened security, and faster time to market. 

Painless integrations with zero configuration

Experience all your favorite tools in one place, no complex configuration required. 

Integrations allow you to extend the capabilities of Vercel and connect with third-party platforms or services. The integration marketplace provides you with curated integrations that extend and automate your workflow.

Use case: Increasing conversions and revenue with a headless infrastructure at Parachute

Parachute is a modern lifestyle brand that offers thoughtfully designed products using premium quality materials. After seven years of growth, their team began to feel the limitations of their Shopify, all-in-one, solution. 

The team combined Shopify with Contentful and Vercel’s Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) for added flexibility. Now, their developers are set free from working on daily infrastructure maintenance, and the content team can make page and product updates as needed. 

By switching from Shopify to a headless infrastructure, Parachute improved page load times by 60% while increasing conversions and performance