Tier 1 · Know cold

Headless commerce

In one line

Decoupling the customer-facing frontend (the 'head') from the backend commerce engine, connected by APIs.

Fuller explanation

Headless commerce separates the storefront/UI (the 'head') from the backend engine (catalogue, pricing, inventory, orders, payments), connected via REST or GraphQL APIs. This lets frontend and backend teams ship independently and lets one backend power many channels (web, app, kiosk, agent) by building only a new head per channel. It is one of the four MACH principles. The trade-off: you now own and maintain the frontend rather than inheriting a packaged one.

Interview phrase

"Headless means the frontend evolves at marketing's speed while the engine evolves at engineering's speed."