Which Headless Commerce Platforms Are GDPR Compliant?

Chances are you’ve heard of the term ‘headless commerce’ by now. It’s been the buzzword in e-commerce and retail for quite some time. Since e-commerce systems handle customer data, they have to be compliant with data protection laws such as the EU GDPR. Find out if and how headless commerce solutions are GDPR compliant.

What is Headless Commerce?

Headless commerce is a relatively modern form of commerce, where frontend and backend systems are ‘decoupled’- meaning they are not ‘stacked upon each other’ but instead share data by using APIs.

This allows for greater flexibility and control over the frontend and backend and is considered in the industry to be a more future-proof approach to building modern commerce solutions. We wrote about the differences and similarities between these approaches a few weeks ago, if you’d like to know more. 

One of the great drivers behind the demand for headless content management systems is speed. Decoupling the frontend and backend layers generally means leaner systems and, thus, faster serving content across multiple customized endpoints. Customers are demanding increasingly quicker load times, so speed equals profit. 

To get an idea of how decoupled commerce is structured, have a look at this diagram down below, created by Shopify.

A more challenging aspect of headless commerce is security. Of course, your use of the software will always determine how secure it is in practice, but generally speaking, decoupled eCommerce solutions are considered more secure because how they are structured - with a separated backend and frontend - allows for better security protocols. This is also important in light of recent GDPR changes.

Why is the GDPR relevant when considering headless commerce providers?

Let’s take a small step back to consider why the GDPR is relevant when comparing headless commerce providers. Slowly but steadily, the industry is getting used to managing consent for visitors about cookies, newsletters, and analytics tracking. 

For many current commerce solutions, there are of course plugins that can address those issues relatively easily. However, as we argued , the industry as a whole might not yet grasp the scope of the implications of the GDPR. The regulation addresses all aspects of the storage of customer data, including: