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Your Full-Service Digital Agency & AI Strategy Partner
Real strategists. Real AI tools. Real growth. — 1Digital® since 2012
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Headless Commerce Development
We build the storefront. You keep — or pick — the backend. Shopify, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, commercetools, Medusa, or your own GraphQL. Frontend-led headless without a full replatform.
Stack we ship on
Backends we integrate
Reviewed by the 1Digital® Development TeamLast updated:
Most SaaS commerce platforms ship a backend you love and a storefront you tolerate. Headless commerce splits the two. We build a fast, modern Next.js storefront — branded, accessible, AI-search-ready, edge-rendered — and plug it into the commerce engine you already run.
Keep Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, or Adobe Commerce as the backend. Or pick a composable engine like commercetools or Medusa.js. Either way, the storefront is yours: every byte, every component, every analytics event, every schema entry.
If you're considering a full backend rebuild too, jump to custom platforms. If you need to replatform first, see platform migrations.
When headless is the right call
When it isn't
Not the right fit? Start with our SaaS platform hub— we'll match you to the right backend before you spend a dollar on headless.
What ships in the storefront
Every headless build ships on the Next.js App Router with React Server Components, ISR + edge caching, and a typed design system. We treat performance as a feature, not a launch-night scramble — Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals are budgeted from the kickoff brief, monitored in production, and tied to revenue dashboards.
The codebase is yours from day one. Vercel deploy, your repo, your CI/CD, your environment variables. We document component boundaries so a successor team — yours or another agency — can pick up the build without a knowledge handoff tax.
Deep links into how each layer ships: design system + UX, development & engineering, conversion optimization.
Content that ships with it
The storefront ships with Workspace CMS — our proprietary platform for editorial content, lead capture, per-page SEO overrides, and schema management. Non-technical editors update copy, swap hero imagery, and tune meta tags from a clean admin. No PR. No deploy. No ticket queue.
Schema, alt-tags, redirects, and structured data are first-class citizens. The same control panel drives our AI SEO work — your storefront is built to be cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini from launch day, not retrofitted after the fact.
Deep links: eCommerce SEO, answer-engine optimization, agentic-commerce readiness.
Backends we plug into
The storefront is platform-agnostic. We've shipped headless on each of these — and we'll tell you when a SaaS theme would serve the business better than a rebuild.
Open SaaS, headless-ready out of the box. Strong B2B, low TCO.
GraphQL Storefront API · BigCommerce Catalyst
Fastest path to launch. Hydrogen + Oxygen for first-party headless, or roll-your-own Next.js on the Storefront API.
Storefront API · Hydrogen · Functions
Catalog depth, B2B price lists, multi-store. Decouple the frontend, keep the engine.
GraphQL · REST · PWA Studio
Enterprise MACH backend — global, multi-currency, multi-channel. Pair with Next.js for the customer-facing layer.
API-first · headless by design
Open-source headless engine on Node + TypeScript. Maximum control, plugin-based, self-hosted.
REST + admin · self-hosted on Vercel, AWS, GCP, Azure
Already have a custom commerce engine? We build the Next.js storefront against your existing GraphQL or REST contract.
Your contract · your data shape
This site is the proof
Next.js 16 on Vercel. TypeScript strict. Our own Workspace CMS managing copy, schema, redirects, and lead routing. Claude-augmented development through every commit. Every page you're reading on this site is built the way we build for clients — because eating our own cooking is the only credible pitch.
Workspace is the proprietary in-house platform we built to run every account end-to-end — SEO surface management, AI-augmented outreach, content production, and transparent agency-wide reporting. You get the benefit on every engagement, without learning the software. Here's what it does behind the scenes:
Feature 1 of 4
Every SEO engagement gets its own live project view in your portal — kickoff through ongoing campaign, with checkpoint progress, keywords tracked, content delivered, and pending-review counts. Your team and your assigned strategists side-by-side, with direct contact for every role.
Feature 2 of 4
Every article we draft for your engagement queues up in your portal for review. Approve, request changes, or watch it move to Deployed — all without an email chain. Status pills (Approved · Changes Requested · Pending Review · Deployed) make the loop visible at a glance, and the agency can't ship anything you haven't seen.
Feature 3 of 4
Deliverables, content pipeline, team hours — and transparent AI costs — rolled up across every active engagement. The same dashboard our leadership watches first thing every morning, with month-to-date numbers that move in real time.
Feature 4 of 4
Every account ships with a live client portal — projects, pending reviews, your assigned strategists, your own team roster, and a real-time recent-activity feed. The same dashboard our strategists work from. No black box, no decoder ring required.
How we ship
Six phases. Vercel preview URLs from week one. Revenue keeps running on the existing stack until parity is proven.
Audit the existing storefront, map data contracts, and lock the integration approach for your backend. Performance budget set, schema graph drafted, success metrics agreed before a line of code.
Token-first design system in Figma + code. Components built for accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA) and Core Web Vitals from the first prototype.
Next.js App Router. Server components first. ISR + edge caching where it matters. Vercel preview URLs for every PR so stakeholders see progress weekly.
Lighthouse and CWV gates in CI. Cross-browser, cross-device. Real-user monitoring wired before the cutover, not after.
URL mapping, 301 redirects, schema parity, AI-crawler accessibility (llms.txt, GPTBot, ClaudeBot), analytics baselines. Quiet, boring launches are good launches.
Post-launch retainer: CRO, AI SEO, content velocity, dependency upgrades, and the swap-in of new backends or services as the roadmap evolves.
Frequently asked
Building a decoupled storefront (typically Next.js) that talks to a commerce backend via API instead of using the backend's bundled theme layer. The storefront controls UX, performance, and SEO independently of the commerce engine.
Headless decouples the frontend only. Composable (MACH) decouples every layer — frontend, cart, search, CMS, payments — into best-of-breed services. Headless is a step; composable is the full architecture.
No. You can keep Shopify, BigCommerce, or Adobe Commerce as the backend and only swap the storefront. That's the typical 1Digital engagement on this page.
A production Next.js storefront on an existing backend typically takes 10–16 weeks. Full composable rebuilds with a new backend run 4–9 months.
BigCommerce, Shopify (Storefront API / Hydrogen), Adobe Commerce (Magento), commercetools, Medusa.js, Saleor, Swell, and custom GraphQL/REST APIs.
Yes when done right — full SSR/ISR control, faster Core Web Vitals, and structured-data ownership. Done poorly (heavy client-side rendering, no SSR) it can be worse. Done by an SEO-led agency, the gains are large. The full playbook lives at headless commerce SEO.
Every headless build is custom-scoped, so we don't publish fixed price bands. Cost is driven by integration scope (which backend, which ERP / OMS / PIM, B2B vs. consumer, multi-region), the depth of the design system, and whether the engagement is frontend-only or includes a composable backend rebuild. Tell us about the project and a senior engineer replies within one business day with a scoped estimate.
Stores under ~$2M GMV with simple catalog needs and no custom UX pain — the operational overhead rarely pays back. Honest answer matters more than the sale.
Request a proposal
Share your current backend, the constraint you've hit, and your roadmap. A senior engineer replies within one business day with a pricing band, candidate architectures, and a draft phase plan.
Custom solutions cluster
SSR/ISR rendering, edge caching, schema graphs, and llms.txt for headless storefronts.
Read moreShopify Hydrogen + Oxygen — schema, performance, and AI-engine accessibility.
Read moreBigCommerce Catalyst on Next.js — schema, SSR, and structured-data ownership.
Read moreComposable, MACH, and headless backends — Medusa.js, commercetools, custom engines.
Read moreStorefronts ready for ChatGPT Shopping, Perplexity Shop, and Gemini.
Read moreSenior engineers building durable, scalable platforms across the stack.
Read moreUX, design systems, and brand-led storefront design.
Read moreRe-platform without losing SEO, customers, or sleep.
Read moreCompare every backend platform we ship on side-by-side.
Read more