Frontastic Explains: What is a Frontend?

What’s a frontend in modern commerce?

Since the beginning of the Corona crisis, the importance of an online presence for businesses grew rapidly. It’s never been more important for retailers to present a digital interface for the communication towards their customers. The behavior of customers worldwide changed practically overnight: from instore brand experience to online shopping.

We’ll look closer at what a digital interface can look like and what frontend really means.

What’s the difference between frontend and backend?

Classic commerce or CMS systems (and websites) usually have two main components: the backend and the frontend.

The backend is where all the code and data goes that’s needed to put the functionalities of your site together. And it’s responsible for storing processes and data. This could be names, descriptions and prices of products for an online shop, functions and optical settings in a CMS system or in complex B2B projects also processes, management options or tax calculations.

The frontend is what the user sees. It’s the service responsible for displaying the content in a way users understand. It enables them to use the site. State of the art frontends work on different devices quickly and optimally. There are many different types of frontend and devices they can be displayed on.
For online businesses, the shop is the frontend and if someone runs a blog or an online magazine, the frontend is where your readers read your articles. Basically, any frontend is a digital storefront.

Devices can be smartphones, desktop browsers, tablets, displays at the Point-of-Sale or even wearables like smartwatches. The variety of possible devices is already very broad. But with the speed new technologies are invented nowadays, the importance of a flexible frontend is even more urgent.
Say you have an online shop: Without the backend, your customers wouldn’t be able to complete their purchase because they could enter all their details into a checkout form but their data wouldn’t be saved or processed anywhere, and their purchase couldn’t be completed. And without the frontend, your customers wouldn’t be able to use your site to even know what to buy.

What makes a state of the art frontend?

To be state of the art, a frontend should fit the following requirements:

• Goal and topic of the site are clear, also the content should be interesting and on point
• Ranking in search engines should be optimal (Search Engine Optimization)
• Accessible and usable on every device without any problems or restrictions (Responsive Design)
• User-friendly and intuitive navigation
• Modern design and an eye to current trends attract the attention of potential customers
• Optimized page speed to avoid dropouts
• Different channels should be connected as social shopping is one of the upcoming trends

Why an unbeatable frontend experience is a key to success

The frontend is the direct connection to your existing or potential customers. A high-class frontend creates trust and adapts the fast changing demands of the users.

Do you need more reasons why creating an unbeatable storefront experience is essential for success in digital commerce?