Ecommerce is continually evolving. The way stores are built and managed is changing all of the time. 

Last year, Shopify released a developer preview of Hydrogen, a React-based front-end web development framework that engineering teams can use to build Shopify custom storefronts.

Headless ecommerce involves building the front end and the back end of a store separately leading to some great benefits such as improved speed, limitless functionality and ultimate control over the code. 

Hydrogen and Oxygen provide merchants with a toolkit to build headless ecommerce stores with a backend powered by Shopify Plus.

With Hydrogen’s headless commerce model, you can independently architect the front-end and back-end of your storefront, using Shopify as the commerce engine that powers it.

Shopify also offers globally distributed, built-in hosting on Oxygen, for quick deployment with no loss in uptime or speed.

By using the flexibility of a headless architecture, you can use your API to power a Shopify commerce experience across a wide variety of customer touch points – including web, mobile, gaming platforms, and more – with a fully customized experience that doesn’t sacrifice speed or scalability.

What is Shopify Oxygen?

Shopify Oxygen is the new platform for hosting Hydrogen storefronts directly on Shopify. One big trade-off for headless projects is that a third-party platform is needed to host React, or whichever other framework may be used. With Oxygen, however, React-based Hydrogen stores can integrate seamlessly with the Shopify Storefront API.

This is a massive benefit for store owners, as it simplifies the process of setting up and managing a headless store. It also allows Shopify to provide a higher level of customer support, as they can directly assist store owners with any issues they may be having.

Shopify Oxygen is regionally distributed throughout the world on hundreds of local server locations. 

When a large amount of traffic hits a website, it might crash. As a result, Oxygen attempts to help you maintain your site functioning smoothly.

Shopify has made significant investments in an architecture of global hosting locations, ensuring that businesses are only milliseconds away from their consumers. Combined with the new checkout APIs, introduced at the 2021 Shopify Unite Conference, store owners are now able to sell 100,000s of goods every minute without breaking a sweat.

Unleashing Shopify Front-end Design Possibilities

Shopify is a platform that enables businesses of all sizes to create an online store. It is simple to use and has a wide range of features, which makes it a popular choice for businesses that are looking to establish an online presence. 

But, while Shopify is a great platform for businesses, it is also a very competitive marketplace. 

In order to succeed, businesses need to provide a level of customization and user experience that is unmatched by their competitors. This can be a challenge, as the ecommerce landscape is constantly changing. 

We all know that a shopper is fickle: he is easily scared off by a slow, unresponsive, or frustrating user experience. 

Your store's speed and performance can make or break your customer's experience.. 

If you are not providing the latest in UX, you are in danger of being left behind. 

Shopify Hydrogen and Shopify Oxygen are two of the most significant changes we've seen to the platform in recent years, and they are sure to have a major impact on the ecommerce landscape.

Benefits of Hydrogen + Oxygen 

Hydrogen emerged from the desire to provide you with the highest possible opportunity of success. And, with Shopify Hydrogen, Shopify are taking the opportunity to create the greatest possible user experience for both store owners and customers.

It is crucial to realize that Hydrogen and Oxygen are not replacing Shopify's prior technology stack. 

Shopify Liquid is not being pulled away and will continue to be an important part of Shopify development. Instead, JavaScript and React are being promoted alongside Liquid to reach equality in the Shopify ecosystem. 

Developers that enjoy Liquid will still be able to create Liquid storefronts. However, all developers will have the option of working with Liquid or the new JavaScript and React stack.

This is a huge move for Shopify and a great step forward. 

Because there are many more JavaScript and React developers than Liquid, many more developers will now be able to work with Shopify. 

That can only be a positive thing. 

The more developers that collaborate with a platform, the faster that platform will improve and grow.

Higher-quality Shopify stores are now an unavoidable result of JavaScript and React-based programming. It will be simpler to achieve better levels of speed and integrate more complex content into native Shopify stores. 

With Shopify supporting 1.7 million merchants in 175 countries worldwide, this is a significant boost for the e-commerce industry as a whole.

Using the React-based commerce framework to run your shop, with quick response using Oxygen's hosting, provides a diverse collection of technologies from which your development team can design highly personalized experiences throughout various commerce channels, without losing speed.

Because Hydrogen is completely open-source, developers may share their work for the benefit of the whole Shopify ecosystem - or even sell their own APIs straight through the Shopify marketplace.

Hydrogen's ready-to-use components, hooks, and utilities combined with Shopify data models empower you to move from planning to designing and developing without worrying about architecture or configuration. 

While Hydrogen comes with a selection of beginning templates, your development team can quickly improve the appearance of your storefront with Tailwind CSS.

That means you can easily develop completely personalized ecommerce experiences across all of your consumers' preferred channels - without losing data integration capabilities, design, uptime, or speed.

Conclusion:

We walked through this article with hope that you now have some basic understanding of the Shopify Oxygen and Shopify Hydrogen.

But, if you're still confused about using Shopify because of its lack of customisation options, don’t worry – our team can help make recommendations.

We understand that no platform is perfect for every business and we want to work with you to find the best ecommerce solution for your unique needs, so don't hesitate to Contact Us.