Headless Shopify: Hydrogen, Storefront API, and Shopify Functions for Scalable Commerce

Primary keywords: Headless Shopify, Hydrogen, Shopify Storefront API

Headless commerce with Shopify provides the best of both worlds: Shopify’s backend and CMS with a custom front-end (Hydrogen, Next.js) optimized for SEO and performance.

Why headless Shopify?

• Full control over front-end UX and performance.
• Better Core Web Vitals and SEO when using server-rendered frontends.
• Shopify Functions allow backend customization (discounts, checkout logic) without modifying hosted platform.

Key technologies

1. Hydrogen (React-based framework) or Next.js with the Storefront API for fast product pages.
2. Shopify Functions: extend backend logic at runtime (discounts, shipping, payment behaviors).
3. GraphQL Storefront API: efficient product queries and caching at the edge.

SEO & performance tips

• Use server-side rendering (SSR) or pre-rendering for product and collection pages.
• Implement structured data (Product schema) and Open Graph/Twitter tags.
• Cache API responses at CDN and use incremental revalidation.

Quick example: fetch product via Storefront API

Copy
1const query = `
2  query productByHandle($handle: String!) {
3    productByHandle(handle: $handle) {
4      id
5      title
6      description
7      images(first: 5) { edges { node { url } } }
8      variants(first: 10) { edges { node { price } } }
9    }
10  }
11`;
12const res = await fetch("https://your-shop.myshopify.com/api/2025-07/graphql.json", {
13  method: "POST",
14  headers: { "X-Shopify-Storefront-Access-Token": process.env.SHOPIFY_STOREFRONT_TOKEN, "Content-Type": "application/json" },
15  body: JSON.stringify({ query, variables: { handle } }),
16});