BigCommerce as a backend, Next.js as the storefront
Catalyst or a bespoke Next.js front end sitting on BigCommerce's GraphQL Storefront API, with embedded checkout kept intact.
- Catalyst
- Next.js
- GraphQL
- Tailwind
Headless BigCommerce Development
BigCommerce has one of the friendlier APIs for going headless — the GraphQL Storefront API is complete enough that you rarely have to fall back to the management API on the read path.
We use that to build front ends with real personalisation, while embedded checkout keeps PCI scope and payment configuration on BigCommerce's side of the line.
5
Headless BigCommerce builds live
-48%
Median bounce rate after replatform
94
Median Lighthouse score on mobile
What is actually included
Scope is agreed line by line in the framing week. This is the menu it gets drawn from.
- Catalyst implementation and extension
- GraphQL Storefront API front ends
- Embedded and custom checkout flows
- Multi-storefront routing
- B2B pricing on a headless front end
- Search and recommendation integration
- ISR and edge caching strategy
- Analytics and consent plumbing
Typical stack
Four steps, and you can stop after any of them
Every stage produces something you own outright. Nothing is held hostage to the next invoice.
- 01
Framing week
A paid week where we map the constraints, the existing systems and what success has to look like in numbers. You keep the output whether or not we continue.
- 02
Architecture & plan
A written technical plan with the trade-offs made explicit, a milestone schedule, and a fixed budget band for the first release.
- 03
Build in the open
Two-week increments, a preview URL from day three, and a Slack channel where your team can see the work rather than wait for a demo.
- 04
Launch & operate
Load testing, runbooks and monitoring before go-live, then a support window while your team takes the wheel — or a retainer if you would rather we kept it.
Usually paired with
Projects rarely stay inside one service line. These are the ones that most often come along with it.
Headless & Composable Commerce
A staged path from monolith to composable: front end first, then search, then content, then checkout — each step shippable on its own.
Read moreHeadless Shopify Development
Keep Shopify's checkout, payments and admin. Replace everything a customer sees with a front end you control completely.
Read moreWhat clients say when we are not in the room
These are lightly edited excerpts from reference calls, published with permission.
Headless BigCommerce Development: the questions we get asked
If yours is not covered, ask it directly — the reply comes from whoever would lead the work.
With a paid framing week. Two of our people read the existing code, talk to whoever operates the system daily, and produce a written technical plan covering approach, trade-offs, milestones and a budget band. You keep that plan regardless of what happens next.
The people you meet in the framing week. Clownmind runs senior-only delivery teams of three to five, and we do not hand projects to a second bench after the pitch. Catalyst, Next.js, GraphQL and the rest of the stack listed above are things our team uses daily, not things we subcontract.
Most first releases land between eight and sixteen weeks depending on integration surface. We ship in two-week increments with a preview environment from day three, so there is something real to look at long before launch.
Load testing, runbooks and monitoring go in before go-live. After that you either take it in-house with a documented handover — which is what we design for — or keep us on a retainer for operations and continued delivery.
Yes, from the first commit. Work happens in your repository, under your organisation, on your cloud accounts. There is no proprietary Clownmind framework you have to keep paying to license.
Ready to talk about Headless BigCommerce Development?
Thirty minutes, no deck, and a straight answer about whether we are the right studio for it.