eCommerce continues to be one of the “covid-advantaged” areas that are inflecting in the current environment. Though overall consumer spending is down due to recessionary economics, eCommerce has grown 30 percent year over year, which is roughly two years worth of growth in ten months.

This has led to an influx of activity in eCommerce enablement. We’ve seen established players like Shopify accelerate product rad maps, while non-eCommerce players pivot towards online selling functionality. Some retail giants are meanwhile embracing eCommerce with tangible results.

The latest company to meet the moment is AirTank. Specializing in a headless approach to SMB eCommerce enablement (more on that in a bit), it recently launched its ZiftrShop platform. We dove into the drivers and dynamics on a recent episode of Localogy Insider (video below).

Head in the Game

Back to the headless approach, it’s all the rage in the SaaS world. Its advantages include software that’s more flexible and easier to deploy as it de-couples segments of the stack to make them more modular and customizable. Doubling down on that principle, AirTank takes an API-centric approach.

“With today’s commerce platforms, brands are locked into large monolithic products,” AirTank CEO Jason Tabling told Localogy Insider. “We built ZiftrShop with this problem in mind as a modular, API-first platform that is truly headless. That means if you want to swap out your payment provider, CMS, or order management system you can do that with ease.”

One of the benefits of this approach is a larger addressable market, given that modularity and customization make the platform widely applicable. ZiftrShop also boasts easy onboarding and customization in building or migrating eCommerce websites that are feature-rich and stable.

These attributes have been validated in trials with select partners in the health-tech sector, including SoClean and Cefaly. Speaking to the platform’s performance, SoClean achieved a 64 percent decrease in average server response time and a 46 percent drop in average page download time.

SMB-Friendly

As part of the above strategy to broaden its addressable market, Tabeling is also big on accomodating down-market SMBs. This is done by addressing common SMB pain points such as reducing the need for in-house IT resources. ZiftrShop has both self-serve and support options baked in.

ZiftrShop also marks AirTank’s expansion from services to products. Following the SaaS playbook, there are scalability and recurring-revenue benefits for the latter. Coupling that with a big-ticket (though inherently less scalable) consulting model can achieve the best of both worlds.

This dual approach also engenders a feedback loop to refine software products. Because AirTank is well versed in implementing eCommerce software for its clients, it’s primed to launch and deploy its own platform. This also gives it the perspective to engineer and maintain a demand-driven feature set.

“Our platform was built to acknowledge those different needs, all while giving the benefits of a SaaS platform,” said Tabling. “We’ve already eclipsed $100 Million in annual transactions, and shown an average of 40 percent improvement in site performance. These are our early proof points as to why ZiftrShop has a place in the e-commerce market.”

See the full interview below.