How to speed up a traditional WooCommerce store and increase sales?

By implementing Next.js technology for frontend development and utilizing the dedicated Vercel server, we can achieve extremely fast loading times for the store. This is made possible through server-side rendering of certain components by Next.js, caching content for quicker retrieval, and the built-in image optimization systems.

With templates, achieving excellent loading performance is indeed more challenging. The loading time is dependent on the entire system, plugins, and database response time. To implement caching mechanisms and image optimization, several additional plugins need to be added.

One of the major advantages of using Next.js frontend deployed on Vercel servers is its speed and performance. Vercel utilizes edge caching solutions to serve content from the nearest server to the user, reducing delays and improving page loading time. As a result, the store will load quickly from anywhere in the world.

In the standard configuration of WooCommerce with a template, the entire store is hosted on a single static server located in a specific location. This means that if our server is in Poland and a user visits our website from the USA, the loading time can be significantly longer due to delays in transmitting data from Poland to the USA.

With Vercel servers, making new changes is automatic and occurs without interrupting the website's functionality. The code updates instantly once it is updated on the production branch. Throughout this process, we don't touch the backend (WooCommerce), so there's no need to transfer any data such as orders, customers, products, etc.

In traditional WooCommerce, frontend changes often require corresponding changes on the backend (WooCommerce) and its plugins. The process of implementing such changes can be significantly time-consuming. Before deploying new changes to the server, we must temporarily disable the site and perform a migration of all the latest data. This entire process can take several hours.

Building, maintaining, and evolving the frontend in Next.js is a well-structured process. The code is managed using a version control system. Each new functionality is carefully tested before its implementation. Additionally, with error monitoring tools, we can track the website's performance in real-time during the user's purchase process, identify any issues, and fix them as soon as possible.

In most WooCommerce template projects, there is a lack of code version control and proper testing processes. The code is usually overwritten by different developers and directly uploaded to production without ensuring everything works correctly. This often leads to numerous errors and even complete store shutdowns. The lack of error monitoring capabilities means that many issues go undetected for months, causing some customers to leave for other stores due to discouragement caused by such situations.

In Headless WooCommerce, we can fully customize the appearance of the store to suit our needs. This flexibility, combined with automated deployment of changes, facilitates the implementation of new functionalities and optimizations. Additionally, Vercel enables conducting A/B tests, making it easy to evaluate whether a new change contributes to increased sales conversion.

Traditional WooCommerce templates often offer limited editing capabilities, which restricts the customization of the purchasing process and making changes to the checkout section. Conducting optimizations and A/B testing can be time-consuming and requires modifying the WooCommerce code, which can be problematic.

Frontend based on Next.js is universal and can be easily connected to technologies other than WooCommerce. This flexibility means that if, in the future, WooCommerce no longer meets your needs, migrating to another eCommerce engine or content management system will be fast and cost-effective since the frontend remains largely unchanged.

A WooCommerce template is specifically designed to work with WooCommerce and cannot be easily connected to other eCommerce engines or content management systems. Investing in a new template may become worthless if your store significantly expands and you wish to switch to a more suitable technology for a large-scale eCommerce solution.