WooCommerce Headless: Coming to FlatWP Pro

E-commerce is the #1 requested feature for FlatWP. We’re building a production-ready headless WooCommerce storefront for the Pro version.

Why Headless WooCommerce?

Traditional WooCommerce sites are slow. Product pages take 3-5 seconds to load, cart updates require full page refreshes, and checkout flows are clunky.

A headless storefront gives you:

• Instant navigation: Products load in <500ms
• Smooth cart updates: Add to cart without page reload
• Modern checkout: One-page, optimized flows
• Better mobile UX: App-like experience

Speed directly impacts conversion. Amazon found 100ms slower = 1% sales drop. For a $1M/year store, that’s $10k annually.

The Technical Approach

We’re using WPGraphQL for WooCommerce to query products, categories, and orders:

query GetProducts {
  products(first: 20) {
    nodes {
      id
      name
      slug
      price
      image {
        url
      }
      ... on SimpleProduct {
        stockQuantity
      }
    }
  }
}

For cart and checkout, we’re using WooCommerce’s REST API with JWT authentication.

What’s Included

FlatWP Pro’s WooCommerce integration will include:

• Product catalog: Grid/list views with filtering and sorting
• Single product pages: Gallery, variants, add to cart
• Cart: Persistent cart with quantity updates
• Checkout: One-page checkout with Stripe integration
• Account pages: Order history, address management
• Search: Product search with filters

All built with Shadcn components, fully typed with TypeScript.

Performance Targets

We’re targeting:

• Product list: <1s LCP
• Product detail: <1.5s LCP
• Add to cart: <200ms
• Checkout page: <2s LCP

These are 3-5x faster than typical WooCommerce sites.

Launch Timeline

We’re targeting Q1 2025 for the WooCommerce beta. It’ll be included with FlatWP Pro ($299 one-time or $99/year).

If you’re interested in early access, join our waitlist.

Why Not Free?

E-commerce is complex. We’re investing significant engineering time to make it production-ready:

• Proper cart state management
• Payment gateway integration
• Tax calculations
• Shipping methods
• Order processing

This is Pro-tier functionality. The revenue funds ongoing development and support.

For DIY developers, we’ll document how to build WooCommerce integration yourself using the free version.