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E-commerce

Replatforming a storefront without losing a peak season

Placeholder case study. A headless storefront migrated page type by page type, with checkout instrumented before anything was redesigned.

  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • Shopify Hydrogen
  • Algolia
  • Cloudflare
  • Stripe
  • PostgreSQL
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Sample case study — illustrative, not a delivered client engagement

Verdance Supply Co. is an invented company used to demonstrate our case-study format and our approach to this kind of work. The technical detail reflects how we would genuinely deliver it; the client name is fictional and the figures under Results are design targets rather than measured outcomes.

Client

Verdance Supply Co.

Illustrative direct-to-consumer retailer — PLACEHOLDER CONTENT

Industry
E-commerce
Year
2026

The business challenge

PLACEHOLDER — replace with the real engagement narrative. The illustrative situation: a themed storefront had accumulated years of app installs and custom Liquid, mobile performance had degraded to the point of costing revenue, and nobody could say which checkout step was losing customers. The replatform had to finish before the seasonal peak, and could not risk it.

Objectives

  • PLACEHOLDER — Establish where the checkout funnel actually loses customers
  • PLACEHOLDER — Bring mobile performance within Core Web Vitals thresholds
  • PLACEHOLDER — Decouple content changes from code releases
  • PLACEHOLDER — Migrate without a cutover during the seasonal peak
  • PLACEHOLDER — Keep search and merchandising under the merchandising team’s control

Discovery and strategy

What we did before writing code

  • PLACEHOLDER — Instrumented the existing funnel before proposing any change
  • PLACEHOLDER — Measured field performance by device class rather than in a lab
  • PLACEHOLDER — Catalogued every installed app and what actually depended on it
  • PLACEHOLDER — Reviewed a full year of support tickets for recurring friction
  • PLACEHOLDER — Agreed a page-type migration order by traffic and risk

Solution

What we built

  • PLACEHOLDER — Headless storefront

    Replace with real detail. Server-rendered product and collection pages at the edge, with the commerce backend unchanged.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Progressive migration

    Replace with real detail. Traffic moved page type by page type behind edge routing, with instant rollback per route.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Checkout instrumentation

    Replace with real detail. Step-level funnel analytics added first, so every later change could be measured rather than assumed.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Search and merchandising

    Replace with real detail. Faceted search with merchandising rules the team can change without a release.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Performance budgets

    Replace with real detail. Budgets enforced in CI so a regression fails the build instead of reaching customers.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Operational integration

    Replace with real detail. Inventory and fulfilment synchronisation with reconciliation and alerting on drift.

Architecture

How it fits together

PLACEHOLDER — Headless commerce architecture

Replace with the real architecture. The illustrative shape: an edge-rendered storefront over an unchanged commerce backend, with routing as the migration control point.

  1. Edge storefrontServer-rendered pages with edge caching
  2. Routing layerPer-page-type traffic control and rollback
  3. Commerce backendCatalogue, cart, orders — unchanged
  4. SearchFaceted search and merchandising rules
  5. ContentEditable without a code release
  6. AnalyticsStep-level checkout funnel telemetry

Design approach

Decisions in the interface

  • PLACEHOLDER — Rebuilt product pages around the questions support tickets kept asking
  • PLACEHOLDER — Reduced checkout to the fields genuinely required
  • PLACEHOLDER — Held the visual language steady during migration to avoid relearning
  • PLACEHOLDER — Designed for mid-range Android first, not for a developer laptop

Development process

How the work ran

  • PLACEHOLDER — Page types migrated in traffic order, lowest risk first
  • PLACEHOLDER — Load testing against projected peak volume before the season
  • PLACEHOLDER — Feature-flagged checkout changes measured one at a time
  • PLACEHOLDER — Full migration completed and frozen ahead of the peak window

Technology stack

What it runs on

  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • Shopify Hydrogen
  • Algolia
  • Cloudflare
  • Stripe
  • PostgreSQL

Challenges resolved

What went wrong, and what we did

Every project has these. A case study that omits them is a brochure.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Undocumented app dependencies

    Replace with real detail. Several installed apps injected script the storefront silently depended on; each was traced and either replaced or removed deliberately.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Performance regressions crept back

    Replace with real detail. Budgets enforced in CI turned a recurring problem into a build failure the author sees immediately.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Peak-season risk

    Replace with real detail. Per-route traffic shifting meant no single cutover moment, and a change freeze protected the peak window.

Results

Objectives and design targets

Because this is a sample case study, these are the objectives and design targets agreed in scope — not measured business results.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Checkout drop-off

    Target only

    Placeholder. Replace with a measured, verifiable outcome or remove.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Mobile LCP

    Under 2.5s target

    Placeholder performance budget, enforced in CI.

  • PLACEHOLDER — Migration

    No cutover event

    Placeholder. Approach agreed during discovery.

Client feedback

In their words

Placeholder quote

This quote is sample content shown to demonstrate the layout. It is not attributable to a real person or organisation and will be replaced only with a genuine, approved testimonial.

  • “PLACEHOLDER — replace with a real, approved client quote. This text exists only to demonstrate the layout.”
    Placeholder namePlaceholder role (illustrative)

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