Uncorking Rapid Transformation: Delivering a Fast and Flexible Solution
A leading European wine retailer sought to modernise their online store to meet the demands of contemporary customers. The project aimed to replace their legacy website with a scalable, future-ready solution while leveraging the principles of composable commerce. By partnering with Cabiri, the retailer successfully launched a minimum viable product (MVP) in just three months, thanks to the use of Cabiri’s composable commerce accelerator, Ashiba.
Unlocking the Potential of a Modern E-commerce Platform
The retailer’s legacy platform had reached its limits in supporting their business goals. They identified several opportunities to deliver greater value and drive growth:
Enhanced Performance: A faster, more reliable platform was needed to provide a seamless shopping experience and improve customer satisfaction.
Flexibility for Innovation: The ability to quickly adapt to market demands, introduce new features, and deliver enhanced functionality was a priority.
Scalability for Growth: The retailer sought a solution that could support future expansion into additional markets while accommodating increasing traffic and sales volumes.
By addressing these needs, the new platform would provide a robust foundation for long-term success and help the retailer stay ahead in a competitive e-commerce landscape.
Project-Specific Challenges
While a composable commerce approach offered the flexibility to address long-term scalability and performance, the project presented its own unique challenges:
Integration with Existing Inventory Systems: The project required connecting commercetools to the retailer’s existing ERP system for real-time stock updates. Custom APIs were developed to bridge the gap.
Alignment with Existing Infrastructure and Technical Architecture: The retailer’s infrastructure relied on Azure DevOps, which differed from the AWS-based architecture that Cabiri typically implemented. Careful alignment was needed to ensure the new solution adhered to the retailer’s operational strategy.
Collaborative Delivery Model: Ensuring seamless integration between Cabiri’s backend development and the retailer’s in-house frontend team required close coordination.
Solution Highlights
The solution embraced a composable commerce approach, using commercetools to deliver modular, microservice-based functionality. This architecture allowed for independent scaling and evolution of individual components, reducing long-term operational risk and enhancing agility.
Accelerated Delivery with Ashiba
We utilised Ashiba, our composable commerce accelerator, to expedite project setup and provide core functionality that could be tailored to the retailer's specific needs. Ashiba’s prebuilt microservices and GraphQL capabilities significantly reduced the time required to implement key services, facilitating the rapid delivery of an MVP.
Backend Services
Cabiri delivered a suite of backend services designed to integrate seamlessly with the retailer’s existing ecosystem, including:
Product and Inventory Management: Real-time stock updates were achieved by integrating commercetools with the retailer's existing ERP system via custom APIs.
Search and Category Services: Leveraged commercetools functionality to enable a robust and responsive search experience.
Cart and Checkout Services: Handled complex interactions such as cart updates, promotional codes, and dynamic pricing using commercetools functionality.
Payment Service: Handled payment processing through a direct integration with Adyen, ensuring smooth payment transactions and efficient fraud prevention.
Order and Wishlist Services: Simplified customer order management and wishlist features to enhance engagement and retention.
Infrastructure and DevOps
The project utilised Azure DevOps for infrastructure and pipeline management to align with the retailer’s existing systems. The migration from GitHub Actions to Azure Pipelines was achieved while maintaining the use of Terraform and Terragrunt for efficient provisioning and deployment.
Collaborative Delivery
A blended team approach ensured seamless collaboration between Cabiri and the retailer:
Cabiri’s contributions: Backend development, automated testing, DevOps, and project management.
Retailer’s contributions: Frontend development, infrastructure ownership, and product leadership.
This joint effort fostered strong alignment, efficient decision-making, and a cohesive delivery process.
Midway through the project, a Cabiri frontend developer was brought on board to support the retailer’s in-house frontend team. This was done to facilitate knowledge transfer and ensure their team gained the expertise needed to manage and evolve the frontend independently in the future. This collaborative approach ensured a smooth knowledge transfer, empowering the retailer’s internal team to continue development post-launch.
Outcome and Impact
Rapid Delivery
The MVP was delivered within an impressive three-month timeline, allowing the retailer to replace their legacy platform swiftly and start generating value almost immediately.
Enhanced Customer Experience
The new platform offers faster search, an intuitive interface, and seamless checkout capabilities. Features such as wishlist functionality and robust cart services elevate the shopping experience, setting a strong foundation for future growth.
Future-ready Platform
The composable architecture supports easy scaling and adaptability, enabling the retailer to expand into new markets and add functionalities as needed with minimal disruption.
