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Combined • E-commerce

Headless Commerce Replatform & SEO Program

Replatform to a headless stack, pass Core Web Vitals, and build an SEO engine that compounds.

2025 11 min read MercadoNova
Headless Commerce Replatform & SEO Program

Before & After

Headless Commerce Replatform & SEO Program - Before
Headless Commerce Replatform & SEO Program - After
Before After

Overview

The legacy monolith slowed delivery and failed Core Web Vitals. Marketing needed an editorial pipeline without engineering bottlenecks.

The Problem

Long TTFB and heavy JS on PDP/Cart; content updates were gated on weekly releases; analytics events were inconsistent across steps.

Goals

  • Pass Core Web Vitals on PDP, PLP, and Checkout
  • Reduce time-to-publish to under 30 minutes
  • Tie content and performance work to revenue KPIs
  • Create a modular checkout that reduces drop-off

Approach

  • Audit UX + performance (RUM + lab), rank issues by impact/effort
  • Define content model and topic hubs with internal links
  • Implement SSR/ISR for PDP/PLP; stream critical HTML and defer non-critical JS
  • Stand up analytics with server-side validation and a clean taxonomy

Solution

Headless storefront (SSR/ISR) backed by a typed design system

Modular one-page checkout with payment retries and failover

Editorial pipeline with previews, approvals, and instant cache purge

Event taxonomy spanning PDP→Cart→Checkout with server-side validation

Results

Post-launch, PDP LCP stabilized under 1s, checkout conversion improved, and organic sessions compounded on topic hubs. Publishing became minutes, not days.

0.9s
LCP (PDP)
+29%
Checkout conversion
+162%
Organic sessions (6 mo)
+31%
Revenue per session

Challenges & How We Solved Them

Legacy bundle bloat

Code-split routes, tree-shake, and remove unused polyfills.

Unreliable analytics

Server-side validation and consistent event names by stage.

Image weight

CDN, AVIF/WebP with DPR-aware srcset and lazy loading.

SEO & Performance

95
Lighthouse Performance
< 0.01
CLS
100
Best Practices
98
Accessibility

Timeline

Discover - RUM + lab profiling; CWV targets
Weeks 1–3
Design - Design tokens, content model
Weeks 4–6
Build - Storefront, checkout, analytics
Weeks 7–16
Launch - Blue/green deploy, ramp up
Weeks 17–18
Scale - Hubs, internal links, automation
Weeks 19–20

What the Client Said

“The replatform paid back faster than expected. Pages are fast, publishing is simple, and we finally trust the numbers.”
- N. Wanjiru, VP Growth

Team & Roles

K. Muli
Product Manager
S. Odede
Tech Lead
R. Adera
Frontend
T. Wambua
Backend
P. Wekesa
SEO/Performance
J. Gichuru
QA

FAQs

Inlining critical CSS, deferring non-essential JS, and simplifying checkout steps.

A shared event taxonomy and weekly KPI reviews (conversion, LCP, bounce, qualified sessions).

Most updates publish in under 30 minutes with preview + approvals.

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