Simplifying a Headless Stack for Peak Performance

PAIGE, a denim and apparel retailer, tackled its ecommerce architecture problems head-on by complete re-platforming. After moving to a simpler headless setup powered by Shopify, Next.js, and Vercel, the company saw a 22% revenue increase during Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) and a 76% rise in conversion rates.

Director of Engineering Michael La Colla inherited a system built on Commercetools, Angular, and Bloomreach when he joined the company. Although headless in name, this stack suffered from data syncing and integration issues that held back omnichannel operations. The technical debt slowed development cycles and created daily friction, so the engineering team took the opportunity to re-architect the platform entirely rather than merely refresh the frontend.

Choosing a New Foundation

Working across departments, the team surfaced pain points like outdated Angular code, vendor integration complications, and operational bottlenecks. This alignment narrowed their stack selection down to three key components:

  • Shopify became the commercial backbone, providing omnichannel integration across ecommerce, retail, fulfillment, customer service, and marketing.
  • Next.js solved the SEO limitations they had hit with Angular through Server-side Rendering (SSR), brought them in line with modern industry practice, and removed vendor lock-in.
  • Vercel handled performance and deployment with a global CDN, automated deployments, preview deployments, and instant rollbacks, even during peak load.

Record-Breaking Black Friday Without a Blip

Launching months before the holiday rush gave PAIGE time for rigorous stress testing. The payoff was a BFCM period they describe as "blissfully boring"—in the best way possible:

  • 22% increase in traffic with no downtime
  • 76% increase in conversion rates
  • 24% increase in average orders per minute
  • 22% overall revenue increase
"The website handled it [Black Friday] with no performance issues. The leadership group chat was silent–blissfully boring. Record-breaking year." — Michael La Colla, Director of Engineering at PAIGE

Building for the Next Peak Season

With the new architecture in place, PAIGE has moved from firefighting to innovating. The team has since rolled out multi-channel features like buy-online, fulfill-from-store and launched a new loyalty program—all with support from Shopify and Vercel. Better UX/UI and faster page loads have kept conversion gains coming even outside the holiday window.

PAIGE now has the stable foundation it needs to respond to business requests quickly and ship features that keep pace with customer expectations. For retailers considering a similar move, the message is straightforward: with Shopify as the commerce backbone and Vercel serving the frontend, the platform is built to handle growth when traffic spikes.