Problem
From legacy to headless
Like many retailers, MEC had outgrown its technology stack and was preparing for a large re-platforming. While functional website requirements like landing pages and checkout processes were table stakes, MEC knew that website performance would also play a critical role in the success of their relaunch. They had also focused diligently on site speed on their previous stack and didn't want to see those gains lost during the re-platform.
Approach
Upping the stakes
SpeedSense was engaged to monitor performance and coach MEC throughout the headless ecommerce re-platforming project. Work began by auditing the existing website to establish a baseline target for the speed of the new site. Outdoor retail is a highly competitive space, so MEC was acutely aware of the need to be fast. A dozen of their top competitors’ websites were tracked to set "go-no-go" criteria for website performance at launch.
Delivering a tailored, personalized ecommerce experience was a key goal for MEC. One of the performance challenges presented with ecommerce personalization is a caching strategy–where pages can be served quickly, without sacrificing the user experience. Together with the MEC digital teams we optimized the entire user journey through the shopping funnel–from discovering, selecting, and purchasing a product–to account for these inherent challenges.
In parallel, MEC's team was hard at work building the new website on their new headless ecommerce platform. To ensure that everything was on track during implementation, we set up performance monitoring on the staging environment of the new website. In-depth synthetic audits were run weekly by mapping real-world user behavior from their live website, onto the staging environment. This additional oversight helped the team implement proper redirects, and compare the performance of equivalent pages on the old website with the new website.
Solution
Hiked it, liked it
MEC's website is now built on a modern technology stack that will continue to perform well into the future. The user experience is fast, and MEC can continue driving online sales and delivering an excellent digital experience to its customers.
The team found the confidence and data they needed to greenlight the headless website launch. Web performance is now a cultural pillar, and the combination of strong culture and cutting-edge tech makes MEC stand out from the crowd when growing their technical teams for continued success.
