Headless ecommerce migration with 3x conversion lift

Challenge

Aether's monolithic Shopify Plus store loaded in 4.2s with a 68% mobile bounce rate. Their product configurator required 23 JS bundles and crashed on mid-range devices.

Solution

Migrated to a headless architecture with Next.js Commerce, Sanity CMS for content, and Shopify Storefront API for checkout. Implemented predictive prefetching and edge-rendered PLPs.

Architecture

Next.js App Router with React Server Components for product pages. Shopify Storefront API handles cart and checkout. Sanity manages editorial content and landing pages. Algolia provides instant search with merchandising rules.

Stack

Key Metrics

Lighthouse score

100

Load time

0.8s

Conversion lift

+312%

Bounce rate

-54%

Outcomes

• Achieved perfect Lighthouse scores across all categories
• Reduced initial JS payload from 1.2MB to 89KB
• Improved mobile conversion rate by 312%
• Cut hosting costs by 60% with edge caching