E-commerce
Orbit — Headless E-Commerce Storefront
A headless storefront connecting a modern Next.js frontend to an existing commerce backend, with server-rendered product pages, an optimized checkout flow, and Core Web Vitals scores in the top decile of the client's industry. Conversion rate improved by 22% after launch.

Tags
Next.jsTypeScriptStripePerformance
The challenge
The client's existing storefront was tightly coupled to their commerce platform's default theme system, making every design change slow and risky. Mobile performance was poor, Core Web Vitals scores sat in the bottom quartile of their industry, and the checkout flow lost a meaningful share of shoppers between cart and payment.
The solution
- Decoupled the frontend from the commerce backend using a headless architecture, with Next.js server components rendering product and category pages for fast, SEO-friendly first loads.
- Rebuilt the checkout flow as a single-page experience with optimistic UI updates, inline validation, and saved payment methods via Stripe, removing several redirect-heavy steps.
- Audited and fixed render-blocking assets, oversized images, and layout shift issues page by page until Core Web Vitals scores moved into the top decile of the client's industry.
- Set up a component library shared between marketing pages and the storefront so design changes could ship without a full redeploy cycle.
The results
- Conversion rate improved by 22% in the first full quarter after launch.
- Mobile Largest Contentful Paint improved from roughly 4.1 seconds to under 1.8 seconds.
- Cart abandonment during the checkout flow itself dropped by double digits after removing redirect-heavy steps.