Case Study · E-Commerce

Cascade Labs Storefront

A headless commerce rebuild that cut checkout time in half and lifted conversion by 64% in the first quarter.

+64%conversion rate
1.2savg. load time
-38%cart abandonment
6 wksdelivery time
The Client

Client overview

Cascade Labs is a direct-to-consumer home goods brand selling across web and two physical showrooms. Before this project, their storefront ran on a heavily customized theme that had become slow and difficult to update.

The Challenge

What we were solving for

Page load times had crept past 4 seconds on key product pages, and checkout required seven steps across three separate screens. Cart abandonment was climbing quarter over quarter, and the marketing team couldn't publish a new landing page without filing a developer ticket.

Research

What we found

We ran a full technical and UX audit - Core Web Vitals, checkout funnel analytics, and session recordings - and found that image weight and a bloated theme were the biggest speed issues, while an unnecessary account-creation step was the single largest checkout drop-off point.

The Solution

How we approached it

We rebuilt the storefront on a headless architecture, decoupling the front end from the commerce backend so both could be optimized independently.

Checkout was redesigned from seven steps to three, with guest checkout enabled by default and account creation moved to a post-purchase, optional step.

The marketing team got a page-builder workflow connected to the same design system, so new landing pages ship without a developer.

Technology Used

Stack behind this project

Next.js
Shopify Hydrogen
Stripe
Algolia
Vercel
Contentful
Process

How the project unfolded

01

Audit

Technical and UX audit of the existing storefront and checkout funnel.

02

Architecture

Headless architecture designed to decouple front end from commerce backend.

03

Design

Checkout and key page flows redesigned around funnel data.

04

Build

Front end and integrations built in two-week sprints.

05

Migration

Product catalog and content migrated with zero data loss.

06

Launch

Staged rollout with monitoring, followed by a two-week optimization sprint.

Gallery

A look at the work

Results

The impact, in numbers

+64%conversion rate
-38%cart abandonment
1.2savg. load time
0downtime at launch

Within the first quarter post-launch, conversion rate rose 64% and cart abandonment dropped 38%. Average page load time fell from 4.1s to 1.2s, and the marketing team shipped 14 new landing pages in the following two months without a single developer ticket.

In Their Words

Client testimonial

"OWL rebuilt our storefront in six weeks and conversion jumped almost immediately. Communication was clear at every stage."

RM
Rachel MooreFounder, Cascade Labs Verified client
Related Services

Services used in this project

Ecommerce DevelopmentWebsite DevelopmentDigital Marketing

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