Item: ClickMasters Software Development Company
Rating: 5
Author: ClickMasters Case Study Team

Project Overview

Headless eCommerce Platform — UK Fashion Retailer. A mid-size UK fashion retailer with £8M annual revenue was running Shopify Plus at £24,000/year plus £18,000/year in app...

Technology Stack

Next.js 14TypeScriptShopify Storefront APIStripeAWS CloudFront + S3PostgreSQL (B2B module)TerraformGitHub Actions

Compliance & Standards

UK GDPR + EU GDPR dual compliancePCI-DSS SAQ-AConsumer Rights Act 2015WCAG 2.1 AA

The Challenge

A mid-size UK fashion retailer with £8M annual revenue was running Shopify Plus at £24,000/year plus £18,000/year in apps and £12,000/year in Shopify transaction fees — total £54,000/year. They needed a headless architecture for performance (their Shopify store was 4.2 second LCP, failing Core Web Vitals), international expansion (EU markets needed EU GDPR compliance), and B2B wholesale functionality Shopify couldn't support.

Our Approach

Architecture: Next.js 14 (App Router) frontend, Shopify as headless backend (product catalogue, order management), Stripe for checkout (PCI-DSS scope reduced to SAQ-A), custom B2B wholesale module with account management and trade pricing, AWS CloudFront (no personal data cached) + S3 for assets. Performance: Core Web Vitals target: LCP < 1.5s. Achieved: 0.9s LCP via Next.js Image optimisation, server-side rendering for product pages, aggressive static generation for category pages. Google Shopping feed optimised for UK market. UK + EU GDPR Dual Compliance: UK ICO-compliant cookie consent with CMP (Consent Management Platform). EU GDPR consent for EU market customers (CNIL-level compliance for France). Separate analytics pipelines for UK vs EU — different consent requirements. B2B Wholesale Module: Custom trade portal: account verification workflow, wholesale pricing by tier, minimum order quantities, net payment terms (30/60 days), purchase order number support.

The Results

Launched 14 weeks after engagement start. Core Web Vitals: 0.9s LCP (from 4.2s). Organic search traffic +42% in 6 months (improved Core Web Vitals → ranking improvement). Platform cost: £8,000/year (hosting) vs £54,000/year (Shopify Plus + apps). 3-year saving: approximately £138,000. B2B wholesale launched 4 weeks post-launch.

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Client Testimonial

“The performance improvement was immediate and dramatic. Our conversion rate increased 18% in the first month — directly attributable to the speed improvement. The ClickMasters team delivered the headless migration without a single hour of downtime." — Head of Digital, UK Fashion Retailer (name withheld)”

ClickMasters Case Study Team

Reviewed by James Whitmore, CTO