← Back to selected work

The White Boutique

Commerce Platform Migration

A lean-team migration from a WordPress-based commerce setup to an SEO-focused Next.js storefront and internal admin platform, delivered incrementally without disrupting live operations.

Role
Founding engineer and sole frontend developer in a lean five-person product team: one designer, two backend engineers, one product manager, and one frontend engineer.
System scope
Customer storefront, internal admin panel, SEO-focused commerce pages, product discovery, payment flows, reusable UI foundations, and cloud delivery workflows.
Scale & impact
Helped establish a maintainable commerce platform supporting AED 3M in monthly sales while enabling a more scalable foundation for future product development.

Customer storefront

Customer storefront

Visit live storefront

Discovery, product browsing, SEO-focused ecommerce pages, and checkout flows.

Problem

The existing WordPress setup was basic and limited for a growing premium gifting business. Several operational tasks still relied on warehouse and customer-support staff, while the storefront needed stronger SEO, richer ecommerce capabilities, reusable UI patterns, and more reliable deployment workflows.

The migration had to be delivered incrementally so day-to-day business operations could continue without disruption.

What I built

  • Owned frontend delivery for both the customer-facing storefront and internal admin platform during the initial MVP phase.
  • Built reusable commerce components and page patterns using Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and shadcn/ui.
  • Added a virtualized product grid to keep catalogue browsing responsive as the product range grew.
  • Integrated Apple Pay and relevant regional payment options into the storefront checkout flow.
  • Worked closely with design, backend, product, and business stakeholders to shape product decisions and delivery priorities.

Constraints

  • The team was small and needed to deliver storefront, admin tooling, payments, and deployment capability in parallel.
  • The legacy WordPress workflow remained active during the MVP transition.
  • Product requirements evolved through active discussion with stakeholders and operational teams.
  • The new platform had to improve customer experience without interrupting ongoing business operations.

Technical decisions

  • Chose Next.js to support SEO-focused commerce pages and create a maintainable frontend foundation.
  • Used reusable UI primitives and shared state patterns with Context API, Zustand, and React Query rather than building one-off storefront components.
  • Applied virtualization to product-list rendering to protect catalogue browsing performance.
  • Containerized the application with Docker and created repeatable GitHub Actions CI/CD workflows.
  • Configured and maintained AWS delivery infrastructure across EC2, Elastic Beanstalk, Route 53, S3, and CloudFront for application hosting, asset delivery, and CDN caching.

Outcomes

  • Helped establish a maintainable commerce platform supporting AED 3M in monthly sales.
  • Migrated the storefront from a WordPress-based setup to a custom TypeScript and Next.js application.
  • Created reusable UI, state-management, and deployment foundations that supported future iteration.
  • Reduced dependence on manual storefront workflows by moving key commerce journeys into a custom platform.

Technologies

Next.jsTypeScriptTailwind CSSshadcn/uiReact QueryZustandDockerGitHub ActionsAWSEC2Elastic BeanstalkS3Route 53CloudFront
Discuss a similar product