EP339: Rebuild & Unify Everything: Deconstructing Lupine’s Hybrid B2B/B2C Migration Strategy

"Building with native capabilities allows us to create an optimised experience. It reduces dependency on third-party apps, ensuring better performance and flexibility to adapt as business needs evolve. This approach empowers us to maintain control over the user experience and make dynamic changes without being constrained by external limitations." Michael Klim, Co-founder & CTO at Commerce-UI.ABOUT THIS EPISODE:What drives a business to replatform varies; from current platform constraints, to changing business operational needs and onerous running costs. Project complexity also varies, depending on the size of business, systems architecture, business processes and geographical spread. However, all projects share common challenges, including the need to unearth how a business really works and build a solution that delivers on functional and operational needs whilst being usable and fixing known issues, all within an acceptable cost model. To achieve this clarity is required, and businesses and their agency partners need to make compromises to deliver the project within agreed guardrails.This podcast explores how Commerce UI took a brief from Lupine's CEO to rebuild everything, unify everything & rebrand everything across a hybrid DTC and B2B business, and collaborated with the client to build a viable solution based on detailed analysis of the wider business needs for ecommerce.We focus on the process Commerce UI and Lupine went through to achieve project goals, not the platform they chose.What you can expect:Replatforming challenges: every project is unique, with different technology decisions and complexities. Common challenges include change management and making compromises for optimal outcomes.Discovery process: a thorough discovery process is crucial, involving understanding branding, digital UI/UX and operational improvements. This helps align the technical solution with the brand's vision.Front-end decision-making: choosing between headless and theme-based solutions depends on team composition, future plans and specific project needs. A theme was chosen for its B2B advantages and design flexibility.B2B Capabilities: Shopify is evolving in the B2B space, offering open APIs and tools like Shopify Flow for custom logic, though it doesn't yet match enterprise-grade solutions.UI/UX Considerations: balancing the needs of D2C and B2B users requires distinct approaches, as each group has different intents and requirements.Product Configuration: Using native tools like metaobjects allows for flexible and scalable product configurations, reducing dependency on third-party apps.Change management: successful projects require managing client-side change, as new systems alter team operations and expectations.Get inbox alerts when new episodes drop: https://insidecommerce.us11.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ab993353c2b4b829879d3553d&id=07d636b707