Master of Malt
Replatforming the world's biggest online whisky retailer to headless commerce — a fast, content-rich storefront on Next.js.
The Project
Replatforming a retailer of this size is open-heart surgery: the storefront serves Retail and B2B customers across regions, and trade never stops. I architected the migration to a headless stack — Next.js on top of BigCommerce — built with React, TypeScript, Tailwind and Radix UI, carrying the Storybook component library over from the legacy platform so the design language survived the move. The payoff: measurable gains in performance and scalability across a catalogue of thousands of products.
Search & Personalisation
Product discovery and regional relevance were core to the rebuild:
- Custom Algolia integration with instant search, product recommendations and intelligent query suggestions, improving discovery across the full catalogue.
- Geolocation-driven personalisation, dynamically serving localised content, pricing and user experiences by detected region.
Checkout & Payments
Checkout work spanned both the new platform and the legacy site:
- Extended BigCommerce's B2B checkout with custom shipping logic, filtered payment rules and UI refinements to streamline the purchase flow.
- Integrated express checkout via Braintree — Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal — to reduce friction and lower abandonment.
- Redesigned the legacy checkout as a streamlined two-step flow, improving usability and conversion.
Design System & Tooling
Alongside feature work, I invested in the platform around the storefront:
- Overhauled the Storybook component library, introducing new components and optimising existing ones.
- Built bespoke React components for Builder.io landing pages, letting the marketing team ship dynamic content without developer intervention.
- Integrated Klaviyo marketing automation with Google Analytics and Tag Manager for end-to-end tracking, segmentation and engagement reporting.
