A headless e-commerce storefront that replaced a sluggish Shopify theme with a custom Next.js frontend — cutting load times by 74%, lifting conversion rate by 34%, and increasing average order value by 22%.
The client was running their online store on a heavily modified Shopify theme that had grown into an unmaintainable mess over four years. Page load time averaged 4.2 seconds on mobile. The checkout flow had a 71% abandonment rate. Their conversion rate sat at 1.8% against an industry benchmark of 3.1%.
They'd tried optimising the existing theme but hit a ceiling. The underlying architecture was the problem — too many third-party apps, unoptimised images, render-blocking scripts, and a checkout experience that hadn't been redesigned since 2019.
Aether is a headless Shopify implementation — we kept Shopify as the commerce engine (inventory, payments, fulfilment) but replaced the entire frontend with a custom Next.js application. This gives complete control over performance, design, and user experience, with none of the constraints of a theme.
On top of the core storefront, we built an AI-powered recommendation engine that analyses browsing behaviour and purchase history to surface personalised product suggestions at every touchpoint — homepage, product pages, cart, and post-purchase. The recommendations run through a lightweight model hosted on Vercel Edge Functions, so they're fast enough to be part of every page load.
Load time dropped from 4.2s to 0.6s — a 74% improvement. Conversion rate climbed from 1.8% to 2.4% within 45 days, a 34% lift. Average order value increased 22% attributed to the AI recommendation engine. The client saw a revenue increase of $180K in the first quarter post-launch compared to the same period the previous year.