The Challenge – Tech Debt, Conversion Friction, and Slowed Visibility
In eCommerce, growth is won or lost in the micro-moments between intent and fulfillment. When legacy systems, manual processes, and fragmented data slow those moments, conversion and loyalty quickly erode.
By 2022, a US-based top-10 home goods eCommerce leader was losing ground across the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, and Ireland as outdated technology and inefficient engineering dragged down performance.
- A sprawling PHP monolith and legacy codebase inflated maintenance costs and operational risk.
- Checkout friction and cart abandonment chipped away at conversions and revenue.
- Shipment visibility gaps and post-delivery pain points weakened customer trust.
- Slow release cycles and inefficient engineering practices stifled innovation and responsiveness.
This wasn’t a feature fix. It called for a platform-led, enterprise-wide transformation.
The Turning Point – Modernization and Velocity at Scale
Persistent established a dedicated Global Capability Center (GCC) and assumed product ownership across 60+ tracks and 47+ products spanning Storefront, SearchTech, MarTech, SalesTech, OrderTech, FinTech, and Supply Chain Tech. The mandate: modernize the core, accelerate delivery, and eliminate customer friction end-to-end.
- Re-platformed from PHP monolith to a React front-end and Java Spring Boot services—achieving roughly 80% code accuracy in migration and a 20% reduction in legacy maintenance costs.
- Cut release cycles from about three months to four weeks with Agile pods and cloud-native deployment—boosting developer productivity by ~40%.
- Delivered $70M+ in cost savings over three years, transitioning 350+ engineering roles into integrated Persistent-managed teams.
- Restored shipment tracking by integrating a leading logistics visibility platform and modernizing carrier integrations.
- Reduced abandonment with funnel diagnostics, personalized checkout flows, and intelligent reminder campaigns—unlocking a potential 5–15% revenue uplift.
This wasn’t just modernization. It was a shift from reactive firefighting to a product engine built for growth.
The Outcome – Faster, Smarter, More Resilient
The transformation delivered measurable gains across customer experience, engineering velocity, and operational resilience:
- Release lead time dropped from quarters to weeks, enabling rapid iteration, experimentation, and feature delivery.
- Accurate, proactive shipment updates stabilized delivery visibility, improving customer trust and satisfaction.
- Redesigned post-delivery reporting UX cut ticket creation latency from around 30 seconds to just half a second with a zero-error rate and ~40% higher supplier resolution accuracy.
- Unified SLOs and proactive monitoring drove zero-disruption deployments and steadier site performance.
The Bottom Line – Experience as a Growth Engine
With Persistent as a transformation partner, the eCommerce leader:
- Stabilized checkout, fulfillment, and post-delivery experiences—rebuilding customer loyalty.
- Increased engineering throughput while reducing run-costs at scale.
- Established a modern platform and operating model primed for global growth.
Are your platforms accelerating growth—or anchoring you to the past? Persistent doesn’t just modernize stacks; we build confidence, velocity, and clarity so you can focus on what matters most: your customers.
