Omnichannel headless ecommerce across global markets

Deliver one brand, with thousands of pages across three regions

Michael Hill identified the need to move from a monolithic architecture, to a centralised headless content platform with the objective to reduce operational costs, increase efficiency in content delivery, and seize globalisation and transformative opportunities.

The solution would need to allow Michael Hill to deliver 2000+ content pages, with consistent branding across their three sites, support multi-language content, and be scalable across any other channels or applications the business chooses to pursue in the future.

Costly and inefficient content management hindering potential growth

Michael Hill’s implementation of Salesforce Commerce Cloud was no longer meeting specific requirements deemed necessary for fast content delivery.

The process to update and manage content across their three regional sites (Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) was inefficient, required unnecessary operational load, and was considered costly in comparison to other potential alternatives. The updating of content required developer involvement, which often created a bottleneck for Michael Hill’s 10+ content authors, as well as the ability to deliver campaigns quickly.

The underlying architecture didn't support Michael Hill's future roadmap, which included consistent components (style) across their platforms, as well as offering localised content for multiple languages.

Collaboratively delivering a leading headless CMS platform

Michael Hill needed a future-proof solution to deliver content across Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, with the opportunity to expand into other regions.

Mudbath deployed a squad to work alongside Michael Hill to begin a staged migration which involved decoupling legacy content modules from Salesforce Commerce Cloud and migrating them to a new headless CMS iteratively. The first steps of the migration included understanding the future state solutions architecture and determining the best technology stacks to support this considerable undertaking, with Contentful headless CMS and Vue Storefront chosen as the optimal platforms.

A proof of concept was successfully delivered, which was integral for proper due diligence and to set the foundations for the remainder of the migration, including the working model between Mudbath, Michael Hill, and other partner vendors.

Other considerations as part of the migration include the delivery of a mobile first solution to drive conversion and the development of a design language system (DLS) so that all components follow consistent styling. This has resulted in a consistent brand and user experience across the three sites.

This migration is being driven by the demand to reduce operational costs and provide content authoring without reliance on development, all while working in parallel to deliver content seamlessly and without interruption.