E-Commerce Platform
A fully custom WooCommerce store with advanced product filtering, a bespoke checkout flow, and real-time inventory management — built to handle high traffic without slowing down.
Results
The Challenge
The client had outgrown their off-the-shelf Shopify store. They needed granular control over product variants, a checkout flow that matched their brand, wholesale pricing tiers, and an inventory system that synced with their warehouse software. Shopify plugins could not deliver this without expensive custom development and ongoing licence fees.
Our Solution
We built a headless-adjacent WooCommerce store on a managed WordPress stack. The product catalogue used custom post types and advanced custom fields to support complex variant matrices. A bespoke PHP checkout plugin replaced the default WooCommerce flow entirely, cutting steps from five to two. Stripe handled payments with 3DS2 compliance. A REST API bridge connected the store to the client's existing warehouse management system for live stock updates.
The Brief
The client approached Forge9x after two failed attempts with other agencies. Their catalogue of 4,000+ SKUs was collapsing under the weight of a poorly configured Shopify Plus store. Filters returned wrong results, checkout abandoned at 72%, and the warehouse team was manually reconciling stock twice a day. They needed a complete rebuild — done right, first time.
Architecture
We chose WordPress and WooCommerce not because it is the default choice, but because it gave us the deepest control at the lowest total cost of ownership for this client. The stack ran on a Nginx/PHP-FPM server with Redis object caching, reducing database queries by 80% on catalogue pages. WP-CLI scripts handled bulk imports from the warehouse system on a scheduled basis, with webhooks for real-time updates on high-velocity SKUs.
Custom Checkout
The default WooCommerce checkout is notorious for high abandonment. We replaced it entirely with a single-page React-powered checkout embedded inside WordPress. Address autocomplete used the Royal Mail PAF API. Stripe Elements handled card input inline. The entire checkout — from cart to confirmation email — completed in under 90 seconds in user testing.
Wholesale Portal
A secondary login tier gave wholesale accounts access to a separate pricing matrix, minimum order quantities, and a quick-order form that accepted CSV uploads. This removed the need for manual quote requests and saved the sales team approximately 12 hours a week.
Outcome
Within 60 days of launch, checkout conversion had improved by 34%, average page load dropped to 1.2 seconds on mobile, and the client reported their highest revenue month since trading began. The warehouse integration eliminated all manual stock reconciliation.
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