Case study
Varsity Headwear throws its hat into the global ring with a platform built for scale
Varsity Headwear gears up for global success with a scalable commerce platform and bold redesign.
Norwegian brothers, Seb and Alex Adams founded Varsity Headwear with one goal in mind - to create the perfect cap. By focusing on materials and fit to produce timeless yet versatile baseball caps, the brand has garnered a loyal customer base since it was founded in 2013. But over time, their ecommerce platform proved to be anything but the right fit.
A digital dead end with Magento
Varsity Headwear experienced stable growth, but started to face major challenges that were preventing the brand from expanding into new markets. Originally built on Magento 2, Varsity Headwear’s online store had become a digital maze, due to too many customizations:
Making changes took too long
Upgrades were difficult to implement
Technology and payment systems were outdated
We had built a house and adapted it so much that the doors were locked.
Head of Ecommerce at Varsity Headwear
To add fuel to the fire, the website was exceptionally slow, with some web pages taking up to 10 seconds to load—the ultimate conversion killer in ecommerce. This had a direct impact on the overall CX experience, with the team often receiving negative feedback from customers.
A headless platform to hang their hat on
Breaking out of the monolithic setup of Magento, Varsity Headwear decided to adopt a headless approach to ecommerce technology, migrating to Centra in 2024. Having carried out extensive research, the team felt that Centra was the right choice for a scaling fashion brand.
Centra became our preferred solution because it allows us to handle global markets and multi-channel operations easily. Although it doesn't have that many integrations, its features are very reliable. By choosing a "headless" solution, we have a lot of freedom of choice when it comes to CMS, frontend and integrations.
Head of Ecommerce at Varsity Headwear
With Frend Digital as their chosen front-end partner and NoA Ignite Sweden heading up the design of the brand’s new website, Varsity Headwear was able to move away from the clunky technology that had been holding it back. By separating the design from the content, customizations could easily be implemented, and the business had the technology and tools it needed to scale on a global level.
A framework for the future
The Frend Storefront framework was used as a starting point for the entire front end, which was built on React and Next.js, with Storyblok as its chosen CMS. Frend Factory was used to synchronize service between the various systems and tools in Varsity Headware’s ecommerce technology stack.
Migrating from one ecommerce platform to another is a complex and often time-consuming undertaking. Thanks to Frend Front—Frend’s innovative accelerator, making the switch to Centra was seamless and it only took a couple of weeks for a fully functional site, allowing Frend to spend their time perfecting the design and site performance.
The biggest challenge was delivering a large headless project within a very short time frame. With the help of Frend Front, which gives us a ready-made component base, we managed it.
Head of Ecommerce at Frend
An uncapped opportunity for growth
Thanks to its new technology stack, slow-loading web pages are now a thing of the past – the online store has gone from a score of 15/100 to almost 100/100 on Google PageSpeed, an increase of almost 500%! Varsity Headware’s website has achieved top marks in SEO and accessibility, which has improved customer experience and had a massive impact on conversions.
Varsity Headwear is now primed for global success, selling in over 25 countries. The brand is safe in the knowledge that they won’t outgrow their ecommerce platform as they continue to scale internationally. With Centra and Frend, they’ve found partners that truly understand the brand’s vision and goals.
The fact that we can work directly with developers who not only understand what we are trying to achieve, but also why we are trying to achieve it, leads to much less friction in development. The results so far are "next level". We are very satisfied.
Head of Ecommerce at Varsity Headwear
Varsity Headware's tech stack:
| Ecommerce platform | Centra |
|---|---|
| Front-end partner | Frend Digital |
| Front-end framework | React and Next.js |
| CMS | Storyblok |
| Payments | Adyen |
| ESP / Automation | Klaviyo |
| iPaaS | Junipeer |
| ERP | Brightpearl |
