salesolution
Anonymized · NDA

8,500 SKUs off Magento 1,onto a storefront AI engines can read.

The same hydraulics distributor’s commerce stack was end-of-life: Magento 1, legacy schema invisible to AI Overviews, and 600ms-plus INP killing add-to-cart on mobile category browsing. A six-month full replatform moved all 8,500 SKUs onto a headless Next.js + Shopify Hydrogen storefront with a complete schema graph live from the first deploy.

Client
Industrial hydraulics distributor
Scale
~8,500 SKUs
Services
Website DevelopmentAI Search & GEO
Engagement
2024 · 6 months

  • 8,500

    SKUs migrated to the headless storefront

  • 600ms+

    INP on mobile category browsing, before the rebuild

  • JIC/NPT

    Spec configurators built into the quote flow

  • 6 mo

    Kickoff to full catalog live

The situation

Where they started.

Magento 1 was past end-of-life — no patches, an aging integration surface, and a storefront whose structured data predated everything AI engines now read. On mobile, category browsing ran at 600ms-plus INP, and add-to-cart behaved the way add-to-cart behaves at 600ms: customers left.

The decision wasn’t whether to replatform — the platform had made that decision itself. It was whether the new stack would just be newer, or would become the foundation the catalog and AI-search work could actually compound on.

The constraint

What made it hard.

Hydraulic fittings are spec-driven buying: thread form, size, pressure rating. The old quote flow encoded years of that domain logic, and an off-the-shelf theme would have flattened it. The replatform had to carry 8,500 SKUs and the spec-selection workflow across without simplifying either.

What we ran

The work, phase by phase. What shipped, and when.

  1. Headless storefront build

    Next.js storefront over a Shopify Hydrogen commerce backend — server-rendered product and category pages, with category browsing rebuilt specifically for interaction latency.

  2. Quote flow + spec configurators

    Custom quote flow with JIC/NPT spec configurators, so engineers spec fittings by thread, size, and pressure rating instead of paging through the catalog.

  3. Schema graph from day one

    Full structured-data graph shipped with the storefront. The legacy stack’s biggest invisible defect was schema AI engines couldn’t read — the new one launched citable.

This is what a Website Development engagement at this scale looks like in practice.

Why it worked

The mechanism, not the magic.

Platform work doesn’t generate demand — it removes the ceiling on everything that does. The rebuild took the friction out of the two places a distributor wins or loses: the mobile category browse where 600ms of input delay was costing carts, and the machine-readability layer where AI engines decide whom to cite.

What happened

The results. As measured, dips included.

The full catalog was live in six months, schema graph in place from launch, quote flow and configurators carried over intact.

The growth chapter came next: the six months after launch are the catalog + AI-search engagement documented in its own case study — qualified inbounds up 43% on the post-launch baseline. The replatform is what made that slope possible; the two are reported separately so neither claims the other’s work.

The number that mattered

0

SKUs replatformed in six months

Magento 1 → Next.js + Shopify Hydrogen

Measurement notes

How these numbers were measured.

A metric without a source is an assertion. Every number on this page is listed below with how it was counted.

Scope & stack
Stack, scope, and delivered items are taken verbatim from the launch retro: full replatform, 8,500 SKUs, Next.js + Shopify Hydrogen, custom quote flow + JIC/NPT spec configurators, full schema graph.
INP 600ms+
Pre-rebuild interaction latency on mobile category pages, as measured during the audit — the metric behind the abandoned add-to-carts.
Qualified-lead growth
Reported in the companion catalog + AI-search case study, not here. This page claims the build; that page claims the growth.

Anonymity. Client name withheld under NDA — most industrial distributors prefer the case study without the logo. The vertical, scale, timeline, and every number are as measured; only identifying details are removed. Reference calls available on request.

Same client, different service

More from this engagement.

  • Industrial hydraulics distributor~8,500 SKUs

    Anonymized · NDA

    +43.5%

    Qualified leads per month, on the August baseline

    Aug 2024 – Jan 2025 · client CRM

    1,840 to 2,640 qualified leads a month. No new ad spend.

    An ~8,500-SKU industrial hydraulics distributor came in with qualified inbounds flat at 1,840 a month and AI Overviews citing its manufacturers instead of its own category pages. Six months of catalog and AI-search engineering later, January closed at 2,640 — +43.5% on the August baseline, with paid budget held flat.

    Catalog AIAI Search & GEOAug 2024 – Jan 2025

More case studies

Other distributors. Same standard of proof.

  • Industrial automation distributor~12K SKUs

    Anonymized · NDA

    ×8.5

    AI Overview citation count, top 50 commercial queries

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    4 to 34 AI Overview citations in six months. One Standard retainer.

    A mid-market industrial automation distributor — ~12K SKUs — was ranking well and still losing organic share as AI Overviews ate informational-query click-through. Six months on the Standard editorial retainer took its AI Overview citation count on its top 50 commercial queries from 4 to 34. Organic leads from informational pages doubled.

    Editorial Authority2025

  • Fluid power manufacturer · OEM channel22k SKUs

    Anonymized · NDA

    12 wk

    Time to first AI Overview citation, post-launch

    Greenfield build · zero pre-launch organic history

    Cited in AI Overviews 12 weeks after launch. On a domain with zero history.

    A fluid power manufacturer opening a direct commerce channel had no storefront, no organic history, and one hard requirement: the Acumatica PIM stays the source of truth. Five months later a 22k-SKU Next.js + Saleor build was live — AIO-ready from the first deploy, and earning its first AI Overview citations within 12 weeks of launch.

    Website DevelopmentAI Search & GEO2025

  • Specialty fasteners distributor12k SKUs · 17 brands

    Anonymized · NDA

    0.31 → 0.02

    Cumulative Layout Shift on product pages, at launch

    Shopify Plus B2B · 10-week migration

    CLS 0.31 to 0.02 at launch, and 61 plugins down to 4.

    A specialty fasteners distributor — 12k SKUs across 17 brands — ran B2B commerce on WooCommerce with 61 plugins, three of which handled net terms and tiered pricing and broke on every update. A ten-week migration to Shopify Plus B2B replaced the plugin stack with native primitives and took product-page CLS from 0.31 to 0.02.

    Website Development2024

Your catalog, same standard

Want a number like these for your catalog?

Held to the same standard as the studies above: we measure where you stand today — organic and AI-search visibility across your top categories — and show you the baseline before we propose a thing.

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