eCommerce platform engineering

Complete eCommerce systems, engineered end to end

Nexum Forge designs, builds and runs the whole commerce stack: a fast custom storefront, commerce services that scale, and every integration to ERP, PIM, WMS and payments. One senior team, one point of accountability, one SLA.

Request a technical assessment See how we work
Composable architecture Senior engineers only Fixed scope launches 0.8 s median LCP

Trusted by commerce and digital teams across Europe

Northline Retail Halvorsen Industrial Vermeer Group Atlas Goods Brightwave Monteverde
120+
Commerce platforms delivered and run since 2016
99.98%
Measured availability across managed platforms in the last 12 months
4.1 M
Orders processed per year on systems we operate
14 wks
Median time from kick off to first revenue on a new storefront

Services

Six disciplines, one delivery team

Most commerce programmes fail at the seams between vendors. We hold storefront, services, integrations, infrastructure and QA in the same team, so nobody has to arbitrate between them at 9pm on Black Friday.

Front end engineer building a headless eCommerce storefront in React and Next.js

01 / Storefront

Custom storefront development

React and Next.js storefronts built against a performance budget, with server rendering, edge caching and a component library your team can extend.

Next.jsCore Web VitalsDesign system
Explore the service
Developer workstation showing headless commerce architecture code

02 / Architecture

Headless commerce architecture

Composable platforms assembled from commerce engine, CMS, search and payments, with clear service boundaries and no vendor you cannot replace.

MACHEvent drivenMulti region
Explore the service
Data centre server racks running eCommerce backend services

03 / Backend

Backend and commerce API

Catalogue, pricing, cart, order and account services with idempotent writes, versioned contracts and load tested capacity for peak trading.

GraphQLKubernetesLoad tested
Explore the service
Online payment integration tested on a laptop and mobile phone

04 / Payments

Payments and checkout

Checkout flows built around conversion and compliance: PSD2 and SCA, multiple PSPs, local methods, fraud rules and reconciliation you can audit.

PSD2 / SCAMulti PSPPCI DSS SAQ A
Explore the service
Warehouse operator checking stock data on a tablet connected to ERP

05 / Integration

ERP, PIM and CRM integrations

Stock, price, product and order data kept honest between SAP, Dynamics, Akeneo, Salesforce and your warehouse, with replay, retries and alerting.

SAPDynamics 365Akeneo
Explore the service
Nexum Forge managed support engineers monitoring live commerce systems

06 / Run

Migration and managed support

Replatforming without losing traffic or revenue, then a 24/7 run service with named engineers, an incident process and a monthly engineering budget.

Zero downtimeSEO safe24/7 SLA
Explore the service

Reference architecture

One system, five layers, no black boxes

Every platform we build follows the same reference architecture. Channels are decoupled from commerce services, commerce services are decoupled from your systems of record, and the integration layer is the only place where the two meet.

Nexum Forge composable commerce reference architecture

Figure 01 / platform blueprint
01 CHANNELS Web storefront Mobile app Marketplaces Store and POS B2B portal 02 EXPERIENCE Next.js storefrontSSR, ISR, edge render CDN and edge cachestatic, image, API cache BFF and GraphQL gatewayone contract per channel Design systemtokens, components, a11y 03 SERVICES Catalogue and product datavariants, media, attributes Pricing and promotionsprice books, rules, vouchers Cart and checkouttax, shipping, payment intent Order managementstate machine, returns, refunds Customers and accountsB2B hierarchies, contracts Search and merchandisingindexing, ranking, rules 04 INTEGRATION Event buspublish and subscribe API gatewayauth, quota, versioning Idempotent workersexactly once effects Retry and dead letterreplay, alerting, audit 05 SYSTEMS ERP PIM WMS and 3PL CRM Payments Tax and fraud
Nexum Forge build scope Existing systems and channels

Figure 01. Channels never call your ERP directly. Every write crosses the integration layer, which is where retries, idempotency and audit live, so a slow warehouse system can never take checkout down with it.

Replaceable by design

Each layer talks through a documented contract. Swapping search, CMS or PSP is a scoped project, not a rebuild.

Failure is contained

Circuit breakers, cached fallbacks and queued writes keep the storefront trading when a back office system is down.

You own the code

Source, infrastructure as code, pipelines and run books are yours from day one, in your repositories and your cloud accounts.

Delivery model

A schedule you can hold us to

A typical mid size replatform runs sixteen weeks from kick off to go live. Streams overlap on purpose, and four gates decide whether the next stream starts. Nothing moves past a gate on optimism.

Sixteen week delivery plan with gates

Figure 02 / delivery schedule
DISCOVERY DESIGN BUILD INCREMENTS HARDENING LAUNCH Discovery and analysis Trading data, systems audit, scope Architecture and design Target architecture, UX, contracts Storefront and services Two week increments, demo every increment, production ready at each merge Integrations and migration ERP, PIM, WMS, payments, catalogue and order history migration Test, performance, security Automated suites, load tests, penetration test, accessibility audit Launch and hypercare Cutover, run G1 SCOPE LOCKED G2 DESIGN SIGNED G3 CODE FREEZE G4 GO LIVE W0 W2 W4 W6 W8 W10 W12 W14 W16
Analysis and design Engineering Assurance Gate and launch

Figure 02. Indicative plan for a mid size replatform. Large B2B programmes with several ERPs typically run 24 to 32 weeks and the same gate structure applies.

Phase 01

Discovery and analysis

We read your trading data, not your wish list. Traffic, conversion by step, basket economics, catalogue size, integration inventory, incident history. Two weeks, fixed fee, and it ends with a written scope you can take to any vendor.

You receiveTarget architecture, prioritised backlog, integration register, risk log, fixed price for phase two.
Phase 02

Architecture and design

Service boundaries, data contracts, environment topology and the UX for the revenue critical journeys. Everything is written down before anyone writes production code, and both sides sign the same document.

You receiveArchitecture decision records, API contracts, design system, non functional requirements, test strategy.
Phase 03

Build in two week increments

Every increment ends with working software in a production like environment, a demo and a release note. Automated tests, code review and performance budgets run on every merge, not at the end.

You receiveDeployable increments, test coverage reports, performance budget results, updated run book.
Phase 04

Hardening and cutover rehearsal

Load tests at three times your peak hour, penetration test, accessibility audit, full data migration rehearsal and a timed cutover run through with the rollback path proven, not assumed.

You receiveLoad and security test reports, migration reconciliation, cutover run book, rollback plan.
Phase 05

Launch, hypercare and run

Go live in a low traffic window with the whole team on the bridge, two weeks of hypercare, then a managed service with named engineers, a monthly engineering budget and a quarterly platform review.

You receive24/7 monitoring, defined SLA, monthly service report, roadmap for the next two quarters.

Why Nexum Forge

Built by people who have carried the pager

Every engineer on your project has run a commerce platform in production through a peak trading season. That changes the decisions they make on a Tuesday in March.

  • Senior only teams. Median eleven years in commerce engineering. No pyramid, no learning on your budget.
  • One accountable team. Front end, back end, integrations, infrastructure and QA report to the same delivery lead.
  • Performance as a contract. Core Web Vitals thresholds are written into the statement of work and enforced in CI.
  • Fixed scope, fixed price phases. Discovery and launch are fixed. Change is priced before it is built.
  • Full handover. Code, pipelines, infrastructure as code, run books and architecture decision records are yours.
Site reliability engineer working inside a data centre aisle
11 yrs
Median commerce engineering experience per team member
92%
Of programmes delivered inside the agreed launch window
< 15 min
Response time for priority one incidents under the managed SLA
100%
Of source code, pipelines and infrastructure handed to the client

Case study

Northline Retail: a checkout that stopped leaking revenue

Fashion retail store interior representing Northline Retail, a Nexum Forge apparel commerce client

Fashion and apparel / 340,000 SKUs / 9 markets

From a five step checkout on a legacy monolith to a two step edge rendered flow

Northline traded on a nine year old monolith. Checkout took five steps, mobile largest contentful paint sat at 4.2 seconds, and every promotion change needed a release. We rebuilt the storefront on Next.js, moved cart, pricing and checkout into dedicated services, and put the ERP behind an event driven integration layer. Catalogue and eleven years of order history were migrated with full reconciliation and every legacy URL mapped.

+38%
Conversion rate, first two quarters after launch
4.2s to 0.9s
Mobile largest contentful paint
0
Ranking positions lost through migration
Read the full case study
They took the parts nobody else wanted to own. The ERP link, the tax rules, the peak capacity plan. On Black Friday we watched the dashboards instead of the phones.
Marta HalvorsenChief Digital Officer, Northline Retail

How we report progress. Every client gets a live delivery board, a fortnightly demo of working software, and a written increment report with scope delivered, scope moved and the reason it moved. There is no monthly status deck that hides a slipping plan.

Industries

Where commerce gets complicated

Catalogue size, pricing rules, regulation and fulfilment change the architecture more than the industry label does. These are the six patterns we work in most often.

Fashion retail store interior representing apparel eCommerce

Fashion and apparel

Large variant matrices, seasonal drops, high return rates and merchandising that has to change without a release.

 Pharmacy shelving representing regulated health and beauty eCommerce

Health, beauty and pharmacy

Regulated product data, batch and expiry handling, age and prescription checks, and audit trails that survive inspection.

 Supermarket produce aisle representing grocery and food eCommerce

Grocery and food

Slot booking, substitutions, weight based pricing, short shelf life stock and very high order volume per hour.

 Engineer reviewing plans on a factory floor for a B2B commerce project

Industrial and manufacturing

Contract pricing, account hierarchies, quotes, configurable products and deep SAP or Dynamics integration.

 Distribution centre supervisor checking inventory for a B2B commerce platform

Wholesale and distribution

Bulk ordering, order templates, credit limits, multi warehouse stock allocation and EDI alongside modern APIs.

 Electronics assembly close up representing consumer electronics eCommerce

Consumer electronics

Fast moving pricing, bundles and warranties, serial number tracking and marketplace channels alongside direct sales.

Insights

Notes from production

Written by the engineers who did the work, using numbers from systems that are live.

Questions

The things buyers actually ask

If your question is not here, the full list is on the FAQ page, and anything else gets a written answer within one working day.

What exactly do we get at the end of a project?

A running platform plus everything needed to operate it without us: source code in your repositories, infrastructure as code, CI and CD pipelines, environment configuration, architecture decision records, API documentation, test suites, run books and an incident playbook. Handover is a scheduled work package, not a folder emailed on the last day.

Which platforms and technologies do you build on?

Storefronts in Next.js and React. Commerce engines including commercetools, Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce and custom services in TypeScript, Go or .NET where a product does not fit. Search on Algolia, Elasticsearch or Typesense. Content in Contentful, Storyblok, Sanity or WordPress. Payments through Adyen, Stripe, Mollie and Klarna. We select for your catalogue, your rules and your team, and we tell you when a cheaper option is the right one.

Who owns the code and the intellectual property?

You do, from the first commit. Work is done in your version control from day one where possible, or transferred at the first milestone. There is no licence to buy back, no proprietary framework you are locked into, and no clause that makes leaving expensive.

How long does a project take?

A focused storefront rebuild on an existing commerce engine runs eight to twelve weeks. A full replatform with ERP, PIM and payment integration runs sixteen to twenty four weeks. Multi market or multi ERP B2B programmes run twenty four to thirty two weeks. The discovery phase gives you a fixed number before you commit to the build.

Can you migrate us without losing search traffic?

Yes, and it is a defined work package rather than an afterthought. We crawl the live site, build a complete URL map, keep parity on titles, structured data and internal links, ship permanent redirects with the release, then monitor index coverage and rankings daily for eight weeks. On our last five migrations the median ranking change at week eight was zero.

What does it cost?

Discovery is fixed at 8,500 EUR and is deducted from the build if you continue. Storefront rebuilds start around 60,000 EUR. Full replatforming programmes start around 120,000 EUR. Managed run services start at 4,500 EUR per month including a monthly engineering budget. Full detail is on the pricing page.

Get in touch

Send the brief, get a written answer

Tell us what is happening on your platform today and what needs to be true in twelve months. A principal architect reads every enquiry and replies personally.

Which areas can we help with?