Varus
Varus, one of Ukraine’s largest grocery chains, transformed its eCommerce with a headless Magento + Vue Storefront solution, achieving faster innovation, improved UX, and seamless omnichannel integration
Mar 2021 - currently
When Varus, one of Ukraine’s largest grocery chains, set out to modernize their eCommerce, they needed more than just a facelift they needed flexibility, speed, and scale. By going headless with Magento + Vue Storefront, we delivered a custom PWA with deep system integrations and Dark Store support. The result? 800% growth in orders and a future-proof platform built for rapid innovation.
800%
growth in orders
150%
more successful checkouts
About the project
Varus is a prominent Ukrainian retail chain with 110 physical supermarkets and an expanding online presence, including a Dark Store dedicated to online shopping fulfillment.
With 7,500 employees and a revenue of 17.5 billion UAH (432 million EUR) in 2023, Varus is committed to providing a seamless omnichannel shopping experience. Through its online platform, varus.ua, the company offers over 21,900 SKUs to customers. Varus now draws over 323 000 customers each day. As online shopping has gained significant momentum in Ukraine, driven by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and now the ongoing war, Varus recognized the need for an advanced eCommerce platform to cater to changing consumer behaviors.
The Challenge
In 2021, Varus approached us with a vision to create a robust, flexible eCommerce platform that would offer a superior customer experience, support growing demands, and provide seamless integrations with third-party systems.
Their goal was to become one of the top five product retailers in Ukraine. At that time, Varus operated a custom-coded delivery service, go.varus.ua, which faced performance and integration issues.
Our mission was clear: to build an eCommerce solution capable of delivering a highly responsive, scalable, and innovative experience for Varus' customers while integrating seamlessly with their internal systems.
Why Headless Architecture?
For this project, we chose Magento 2 and Vue Storefront due to their flexibility and capability to create a headless solution. Magento serves as a robust backend that Varus requires, while Vue Storefront provides a high-performance and integrability, Progressive Web App (PWA)-based frontend. This combination is ideal for large-scale applications, ensuring compatibility across multiple devices, different channels, mobile-friendliness, and quick integrations.
Key benefits of this headless eCommerce architecture for Varus
1. Flexible Customization and Scalability. One of the standout advantages of headless architecture is its inherent flexibility. For Varus, this meant that they could rapidly deploy new features, such as the replenishment subscription service, which enables customers to automate product deliveries. Additionally, the system can quickly adapt to changing market demands or customer preferences without extensive reworking of the platform.
2. Seamless Integration with Third-Party Systems. The headless approach provided Varus the flexibility to integrate with numerous third-party systems, enhancing the functionality of the platform:
• Promotion Product (PP) Integration: Varus imports about 5,000 promotional products into Magento every week. This integration ensures that customers have access to discounted items, driving conversions and promoting customer loyalty.
• TMS Integration: The Transportation Management System (TMS) was integrated to manage delivery operations, including methods, time slots, and store-specific delivery polygons. This optimized logistics and ensured that customers could receive their orders in a timely manner based on their location.
• SQPP Integration: This system handles inventory and price management, allowing for real-time updates of stock levels and pricing across all Varus stores. With updates happening every two minutes, customers were always presented with accurate availability and pricing information, improving trust and transparency.
• PIM Integration: A critical aspect of Varus’ eCommerce success was the integration of a Product Information Management (PIM) system. This allowed for synchronization of product and category data, ensuring that the vast number of SKUs available online were always up to date. Products were updated every 15 minutes, and categories were refreshed every hour, streamlining inventory management across the platform. The PIM system also improved the efficiency of handling promotions, such as adding around 5,000 discounted products weekly.
• Customer Service Integration: User registration and authentication are managed through a dedicated service, making the checkout process secure and seamless for users. This integration streamlined the user experience and provided Varus with valuable customer data for improving their service offerings.
• Admitad Integration: A marketing platform was integrated to manage affiliate programs and promotions. This provided Varus with advanced marketing capabilities, including tracking conversions and managing affiliate campaigns, helping them attract more customers through targeted offers.
These integrations contributed to Varus’ ability to scale effectively and respond to customer needs more quickly, all while maintaining a high level of operational efficiency.
3. Enhanced Performance and Speed. A headless architecture allows the frontend and backend to function independently, resulting in significantly faster load times and improved performance for users. This separation also enables faster updates to the user interface without disrupting backend processes. For Varus, this meant that the online store was always responsive, even during high traffic, which is critical for maintaining customer satisfaction and reducing cart abandonment rates.
4. Improved Mobile Experience. With a significant portion of Varus customers shopping via mobile, the headless architecture enabled the development of a responsive, mobile-first experience through Vue Storefront’s PWA-based solution. This ensured a fast, app-like experience on mobile devices, boosting customer engagement and conversion rates.
5. Enhanced SEO and User Engagement. Vue Storefront is known for its SEO-friendliness, ensuring that Varus’ online store could rank highly in search results, even as the market became more competitive. The customizable frontend allowed for the incorporation of engaging content and rich media, which improved the overall user experience.
What was done
- Custom Theme Development. A fully bespoke frontend built from scratch to meet Varus’ brand, UX, and performance goals—deeply integrated with the headless PWA stack and Magento backend.
- PIM Integration. Near real-time synchronization of 21,900+ SKUs with automated updates every 15 minutes—ensuring consistent product data across all channels.
- SQPP Integration. Real-time stock and price sync every 2 minutes across multiple stores—crucial for inventory accuracy and customer satisfaction.
- TMS Integration. Advanced delivery logic including delivery methods, time slots, and polygon-based zones—essential for logistics efficiency and omnichannel fulfillment.
- Cart and Order Optimization. Custom logic, UX improvements, and performance enhancements across the checkout flow—directly impacting conversion rates and revenue.
- Server-Side Rendering (SSR) Optimization. Boosted page speed, SEO, and crawlability—especially important for high-traffic PWA environments.
- Multisearch Implementation. Integrated advanced search capabilities across various content types—enhancing user navigation and product discoverability.
- Promotion Product (PP) Integration. Automated syncing of ~5,000 promotional SKUs weekly—supporting large-scale campaigns and customer engagement.
- Customer Service Integration. Seamless user authentication and registration services—ensuring secure, smooth customer experiences.
- Admitad Marketing Integration. Affiliate marketing platform integration for tracking, campaign management, and partner performance analytics.
Results and next steps
Since launching the new Vue Storefront-based platform in 2022, varus.ua has seen:
• An 800% increase in orders within one year
• 150% more successful checkouts, improving customer satisfaction and revenue growth
Dark Stores and the Future of Retail
Varus is exploring the potential of dark stores, which operate as distribution centers exclusively for online orders. These stores offer faster delivery and streamlined logistics, enabling Varus to cater to the growing demand for online shopping.
According to industry forecasts, the global shift toward online and dark store models is accelerating. By 2030, it is expected that a significant portion of brick-and-mortar stores will be replaced by online platforms and dark stores. This transformation reflects the broader trend towards convenience, personalization, and rapid fulfillment, which are core elements of Varus' business strategy moving forward.
Replenishment Functionality for Varus
Varus continues to innovate, and we are now working on the implementation of a replenishment subscription service. This feature will enable customers to subscribe to regular deliveries of essential products, saving them time and money. The platform will automatically identify promotions and add the best deals according to each customer's preferences, making shopping more efficient and cost-effective.
Summary
Varus is continuously evolving, and the headless solution we developed will allow them to stay ahead of market trends and customer needs by offering unparalleled flexibility and scalability. As consumer expectations shift towards faster, more personalized shopping experiences, Varus can quickly adapt its platform without overhauling the entire system. The headless architecture enables seamless integration of emerging technologies, such as AI-driven product recommendations, subscription services, and enhanced customer engagement tools, ensuring they remain competitive in the rapidly changing eCommerce landscape.
The platform’s ability to easily integrate new third-party systems, from marketing to logistics, ensures that Varus can continue innovating with minimal disruption to their operations. This solution future-proofs Varus, enabling them to introduce new features, optimize performance, and deliver cutting-edge shopping experiences that align with customer preferences and technological advancements.