How Viewrail scaled and modernized its D2C business with composable tech
- Article
- 5 MIN READ
- Oct 15, 2025
-
Apply DigitalStaff
Summary
Viewrail is a leading provider of modern, high-quality stairs and railings, serving customers through built-to-order projects and Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) sales. In the past, D2C sales accounted for over 30% of the company's revenue; however, in recent years, the focus has shifted to inside sales, and eCommerce sales have declined. Viewrail sought to re-energize its e-commerce business and drive D2C sales via improved customer experiences.
Today, customers expect seamless digital experiences that make it easy to buy products on any device. Apps or websites that are difficult to navigate or that don't offer clear purchase options can lead to lost sales. According to recent data from PwC, 73% of consumers say experience is a key factor when making purchasing decisions.
Knowing this, Viewrail recognized that its ability to deliver modern CX was limited by its legacy commerce platform.
The challenge: a legacy platform holding back growth
When Viewrail set out to reinvigorate its declining D2C sales, it was clear the company would need to upgrade from their legacy eCommerce platform, which wasn’t capable of delivering modern experiences at scale: the Viewrail website was slow to load and difficult to navigate, while essential business systems, including ERP and customer service tools, were disconnected from the storefront. This technical gap forced Viewrail teams to manually handle time-consuming processes, which reduced efficiency and led to errors.
The company’s legacy platform also struggled to effectively manage Viewrail’s robust product catalogue, which includes thousands of SKUs across product lines. The inefficient back-end and legacy interface resulted in clunky customer experiences. Faced with these challenges, Viewrail knew it needed fundamental change to maintain its competitive edge and recapture D2C customers.
The solution: composable commerce for speed and scale
Instead of opting for another inflexible monolithic solution, Viewrail made the strategic move to a composable commerce platform. The composable approach enables businesses to build a custom tech stack by choosing the right tools for specific functions and connecting them through APIs. This flexibility was exactly what Viewrail needed to ensure it could deliver the modern CX that customers expect.
The company partnered with Apply Digital and selected commercetools as its core commerce engine. By leveraging commercetools Foundry for B2B Manufacturing and the Apply Digital CAFE Accelerator, Viewrail implemented a minimum viable product (MVP) in a remarkable 3.5 months. This accelerated timeline resulted in a 50% reduction in development time, proving that a composable approach can deliver results far more quickly than traditional methods.
The partnership allowed Viewrail to quickly build a scalable, unified commerce foundation from a single backend capable of handling its complex product data and multiple storefronts.
The results: performance today, growth tomorrow
Viewrail's transition to commercetools delivered immediate results. The new platform delivers faster load times and a more responsive user experience. These improvements had a direct positive impact on Viewrail’s search rankings and visibility, as reflected by a 5-7% increase in organic clicks and stronger rankings for a key industry term.
But the true impact goes beyond speed and SEO. With a unified, composable backend, Viewrail can now manage multiple brands and storefronts from one system, eliminating inefficiencies and ensuring consistent customer experiences across channels. This streamlined foundation doesn’t just fix today’s pain points—it gives Viewrail the agility to scale its D2C business, capture new revenue streams, and expand into future touchpoints like retail showrooms or emerging digital channels.
If we hadn't used commercetools Foundry for B2B Manufacturing, it would have taken considerably longer for us to build everything on the website from scratch or even build it off of different accelerators or frameworks. We saved a ton of time and effort — and had immediate results.
Conclusion
Viewrail’s story demonstrates the power of strategic modernization. By moving away from a rigid legacy platform and embracing a composable commerce approach, the company was able to solve its immediate operational challenges. More importantly, it established a scalable, unified foundation that can adapt to changing market demands and future opportunities. For today’s businesses, flexible and resilient digital infrastructure is not a luxury—it’s a necessity.
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