A new lease of life for Apollo’s online store: secure, flexible, and user-friendly

Apollo’s online store is one of the best known in Estonia, where thousands of people shop every day. However, the existing solution had started to become outdated: official support for the e-commerce platform had ended, and adding new features was becoming increasingly difficult. In collaboration with Opus, Apollo’s online store went through a comprehensive upgrade, resulting in a secure and modern shopping environment.

Extensive negotiations preceded the project, as Apollo wanted to bring in a partner with a fresh perspective, and several technical and business issues needed to be resolved. “Apollo’s e-store was running on the Magento 1 platform, which had reached end-of-life and had become risky to use. In addition, the solution was technically outdated, and adding various features required commissioning separate and costly development work,” explained Opus CEO Margus Eha.

When selecting a partner, Opus’s long-term experience in building large and flexible online stores was decisive. “We already had expertise from similar projects, which allowed us to accurately estimate how much time and resources such development would actually require,” said Eha.

A secure and stable backbone

The core of the development work was migrating Apollo’s online store to the modern and improved open-source Magento 2 platform. “In addition to resolving security risks, the new platform ensures the store’s long-term cost efficiency – while earlier even small changes often required development work, now the store’s manager can handle them independently,” said Eha.

Thanks to the new Magento version, Apollo’s online store gained several new features. “For example, Apollo wasn’t satisfied with its previous search system, which was limited to an overlay search and inconvenient for customers. In the updated version, we built a completely new drop-down search, where products can also be quickly found by category,” Eha explained.

For frontend development, Opus chose the Next.js framework, suitable for larger and more complex online stores that require flexibility for various business needs. “Another advantage is user convenience – the store is rendered on the server instead of the customer’s device, which ensures faster loading speeds and thus better visibility in search engines,” added Eha.

Next.js also made it possible to create a fresh frontend independent of the backend. “If the back-end needs upgrading in the future, the user interface won’t need to be touched. This solution gives the client more freedom and reduces development costs by at least a fifth in the long run,” said Eha.

Throughout the development process, Opus followed the principle of decoupling. Much of the store’s functionality was moved out of Magento into standalone modules, reducing the risk of system downtime and making platform management significantly simpler:

• A PIM system, Akeneo, was introduced, allowing suppliers to manage their own products in the portal.
• For content management, an external CMS was integrated, offering a much more convenient experience compared to Magento’s default capabilities.
• Searches were migrated to the Elasticsearch platform, ensuring that large data volumes wouldn’t overload the server and searches would remain fast.
• Image management was moved to a CDN, reducing server load and improving loading speed.

No compromise on quality

According to Eha, the biggest challenge of the project was balancing strict internal quality standards with deadlines. “For large-scale projects with significant financial investment, it is crucial to ensure the system is sustainable in the long term. We rely on thorough code reviews, clear development standards, and automated processes for implementing and deploying changes,” said Eha. “We did not compromise on quality, and the project was completed by the original deadline.”

Another important aspect of large projects is involving the client’s staff. “People who will later manage the store must feel that it was built specifically for them. This requires close communication and flexibility in creating different features, many of which we implemented in Apollo’s project,” he said.

“Apollo’s e-store is now ready for the challenges of the next decade – the system is secure, fast, user-friendly, and technically flexible. The new online store supports Apollo’s business growth and delivers a better shopping experience for thousands of customers,” concluded Eha.