London-based Mountain Warehouse, the owner of Eastern Mountain Sports in the U.S., has launched a new composable e-commerce store, replacing a decades-old custom-built system, enabling the outdoor clothing and equipment retailer to scale more efficiently, reduce operational complexity and accelerate innovation across its global e-commerce operations.

Mountain Warehouse operates more than 420 stores worldwide and serves over 5 million customers across key markets including the UK, U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The company designs and produces the majority of its products in-house, offering affordable outdoor apparel and equipment.

“Moving away from our legacy platform was critical to unlocking the next phase of Mountain Warehouse’s growth,” said Simon Neale, chief technology officer at Mountain Warehouse. “We now have the flexibility to innovate faster, integrate best-of-breed technologies and focus our engineering efforts on delivering better customer experiences rather than maintaining core infrastructure.”

The company’s previous e-commerce platform had reportedly become increasingly difficult to scale, with significant development resources required to maintain and support aging infrastructure. The company also said it faced limitations around speed to market, security and the ability to experiment with modern technologies.

By adopting a composable, headless architecture, Mountain Warehouse reports it can now:

  • Accelerate time-to-market for new features and initiatives
  • Reduce reliance on maintaining custom core systems
  • Improve platform security, reliability and compliance
  • Enable flexible integration with third-party and in-house solutions

Mountain Warehouse is the UK’s largest outdoor retailer, with over 420 stores globally. Founded in 1997 by Mark Neale, the retailer reports it now serves over 5 million customers each year. The retailer is said to cater to a wide range of outdoor activities, including hiking, walking, running, cycling, camping, and skiing, and offers a broad selection of clothing and equipment.

Image courtesy Mountain Warehouse