Nelly.com has been a significant player in the Nordic e-commerce landscape for more than twenty years. As an early pioneer, the company built its own commerce platform and continued to develop it over time.
For many years, that approach worked well. But as the business evolved and expectations increased, it became clear that the foundation needed to evolve too.
The company set out to find a setup that reduced complexity, increased speed, and prepared them for whatever comes next.
The challenge - a platform that slowed the business down
When Anders Hellberg joined Nelly.com as CTO a few years ago, he stepped into a company running on a fully custom-built commerce platform that had been developed and refined over many years. There were advantages to that setup. But there were also big risks.
It was an unstable environment that we still had to continue developing in. If you changed something in one place, you could almost expect side effects somewhere else, Anders says.
The instability created uncertainty across the organization. Campaigns carried risk. Development projects moved slowly. Time to market was longer than it should have been. The checkout had behaved unpredictably. That is not a position any e-commerce company wants to be in. 
At the same time, the business was transforming. Nelly.com was moving from being a tech-heavy organization to focusing fully on being a fashion retailer.
Our challenge was clear: how could we reduce reliance on internal tech, create stability, lower our cost structure, and build a foundation that keeps us ready for whatever the market demands next? Anders explains.
The solution - a best-of-breed architecture built for flexibility and future readiness
Instead of choosing another traditional commerce platform, Nelly.com made a deliberate strategic shift. They selected a modular architecture with Brink Commerce and Occtoo at its core.
One of the alternatives in the procurement process was a more traditional e-commerce suite. Another was a more boxed platform that was further developed at the time. But both felt too limiting.
We wanted a cleaner API architecture, like the one Brink Commerce and Occtoo offered. We knew our platform would need to evolve over time. As a retailer with strong digital ambitions, we did not want to return to a self-built monolith, Anders says.
Commerce that holds under pressure
Alongside the clean API architecture, Brink Commerce was selected for its ability to handle complex campaigns and extreme traffic peaks. For a brand like Nelly.com, where campaigns drive a large share of revenue in short time windows, performance under pressure was a critical requirement.
We needed a commerce engine that could handle very high load, fast price and promotion changes, and heavy checkout traffic without slowing down or breaking, Anders says.
Brink Commerce powers transactions and campaigns at scale in the setup. Centralized campaign logic is exposed via APIs, allowing Nelly.com to execute large and complex campaigns across channels without tight frontend or CMS coupling.
The foundation that ties it all together
With a new frontend and an API based commerce engine in place, Occtoo became the Product Orchestration Engine that connected everything. It acts as a data source, data layer, integration platform and part of the backend logic.
In our environment, with multiple systems and teams that need to work together, this was exactly what we were looking for. Occtoo brings it all together. Today, we have full control of our master product data and the speed to act on it, Anders continues.
An exceptionally executed project
The shift was ambitious. Nelly.com replaced its entire e-commerce stack and CRM stack in parallel. The transformation from start to finish was completed in roughly six months.
It was an exceptionally well-executed project,” Anders says.
The result - higher efficiency, lower cost and risk, stronger readiness
For Anders, the most tangible difference is speed.
Projects move smoother now, and with less risk.
New integrations and improvements can be implemented faster and more cost-efficiently. The platform scales well, and the team can continuously refine the customer experience, launch new projects, and innovate without large investments.
We can do most things with relatively limited effort. It does not become too expensive to develop. Internal staffing and the total cost of ownership have decreased. Four years ago, we were about 20 employees working in the IT department. Now, we are only four, plus a few part-time consultants, Anders explains.
Nelly.com has moved from heavy dependence on its own tech organization to operating with a flexible digital foundation. The business can respond to change with greater confidence.
We are more prepared now. From a technology perspective, but also in terms of competence. Without this upgrade, we would not have been able to keep pace with our strong digital ambitions or our consumers’ constantly evolving expectations, Anders concludes.
What Brink & Occtoo delivered
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Faster execution and delivery
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Higher platform reliability and reduced operational risk
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Improved cost efficiency
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Leaner tech organization
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Scalable and future-ready foundation
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Robust campaign management for high-volume events
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Consistent checkout performance during peak traffic
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Predictable scalability without pre-provisioning
The shift
The project includes revamping Nelly.com, NLYMan.com, and the mobile app. Brink Commerce forms the backbone of this new ecosystem. The tech stack includes Occtoo for product orchestration, a CMS from Contentful, Voyado Elevate for search and personalization, Akeneo for Product Information Management and several other leading components.