Storefronts built to convert — and to survive a campaign spike.
Wave18 builds fast, scalable eCommerce for retail, fashion and food & beverage brands selling across borders, currencies and seasons. Most of our retail work is a headless or static-first storefront: pre-rendered pages served from the edge so a listing or product page loads in well under a second, with the commerce engine decoupled behind an API so checkout stays responsive when a sale, a launch or a seasonal peak triples your traffic. Every build ships multilingual from day one across six languages with proper hreflang, is accessible to WCAG 2.2 AA, and can layer in AI-driven recommendations and support — so the store keeps selling long after go-live, not just at launch.
What makes retail & ecommerce different.
Slow storefronts lose mobile sales
Most retail traffic is on mid-range phones on mobile data, where a heavy, plugin-laden theme costs conversions before the page even finishes loading.
Traffic spikes break checkout
Campaigns, launches and seasonal peaks are exactly when a monolithic store slows down or falls over — the worst possible moment for it to happen.
Every new market means more workarounds
Adding a language, currency or region to a store that was not designed for it turns a content task into an engineering project every time.
The EAA now applies to selling in the EU
Under the European Accessibility Act, e-commerce sold to EU consumers must be accessible — inaccessible checkout is now a compliance risk, not just lost custom.
How Wave18 approaches it.
Headless, static-first storefronts
Pre-rendered pages from a CDN keep the store fast everywhere, with the commerce platform decoupled so checkout stays responsive under load.
Multilingual, multi-market from day one
Six languages with proper hreflang and layouts that flex for longer copy, so opening a new EU market is a content task, not a rebuild.
AI-driven merchandising and support
Personalised recommendations and support assistants built into the storefront, not bolted on as a plugin that slows checkout down.
Accessible, tested checkout
WCAG 2.2 AA and EAA-readiness with manual keyboard and screen-reader testing across the revenue-critical path.
Retail & eCommerce services, in depth
eCommerce builds for retail & fashion brands.
Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and headless commerce for retail brands — AI merchandising, sub-1s storefronts, WCAG 2.2 AA checkout.
Web DevelopmentMultilingual storefronts for retail, built to survive a spike.
Static-first, multilingual web builds for retail brands — 95+ Lighthouse, WCAG 2.2 AA, six languages with hreflang, from £5,000.