Boohoo
Group
Senior developer with Boohoo Group, migrating individual brands onto a new unified, headless, React‑based platform. Enabling shared functionality and customisable components.
In Detail
Five years ago, following its acquisition of Debenhams, Boohoo Group started a replatforming project to move multiple brands onto one headless e‑commerce platform. The work needed to support shared delivery whilst still allowing each brand to keep its own identity, merchandising needs, and growth plans.
Coming off the back of several years working with John Lewis and then Selfridges, I joined the team as a senior engineer, focusing primarily on the development of all‑new, brand‑themeable, React‑based components in Storybook. These components were designed and developed with both flexibility and reusability in mind, intended to be used across any one of the many (and different) Boohoo Group websites.
Developing shared components in this way allowed us to maintain the individual identity and aesthetic of each brand whilst taking advantage of the economies of scale that having a shared, highly documented codebase like this affords us. It also meant that we could improve the user experience, improving consistency and accessibility across each brand from a single point.
As you might imagine, aside from the development side of this role, there was also a significant people‑centric aspect to it, working closely with stakeholders across the brands to ensure that the components we developed (and then used to build each brand PLP and PDP in particular) fitted with their specific needs.
We integrated these components on top of a unified, headless platform alongside CommerceTools and AEM for legacy content. That gave the migrated brands a shared implementation with brand‑specific storefronts on top. From launch, the brands moved to the new system saw a significant uptick in visitors and conversions to sales, whilst overall operational costs reduced.
Two Homepages, One Codebase
Both the Boohoo and Debenhams homepages sit on the same architecture, the same code, and the same components. The differences lie in the way each has been themed and how the shared components have been templated, allowing the Boohoo homepage to keep its neo‑brutalist aesthetic, whilst Debenhams retains a more subtle design.
Sharing components in this way means that maintenance and future feature development can be rolled out to each (and ‑ eventually ‑ other brands within the Boohoo Group) from a single codebase.
As with many other projects I've worked on, the content comes from an AEM instance, giving content creators (for each individual brand) the freedom to lay out and publish the homepage as they see fit, headlessly.
Product Listing Pages & Filters
Product Listing and Details pages are where the different brands within the Group differ the most. Nevertheless, for the PLPs, the same approach is true everywhere within this project: these are all shared components from the same Component Library, with different themes applied.
This variation in styling via themes ensures that the core functionality of each component is preserved whilst allowing each brand to maintain its own unique aesthetic.
Product Detail Pages
In any e‑commerce application, the PDP is the most important page of the site. It is here that a website (hopefully) offers the user all of the information they need to decide whether to purchase the product or not.
Here, my team and I developed several featureful components, in particular, the gallery carousel and the way the product imagery is presented. This is very different between the different brands, and was a real challenge to develop in a way that could be used across the group.
Aside from the gallery, we also have all the features you would expect for a PDP: size guides, colour options and ‑ of course ‑ the ability to buy.
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I had the pleasure of working closely with John Kavanagh at Selfridges. He is an exceptional programmer who consistently delivered high‑quality work. John possesses a deep understanding of exceptional front‑end development skills and has a remarkable ability to tackle complex problems with creative and effective solutions.
What sets John apart is not only his technical expertise but also his strong work ethic and dedication to delivering results. He is a reliable and proactive team player, always willing to go the extra mile to ensure project success. I was particularly impressed with his ability to help with issues and make the explanations simple and succinct.
Beyond his technical skills, John is a pleasure to work with. He communicates effectively, collaborates seamlessly with team members, and approaches challenges with a positive and solution‑oriented mindset."
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It's been a pleasure to work with John Kavanagh in the web team at Nando’s. He's a top professional who has prided himself in bringing my designs to life with a high standard since day one. He has a great eye for detail with a clear understanding of user‑centric thinking and is always willing to give great suggestions from a technical standpoint.
I have also really appreciated his positive energy which gives a great lift to the team at every stand up. Any team would be lucky to work with him, as I have experienced myself!"
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John Kavanagh is a very talented front‑end web developer. He is enthusiastic, up‑beat, very knowledgeable in his field and has a great eye for detail. He brought a lot to our team and to the product, I would be happy to work with him again."
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John Kavanagh is a passionate and highly skilled developer with a wonderful ability to calmly concede downward business pressures whilst pragmatically delivering the project at hand.
John is never fazed by project management/requirement issues as are common in these environments, instead, he always finds a way to deliver value to both the end consumer and the business. It's not always easy to remain level‑headed and calm on high‑pressure projects but John's good nature and professionalism invariably remain infallible. It's an absolute pleasure working with him."
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John Kavanagh is enthusiastic and enjoys getting work completed, he is happy to challenge priorities where he sees there is a quicker ROI to be made from his development. His opinion on how we have developed features has been key to our success this financial year. He is fun to work with, always vocal and the dynamic he brought with PO/UX/UI has driven us to deliver better quality features faster than before."
