A sofa is not an impulse buy. It is a considered, high-value purchase that lives at the centre of your home for years. When Prominent wanted to bring that showroom experience online, the question was not just about technology. It was about recreating the confidence and comfort of a physical store visit in a digital environment. Together, we built a headless e-commerce platform that bridges both worlds without a seam in sight.
Headless architecture connecting five specialist systems into one cohesive e-commerce experience
PIM-driven product storytelling for high-value furniture with rich configurability
Online appointment booking bridging digital browsing with in-store consultation
Content independence for marketing teams: landing pages without developer dependency
Clicks and bricks journey designed for considered, high-value purchase decisions
The challenge
How do you create a seamless experience between physical showrooms and an online platform that drives conversion for high-value furniture purchases?
The solution
A headless e-commerce platform combining Adobe Commerce, Akeneo PIM, Storyblok CMS, Next.js and React, with online appointment booking connecting digital browsing to in-store consultation.
Prominent x iO: building the bridge between showroom and screen
Prominent is a Dutch furniture retailer specialising in high-quality sofas, chairs and living room furniture. With a network of physical showrooms across the Netherlands, Prominent serves customers who take their time making the right choice and expect the same care online as they receive in store.
We partner with Prominent to strengthen their position in a market where the line between online and offline is disappearing. This case highlights one part of that journey: a headless e-commerce platform that brings showroom confidence to the digital experience. Our collaboration goes beyond a single project. We think strategically alongside Prominent, helping them stay ahead in a retail landscape where customer expectations keep evolving.
Why a furniture retailer needed more than a traditional webshop
Finding the perfect sofa or armchair is a personal, emotional process. Customers want to see it, feel it, imagine it in their living room. Yet online shopping has become second nature across all generations, and Prominent's customers increasingly start their journey on a screen, long before they ever visit a showroom.
The previous webshop, built on Adobe Commerce in a traditional monolithic setup, was well suited to processing orders and promotions. But it was not built to deliver the brand experience, rich product storytelling and seamless store-to-screen continuity that a furniture purchase demands. Prominent came to us with one clear ambition: make the online experience as compelling as the physical one, and let both reinforce each other.
Why headless architecture is the answer for clicks-and-bricks retail
Together with Prominent, we investigated which technology architecture could best serve a clicks-and-bricks retail model. The answer was headless. Rather than a single system trying to do everything, a headless approach separates the front-end experience from the back-end commerce logic, giving full creative freedom to one and robust transactional power to the other.
This separation means Prominent can evolve their customer experience independently of their commerce engine. New design trends, campaign pages or seasonal storytelling can be deployed without touching the transactional backbone.
For a furniture retailer with a deep, configurable product catalogue, data quality and flexibility are everything. We kept Adobe Commerce as the e-commerce engine, handling orders, pricing, promotions and business logic, and layered two specialist systems on top.
Akeneo PIM manages all product data: specifications, materials, dimensions, variants and imagery. This single source of truth feeds the platform with structured, accurate and complete product information at scale. Storyblok, a headless CMS, then takes that content and presents it beautifully, combining product data with editorial content, lifestyle imagery and brand storytelling on every page. The front end is built with Next.js and React, delivering fast, flexible and performant page rendering. Algolia powers the search experience, making it easy for customers to find exactly what they are looking for.
How to connect physical stores with an online platform using headless commerce
For products like sofas and chairs, where the average order value is high and the purchase decision is deliberate, the experience around the product matters as much as the product itself. Headless architecture gives Prominent's team full control over that experience, without technical bottlenecks.
Product detail pages and landing pages can be built and updated independently in Storyblok, without relying on developer resource for every change. This means Prominent can react to new marketing campaigns, seasonal trends or product launches quickly and keep the online experience fresh and relevant. The result is a platform that does not just show products, but builds the desire to own them.
The bridge between online and offline was just as important as the digital experience itself. We built an online appointment booking tool using Azure Functions, allowing customers who have been browsing online to book a visit to their nearest showroom or even request an advisor to come to their home.
This frictionless handoff between channels is what a true clicks-and-bricks platform delivers. A customer can discover a sofa online, explore it in detail, and seamlessly transition to an in-store or in-home consultation, all within the same journey. Prominent's team can also update store information, availability and services independently, keeping the connection between physical and digital consistently up to date.
Retail moves fast. Trends shift, customer behaviour evolves, and the technology landscape keeps changing. The headless architecture means Prominent is not locked into a single vendor or a rigid system. New services, integrations and capabilities can be added to the stack without rebuilding from scratch, keeping the platform future-proof and the business in control.
The numbers
1
Specialist systems working as one: Adobe Commerce, Akeneo, Storyblok, Algolia, Azure Functions
1
Seamless customer journey across online and physical showrooms
0
Developer dependencies for Prominent's content team to update pages independently
From fragmented systems to a unified clicks-and-bricks experience
The new platform does more than solve today's challenges. It creates the foundation for Prominent's future growth in an increasingly omnichannel retail landscape. By consolidating five specialist systems into one coherent architecture, Prominent has drastically reduced the complexity of managing their digital presence.
For customers, the impact is immediate: a richer, more inspiring online experience that mirrors the care and attention of a showroom visit. For Prominent's marketing team, it means independence. They can launch campaigns, update product pages and respond to market trends without waiting for development capacity. And for the business, it means a platform that grows with them, ready for whatever retail brings next.
