Magento

Animates

NZ pet retail chain. Took over a stalled platform mid-flight, refactored 70% of the bad code during a cloud migration, then shipped same-day delivery and recurring orders on top.

Stack & integrations
Adobe Commerce 2.4.5 LS Central (D365 Business Central) Comestri OMS NZ Post API Afterpay / Laybuy / Klarna PayPal Braintree bLoyal loyalty Algolia search Nosto personalisation Klaviyo HotJar Bookable veterinary appointments

Animates (operated by Greencross) is one of New Zealand's largest pet care chains — products, vet services, grooming, DIY washes, catteries.

The problem

An e-commerce platform that was actively losing them money

The store was running on unstable code with significant technical debt. New features were high-risk, holiday traffic exposed scaling limits, and the previous build had created more problems than it solved.

Code audit first, code second

We audited before we touched anything

Deep code-quality review. Honest prioritisation. We turned vague feature requests into a sequenced delivery timeline before writing the first line of new code.

Cloud migration

Refactored 70% of the bad code during the move

Migration to Adobe Commerce Cloud was the chance to clean up rather than copy across. The result: a platform that holiday traffic doesn't break, and where the next feature isn't a high-risk bet.

Recurring orders

Subscriptions that don't drop payments

Payment processing rebuilt to handle thousands of recurring transactions reliably. Admin tooling so the merchant can see, fix, and scale the subscription base without a developer ticket.

Same-day delivery

Answer 'when?' on the product page, not at checkout

Direct integration with the NZ Post API and address validation, surfaced on PDP. Customers see the delivery window before they add to cart, which is where the abandonment question actually lives.

Upgrade to 2.4.5

Off the legacy stack, modernised server side

Cleared the last of the deprecated extensions and modernised the server stack. Every subsequent feature ships faster because the base isn't fighting the platform.

Want this kind of build for your business?

Tell us what you're trying to do. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit — and if we are, we'll have a senior engineer embedded in your team within two weeks.

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