How Stance Cleared Its Tech Debt and Took Controlof the Site
Stance moved from Salesforce Commerce Cloud's legacy SiteGenesis platform to the current Storefront Reference Architecture through an Autobahn migration. The new build breaks content into a set of modular building blocks in Page Designer, so the Stance team now manages almost everything on the site without adding to the codebase.
Who is Stance?
Stance is an apparel and accessories brand that is stitched different and believes in a life that is anything but ordinary.
Stance built its following on frequent, expressive product drops and collaborations, which makes the pace of content change on stance.com unusually high. A brand that launches this often cannot afford a content model where every campaign page is a development ticket.
What problem did Stance need to solve?
Stance was running on SiteGenesis, Salesforce Commerce Cloud's legacy architecture, and needed to get current without a daunting, costly, long project.
SiteGenesis upgrades have a reputation for exactly that: extended timelines, heavy budgets, and a codebase that grows more complex with every content requirement added to it. For a brand whose marketing calendar runs on constant new launches, that compounding complexity is the real cost. Stance needed the platform current and the content model rebuilt so the team could work at the pace of the brand.
Requirements that defined the project
- Migrate from SiteGenesis to SFRA
- Eliminate accumulated technical debt
- Avoid a long, costly, high-risk upgrade project
- Keep the codebase clean and manageable
- Give content editors direct control over the site
- Support increasingly complex content without matching complexity in code
How did Red Van solve it?
Red Van migrated stance.com from SiteGenesis to the latest Salesforce SFRA through an Autobahn migration, then rebuilt content management around a set of modular building blocks.
Autobahn is the fastest and most stable route to getting a SiteGenesis site current and eliminating tech debt. The standout front-end decision was breaking content modules into composable building blocks rather than fixed templates. Autobahn creates a living ecosystem of components that build and grow with each other, so increasingly complex content is possible without the codebase growing at the same rate. That is the difference between a content model that gets easier over time and one that gets heavier.
What the platform includes
SiteGenesis to SFRA Migration
stance.com migrated from Salesforce Commerce Cloud's legacy SiteGenesis platform to the current Storefront Reference Architecture through an Autobahn migration.
Technical Debt Elimination
Accumulated technical debt cleared as part of the migration rather than carried forward into the new build, which is the usual failure mode of a SiteGenesis upgrade.
Modular Content Building Blocks
Content modules broken into a set of composable building blocks, giving flexibility on the front end while keeping the codebase clean and manageable.
Page Designer Components
Purpose-built Page Designer components that let the Stance team manage almost everything on the site directly, without a development request for each change.
A Living Component Ecosystem
Components designed to combine and grow with each other, so content can become more complex over time without the codebase complexity scaling alongside it.
Autobahn Migration Path
Autobahn used as the migration route, avoiding the long, costly project a SiteGenesis upgrade normally implies.
What were the results?
Stance now runs on current SFRA with its technical debt cleared, and its team manages almost everything on the site through the Page Designer components built for them. The team is using those components to their full potential, which is the outcome that matters. A modular content system only pays off if the people who own the marketing calendar actually adopt it.
- Migrated from SiteGenesis to the latest Salesforce SFRA
- Technical debt eliminated rather than carried forward
- Stance team managing almost everything on the site directly
- Clean, manageable codebase maintained through the migration
- Modular content building blocks in place of fixed templates
- Increasingly complex content possible without matching code complexity
- Page Designer components in full production use by the team
SiteGenesis upgrades do not have to be daunting, costly, long projects. Stance's is the argument for that: current architecture, cleared debt, and a content model the marketing team runs themselves.
What services did Red Van provide?
- 01Discovery and Architecture
- 02SiteGenesis to SFRA Migration
- 03Autobahn Platform Deployment
- 04Technical Debt Remediation
- 05Page Designer Component Development
- 06Modular Content Architecture
- 07Front-End Development
- 08Content Team Enablement
- 09QA and Launch Support
- 10Ongoing Managed Services
Frequently asked questions
How do you upgrade from SiteGenesis without a long, costly project?+
Autobahn is the fastest and most stable route to bringing a SiteGenesis site current and eliminating tech debt, because the framework supplies components that would otherwise be custom-built. Stance migrated to the latest SFRA this way rather than running the multi-quarter rebuild a SiteGenesis upgrade usually implies.
What is Salesforce Page Designer and why does it matter?+
Page Designer is Salesforce Commerce Cloud's visual content tool. It matters when the components behind it are built well. Red Van built Stance a set of modular components that the team now uses to manage almost everything on the site, which removes marketing from the development queue entirely.
How do you keep a codebase clean as content requirements grow?+
By making content modular instead of bespoke. Autobahn creates a living ecosystem of components that combine and grow with each other, so increasingly complex content is assembled from existing blocks. The codebase stops scaling in lockstep with the marketing calendar, which is what makes it manageable long term.
Will our marketing team actually be able to use it?+
That depends on whether the components were designed for editors or for developers. Stance uses its Page Designer components to manage almost everything on the site. Building blocks that mirror how a marketer thinks about a page get adopted. Blocks that mirror the data model do not.