A website relaunch in e-commerce is one of the riskiest projects out there. Incorrect redirects can destroy 40 percent of organic traffic overnight. Poor performance costs conversions on every single page load. And if you botch the data migration, you end up with empty product pages. Yet many companies keep postponing their overdue relaunch -- out of fear of the planning complexity.
In this case study, we show how a Marketing Director uses PathHub AI to plan the relaunch of an e-commerce shop from Magento 2 to a modern headless commerce architecture. From input to a complete project plan with phases, budget, risks and KPIs -- in less than 30 minutes.
The Problem: An Outdated Shop Holding Back Growth
FashionNova GmbH (name changed) is a mid-size e-commerce company with 85 employees based in Hamburg, Germany. Their online shop running on Magento 2 was set up five years ago and is technically outdated. The numbers tell a clear story:
- 4.2 second load time -- the industry average is 2 seconds. According to Google, every additional second of load time costs 7 percent in conversion.
- 1.8 percent conversion rate -- the e-commerce industry average is 3.2 percent. Nearly half of potential revenue is being lost.
- 62 percent mobile traffic -- but the shop is not mobile-optimized. Mobile users have a conversion rate of just 0.9 percent.
- SEO rankings are declining -- since the Core Web Vitals update, the shop has lost 23 percent of its organic visibility.
- 850 products and 12,000 visitors per day waiting for a modern shopping experience.
Marketing Director Lisa has had enough. She convinces management to approve EUR 120,000 for a complete relaunch. The goal: migration to a headless commerce architecture with Next.js on the frontend and Shopify as the backend. Mobile-first, Core Web Vitals in the green zone, double the conversion rate. And all of this in 16 weeks -- without SEO ranking losses. Lisa decides to use PathHub AI to plan this complex project.
The Input: What the Marketing Director Enters in PathHub AI
Lisa's strength lies in providing a precise problem description with concrete numbers. The more context the AI receives, the more realistic the generated plan becomes. Here is her complete input:
How to get the best results from PathHub AI:
For a website relaunch, concrete performance numbers are worth their weight in gold. Lisa provided current load time, conversion rate, and traffic distribution. This allows the AI to set realistic target values and correctly estimate the effort needed for performance optimization. Always mention the existing technology (here: Magento 2) and the target architecture -- this significantly impacts the migration effort estimate.
The AI-Generated Project Plan in Detail
Within 30 seconds, PathHub AI generates a complete project plan with six phases, a detailed budget, risk analysis and stakeholder mapping. The AI automatically recognizes that the planned 16-week timeframe is too ambitious and realistically suggests 20 weeks. Here is a simplified example of what the output looks like:
6 Phases Over 20 Weeks
Discovery & Analysis
3 Weeks- UX audit of the existing Magento shop with heatmaps and session recordings
- Technical analysis: performance profiling, API inventory, database schema review
- SEO crawl of all 850 product pages, category and CMS pages (URL inventory)
- Requirements catalog with prioritized features for the new platform
- Agency briefing and onboarding of external partners
UX/UI Design
4 Weeks- Wireframes for all critical user flows (PDP, PLP, checkout, search)
- Mobile-first design system with component library
- Interactive prototypes in Figma for desktop and mobile
- Usability testing with 8-10 real customers (remote-moderated)
- Design system documentation for consistent development
Frontend Development
5 Weeks- Next.js project setup with SSR/SSG strategy and ISR for product pages
- Shopify Storefront API integration (products, cart, checkout)
- PIM system connection for product data synchronization
- Responsive implementation of all design components (mobile-first)
- Performance optimization: image lazy-loading, code-splitting, edge caching
Backend & Migration
3 Weeks- Data migration: 850 products with variants, images, and metadata to Shopify
- Customer data migration with GDPR-compliant transfer
- URL mapping of all existing URLs to new structure (301 redirects)
- Payment provider integration and checkout customization
- Staging environment for parallel operation and comparison testing
Testing & QA
3 Weeks- Cross-browser testing (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge) on desktop and mobile
- Performance tests: Lighthouse CI, Core Web Vitals monitoring, WebPageTest
- SEO validation: canonical tags, sitemap, robots.txt, structured data
- Load testing: simulation of 12,000+ concurrent visitors
- UAT (User Acceptance Testing) with all stakeholders and key users
Go-Live & Monitoring
2 Weeks- DNS switch with minimal downtime (target: under 15 minutes)
- Activate 301 redirects and verify in Google Search Console
- Monitoring setup: uptime, error tracking (Sentry), performance (Datadog)
- Daily Core Web Vitals performance tracking for 14 days
- SEO monitoring: check rankings, crawl errors, indexing daily
Simplified example — the actual AI output is significantly more detailed, with specific dates, responsibilities, and data tailored to your project.
Six phases, 20 weeks, 30 concrete tasks. Particularly important: the AI adjusted the timeline from 16 to 20 weeks. This is realistic -- parallel development of frontend and backend with an external agency requires coordination time. Better to plan honestly than to be stuck with a half-finished shop after 16 weeks.
Timeline: 20 Weeks to Go-Live
The timeline shows the four main phases of the relaunch in overview. Some phases overlap -- for example, the backend migration starts during frontend development:
Never schedule a go-live on a Friday. A Tuesday or Wednesday gives you three full working days for monitoring before the weekend arrives. Lisa scheduled her go-live for a Tuesday morning -- with the entire development team on standby for the first 48 hours.
Budget: EUR 120,000 Wisely Allocated
PathHub AI automatically creates a detailed budget plan that covers all cost items. Lisa provided EUR 120,000 as the framework. The AI distributes this budget across eight line items:
| Cost Item | Amount | Share | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| External Agency | €48,000 | 40% | Frontend development, Shopify integration, consulting |
| Internal Frontend Dev | €24,000 | 20% | 2 developers, proportional for 20 weeks |
| UX/UI Design | €18,000 | 15% | Wireframes, prototypes, usability tests, design system |
| Hosting & Infrastructure | €9,600 | 8% | Vercel/Netlify, Shopify Plus, CDN, staging |
| SEO Migration & Tools | €7,200 | 6% | Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, redirect management, consulting |
| Testing & QA | €6,000 | 5% | Load tests, cross-browser, automation, UAT |
| Risk Buffer | €7,200 | 6% | Reserve for unexpected issues and scope changes |
| Total | €120,000 | 100% | 20-week project duration |
Simplified example — the actual AI output is significantly more detailed, with specific dates, responsibilities, and data tailored to your project.
Particularly helpful: the AI allocated a separate line item for SEO migration (EUR 7,200). In manual budget planning, SEO is often lumped under "development" -- and then neglected during the project because the budget runs out. The 6 percent risk buffer is essential for relaunch projects, as unexpected compatibility issues almost always arise.
ROI Calculation: When the Investment Pays Off
The math is impressive: currently, FashionNova has a 1.8 percent conversion rate with 12,000 visitors per day. That's 216 orders daily. With an average order value of EUR 85, that produces EUR 18,360 in daily revenue.
If the conversion rate increases to 3 percent through the relaunch, that means 360 orders per day -- 144 additional orders. At EUR 85 average order value, that's EUR 12,240 in additional daily revenue, or approximately EUR 367,000 per month.
Even if only 50 percent of the conversion target is achieved (2.4 percent instead of 3 percent), that would still mean 72 additional orders per day and EUR 183,600 in additional monthly revenue. The EUR 120,000 investment pays for itself in under 3 months.
The math at a glance: EUR 120,000 investment, at full conversion target (3%) approximately EUR 367,000 additional monthly revenue. Even with conservative estimates (50% of target), ROI is under 3 months. Additionally: better SEO rankings through Core Web Vitals, higher mobile conversion and lower bounce rate.
Risks and Mitigation Strategies
A website relaunch is one of the riskiest IT projects. PathHub AI automatically identifies the five most critical risks and suggests concrete mitigation strategies:
Incorrect or missing 301 redirects can destroy 30-50 percent of organic traffic within days. With 12,000 visitors per day, this represents an existential loss.
Mitigation: Complete URL mapping before go-live, 301 redirects for every single URL, monitor Google Search Console daily, rollback plan for the first 48 hours. SEO Manager as a dedicated stakeholder.
850 products with variants, images, customer accounts, order history -- during the migration from Magento to Shopify, data can be lost or corrupted.
Mitigation: Staging environment for test migration, complete backup before each migration step, incremental migration (products first, then customers, then orders), automated validation after each step.
The new site is supposed to be faster than the old one. But third-party scripts, large images, or inefficient code can degrade performance again.
Mitigation: Define Core Web Vitals as acceptance criteria (LCP under 2.5s, CLS under 0.1, INP under 200ms), integrate Lighthouse CI into the build pipeline, set a performance budget per page.
40 percent of the budget goes to the external agency. If the collaboration doesn't work or the agency has capacity issues, the project stalls.
Mitigation: Code reviews by the internal development team, weekly knowledge transfer sessions, clear handover documentation, all credentials held by the internal team, exit clause in the agency contract.
"Can we just quickly add a configurator?" -- in the e-commerce world, new feature requests constantly emerge that threaten the timeline.
Mitigation: Establish a change request process from day one, feature freeze 4 weeks before go-live, "Phase 2" backlog for all features to be implemented after the relaunch. Clear prioritization: performance and SEO before new features.
Simplified example — the actual AI output is significantly more detailed, with specific dates, responsibilities, and data tailored to your project.
Stakeholder Mapping
The AI identifies eight key stakeholders for the relaunch project and categorizes them by their role:
Simplified example — the actual AI output is significantly more detailed, with specific dates, responsibilities, and data tailored to your project.
Particularly valuable: the AI identifies the Data Protection Officer as a stakeholder. When switching platforms with customer data migration, GDPR compliance is not an optional task but a legal requirement. If the DPO is brought in too late, it can delay the go-live.
KPIs: Measuring Relaunch Success
A relaunch without KPI tracking is like flying blind. PathHub AI suggests four key metrics that Lisa should monitor daily from go-live. Learn more about choosing the right AI-powered project management methods in our introductory article.
Measurement is done through four tools: Google PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse CI (load time), Google Analytics 4 (conversion rate), Google Search Console (mobile usability) and Sistrix/Ahrefs (SEO visibility). Lisa sets up a daily dashboard showing all four KPIs at a glance -- particularly critical during the first 14 days after go-live.
Why these four KPIs? They cover all dimensions of a successful relaunch: technology (load time), business (conversion), user experience (mobile usability) and visibility (SEO). A relaunch that halves the load time but loses SEO rankings has failed. Only when all four KPIs are on track is the relaunch a success.
Comparison: Manual Planning vs. PathHub AI
What would Lisa have done without AI support? A realistic comparison:
| Criterion | Manual Planning | PathHub AI |
|---|---|---|
| Time for initial plan | 2-3 weeks | 30 minutes |
| Budget planning | Rough estimate, SEO budget often missing | 8 line items with percentages and details |
| Risk analysis | Focus on technical risks, SEO forgotten | 5 risks ranked by criticality with mitigations |
| Stakeholder mapping | IT team and management | 8 stakeholders incl. data protection and customer service |
| SEO migration | Often considered too late | Planned as a dedicated task from the start |
| Timeline realism | Too optimistic, no buffer | Automatic adjustment from 16 to 20 weeks |
| Performance targets | "Should be faster" | Concrete Core Web Vitals targets as acceptance criteria |
| KPI definition | Traffic and revenue | 4 measurable KPIs with current and target values |
| Total planning cost | Approx. EUR 5,000-8,000 (personnel + consultants) | Under EUR 100 (tool usage) |
The biggest value-add is in SEO migration. In practice, SEO is the most frequently neglected aspect of website relaunches -- with catastrophic consequences. The AI plans SEO tasks into every phase from the start: SEO crawl in the discovery phase, URL mapping in migration, SEO validation in testing, and SEO monitoring after go-live.
Use the AI as a checklist, not an autopilot. The AI-generated plan covers all critical areas -- but you need to adapt it with your knowledge of the specific situation. For example, Lisa rated the PIM integration as higher risk than the AI suggested, because her PIM system has an outdated API. Only humans have that kind of contextual knowledge.
Lisa's Verdict After Go-Live
Three weeks after go-live, Lisa and her team take stock. The relaunch took 21 weeks instead of the planned 20 -- a one-week delay due to an unexpected PIM compatibility issue. The budget was maintained thanks to the risk buffer.
"The AI-generated plan was our safety net. It forced us to think about SEO migration, data protection, and performance budgets before we wrote a single line of code. Without that plan, we probably would have forgotten the SEO redirects and lost 30 percent of organic traffic after go-live. That alone probably saved us six figures in revenue."
How to Start Your Own Website Relaunch
If you're planning a similar relaunch, here are the three most important steps:
- Document the current state: Measure your current KPIs (load time, conversion rate, mobile score, SEO visibility). Without a baseline, you can't measure success after the relaunch.
- Formulate a clear input: Describe your project in PathHub AI with all technical details -- current platform, target architecture, traffic numbers, budget, and special requirements like SEO migration or PIM integration.
- Use the plan as a starting point: Adapt the AI-generated plan to your specific situation. Pay special attention to the risk analysis and add your own risks that only you know about (e.g., outdated APIs, team capacity).
Frequently Asked Questions
With PathHub AI, the initial planning of a website relaunch takes less than 30 minutes. The AI automatically generates phases, tasks, budget, risks and stakeholder analysis. A typical e-commerce relaunch from Magento to headless commerce takes 16-20 weeks to implement. AI-powered planning shortens the planning phase from 2-3 weeks to just a few hours, so you can start the actual implementation sooner.
Costs vary significantly depending on scope and complexity. For a migration from Magento to headless commerce (Next.js + Shopify) with 500-1,000 products, a realistic budget is EUR 80,000-150,000. The largest cost blocks are the external agency (35-45%), frontend development (15-25%) and UX/UI design (10-15%). Important: always plan a risk buffer of 5-10% and a separate line item for SEO migration.
The three most important measures: 1) Complete URL mapping of all existing URLs to new addresses with correct 301 redirects. 2) Conduct a full SEO crawl before the relaunch and document all rankings. 3) Monitor Google Search Console daily after go-live and fix crawl errors immediately. Additionally, canonical tags, sitemap and robots.txt must be correctly configured on launch day. A rollback plan for the first 48 hours is mandatory.
The four most important KPIs are: Page Load Time (target under 2 seconds, measurable via Lighthouse), Conversion Rate (improvement of at least 50%), Mobile Usability Score (target 95+/100 in Google Search Console) and SEO Visibility Index (maintain at least 95% of the pre-relaunch value). These KPIs should be measured as a baseline before the relaunch and monitored daily for at least 30 days after go-live.
Headless commerce separates frontend and backend, offering more flexibility in design and performance. Advantages: significantly better Core Web Vitals, free frontend technology choice (e.g., Next.js), easier omnichannel integration and better scalability. Disadvantages: higher initial costs (about 20-30% more), more technical complexity and stronger dependency on developers. For e-commerce companies with over 500 products and high mobile traffic, headless commerce is usually the better choice -- the performance advantage directly translates to higher conversion rates.