Managing a large-scale inventory requires more than just a digital storefront; it requires a sophisticated data architecture. Zenith Home & Garden, a rapidly growing retailer with a massive catalogue ranging from luxury outdoor furniture to specialized gardening tools, found their existing Shopify setup becoming an operational nightmare. With over 5,000 SKUs and complex product variations, their site was slowing down, and their SEO was suffering from automated "duplicate content" issues inherent in template-based platforms.
They reached out to Custom Coded Websites to develop a robust, multi-product e-commerce platform that could handle high traffic volumes while dominating the Google search results for the competitive London and home counties markets.
The Challenge: Inventory Bloat and Search Invisibility
As Zenith expanded their product lines, their generic e-commerce platform began to buckle under the weight of its own database. The primary obstacles included:
- Database Latency: Filtering through 5,000 products was taking upwards of 8 seconds, leading to a massive drop-off in user engagement.
- SEO Cannibalization: Shopify’s rigid URL structures meant that different product colours and sizes were creating "thin content" pages that confused Google’s crawlers.
- Rigid Filtering: Customers couldn't easily filter by specific attributes like "Weather Resistance," "Wood Type," or "London Delivery Availability."
The CCW Strategy: A Custom Django Product Engine
Our co-founders, Charlie Shortman and Louie Long, designed a bespoke solution that treated the website as a high-performance database first and a storefront second. By utilizing Python and Django, we were able to build a platform that thrives on complexity.
1. High-Performance Product Indexing
Charlie Shortman engineered a custom PostgreSQL schema designed for rapid-fire faceted searching. We implemented Elasticsearch integration, allowing customers to filter through thousands of products across multiple categories in under 100 milliseconds. Unlike standard e-commerce plugins, this custom logic allows for "fuzzy search" and predictive results, significantly improving the shopping experience for Zenith’s customers.
2. Technical SEO for 5,000+ SKUs
SEO was at the heart of the build. We implemented a "Smart URL" system that ensures every product variation has a canonical link, preventing duplicate content penalties. We also built a custom Sitemap Generator that prioritizes high-margin products for Google’s crawlers. By ensuring the site passed all Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, and CLS) with a "Green" rating, we gave Zenith a massive technical advantage over their competitors using slower, template-based sites.
3. Seamless Multi-Product UX
Louie Long focused on "Information Hierarchy." For a store with so many products, navigation is key. We designed a mega-menu and a "Breadcrumb" system that makes it impossible for a user to get lost. We also implemented an Instant Cart feature using Django and React, allowing users to add multiple high-ticket items to their basket without a single page reload, which is crucial for increasing the Average Order Value (AOV).
The Results: Dominating the Search Results
The launch of the custom Django platform redefined Zenith Home & Garden’s digital trajectory:
- Organic Traffic: A 60% increase in organic search traffic within the first four months.
- Search Rankings: Zenith moved from page three to the top 5 for high-volume terms like "Luxury Garden Furniture London" and "Professional Gardening Equipment."
- Site Speed: Reduced the time-to-interactivity from 8.2 seconds to 1.2 seconds, despite doubling their product count.
- Conversion Rate: A 28% increase in sales, driven by the improved search and filtering functionality.
Why Multi-Product Brands Need Custom Django Architecture
If your business manages a large catalogue, you cannot afford the performance taxes of a generic web builder. Every second of lag and every SEO error is a lost sale. A custom Django build from Custom Coded Websites gives you the scalability of an enterprise-level platform with the SEO precision of a boutique agency.
From our base in London, we help retailers across the UK take full control of their digital assets. We don’t just build stores; we build high-speed search engines that sell.