Unlocking D2C commerce for an automotive premium brand

A leading German car manufacturer, known for engineering excellence and a global brand presence, set out to modernize its digital commerce ecosystem. With a growing portfolio of products and services sold across international markets, the company needed a more agile, scalable platform to meet evolving customer expectations. The objective was to move beyond traditional retail models and lay the groundwork for a fully digital, direct-to-consumer sales experience. 

To meet their 2030 ambitions, the client needed more than a new ecommerce infrastructure. They needed a global strategy that unifies sales, services and brand experience across markets. Success would require a central architecture and a set of processes that could adapt to meet local needs and scale to support future needs. 

• Establish a unified commerce platform. Deliver a single foundation to replace fragmented regional systems and reduce duplication across brands, markets and product lines.
  
  
• Support multi-market and multi-product expansion. Enable features to be built once and scaled globally so local markets can move at pace.
  
  
• Create standardized processes with room to adapt. Introduce a central blueprint that defines global best practices but can be configured locally to meet market-specific needs.
  
  
• Solve long-standing stability and performance issues. The new architecture needed to be robust, scalable and reliable.
  
  
• Be future-ready. Design for omnichannel and D2C growth today, but ensure the architecture can evolve to support new channels and service models. 

We began by providing a technical perspective on how their future commerce platform could be structured and showed how it addressed previous pain points. When the client saw how it could work across markets and product lines, they asked us to take on the full integration.

To achieve their goals at speed and scale, we launched two parallel workstreams. 

As the client's legacy system was fragmented and inconsistent, the first priority was to fix the foundation. We developed a new core commerce platform designed to be vendor-agnostic and globally scalable.

The platform provides core commerce capabilities — such as shopping basket, checkout, payment and fulfillment — through APIs that can be used by any market and for any product line. By centralizing these services, the platform reduces duplication and enables a consistent user experience across regions. 

“I was very impressed by Valtech’s ability to build this platform successfully in such a short time.”
Client’s Commerce Architecture and Future Platform Manager 

The back end is no longer a bottleneck. Services are modular and replaceable, allowing the client to gradually evolve its tech stack over time without disrupting business operations. Integration complexity has also been reduced, enabling faster rollout of new features and services.

This transformation was made possible by a composable architecture that decouples back-end functionality from the front-end experience. In the old system, front-end teams were tightly coupled to back-end systems. Now, they can connect directly to the platform and focus on experience design and product strategy — rather than infrastructure or integration complexity. They can also launch new storefronts or service updates with greater speed and autonomy.

In parallel, we built a new online shop that supports multiple product types and markets within a single, configurable architecture. By onboarding one product category at a time, we consolidated fragmented regional shops into a shared platform that now handles everything from physical goods (like cars and accessories) to digital services.

To ensure consistency across markets, we introduced a blueprint process model. This provided a standardized foundation that could be adapted locally without compromising the brand experience. Markets were able to configure elements such as warehousing, shipping and tax compliance, while the overall structure remained aligned to global standards.

All market-specific requirements are now managed through configuration rather than custom development. This allows updates like new payment methods to be rolled out once and made available to every market. Cross-selling across product lines is also now possible without rebuilding checkout flows. 

As the partnership grew, we adapted by navigating hurdles together and reframing obstacles as opportunities. What began as a focused delivery team expanded rapidly as the client entrusted us with additional workstreams beyond the original scope. We scaled up to 80 people in just a few months, sourcing talent from our global network. Teams were assembled across Norway, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Germany, Ukraine, Macedonia and more.

“I am very satisfied that Valtech managed such a smooth commerce implementation.”
Client’s Senior Manager, Digital Business Platform 

The first release of the platform went live just eight months after kickoff.

Behind the scenes, the entire backend was rebuilt and replaced, yet internal workflows remained fully operational throughout. Regional teams continued using the tools and systems they were familiar with, without interruption or retraining. On the customer side, the front-end experience remained completely intact, with no disruptions during the transition.

By decoupling back-end services from the front-end experience we enabled seamless transformation.

“I am more than happy about the progress and also the capabilities of the shop.”

Client’s Market Lead, Australia

The greatest impact came from the multi-product, multi-market shopfront. By engaging with markets that had previously been disconnected, we opened new lines of collaboration. We introduced structured reviews of working, tested software increments and gave business stakeholders visibility into progress and outcomes. This created trust, increased satisfaction and built confidence in the platform.

We also shifted the way markets influence the development cycle, offering more transparency and meaningful input while keeping the platform aligned with central goals.

Today, all product assortments are live on the platform in some capacity, and more markets are joining every quarter. The technical foundation is stable, scalable and ready for what’s next. 

We are now focused on continuous improvement, onboarding new markets and responding to evolving business needs. As new requirements surface, whether driven by local regulations, product changes or service innovations, we work closely with the client to address them.

We’re also exploring new possibilities in the direction of conversational commerce and AI. These technologies have the potential to further personalize the customer journey and unlock new service models across markets.

The partnership itself is also evolving. A new contract has been signed that reflects the client’s long-term commitment to the platform and our collaboration. Looking ahead, we aim to expand our role beyond delivery. Our ambition is to become a trusted strategic partner, helping shape thinking around data, AI and sales performance.