Heineken
Heineken is a brand and commerce platform spanning 12 international markets, combining consumer-facing storefronts with B2B distributor ordering and trade marketing campaigns. It replaces fragmented legacy systems with a single source of truth for catalog, pricing and promotions.
What is Heineken?
Heineken is a brand and commerce platform spanning 12 international markets, combining consumer-facing storefronts with B2B distributor ordering and trade marketing campaigns. It replaces fragmented legacy systems with a single source of truth for catalog, pricing and promotions.
Moxace engineered the platform on a custom build base, reusing 17 of 21 modules unchanged and building 4 custom blocks for market-specific compliance, age verification and distributor credit workflows. Full source-code ownership transferred to the client's internal teams at handover.
The platform delivered 30% revenue growth and a 2.5X cart conversion improvement, while giving regional teams the autonomy to launch new markets and campaigns without engineering bottlenecks.
Key Features
The capabilities that make Heineken stand out in the ecommerce space.
Multi-market storefront
Localized storefronts for 12 markets with region-specific catalogs, pricing, promotions, tax rules and compliance requirements (age verification, alcohol licensing).
B2B distributor portal
Dedicated ordering portal for distributors with volume-based pricing tiers, credit terms management, delivery scheduling and consolidated invoicing.
AI-powered product search
Semantic search with typo tolerance, synonym handling and faceted filtering across 5,000+ SKUs, reducing time-to-product from 45 seconds to under 5.
Personalized merchandising
Dynamic homepage and category page layouts that adapt product placement, promotions and cross-sell recommendations based on buyer segment and purchase history.
Inventory & supply chain sync
Real-time stock visibility across regional warehouses with allocation rules, backorder management and automated purchase order generation to suppliers.
Trade marketing campaign engine
Self-service campaign builder for regional marketing teams to create targeted promotions, bundle offers and co-branded activations with automatic ROI tracking.
Subscription & Auto-refill
Recurring order schedules for B2B accounts with flexible frequency, quantity adjustments, pause/skip controls and early-payment discount incentives.
Compliance & age verification
Market-specific age gate implementations, alcohol purchase restrictions, shipping zone validation and audit logging for regulatory compliance.
Services Provided
The end-to-end engineering and design work behind Heineken.
Commerce platform engineering
Built a headless commerce platform on a modular architecture supporting B2B and B2C flows with full source-code ownership transferred to the client's team.
- Headless API-first architecture
- Multi-tenant market isolation
- Open-source core with proprietary extensions
Search & discovery optimization
Replaced keyword-matching search with a semantic AI search engine, improving findability and reducing abandoned carts by 40%.
- Elasticsearch + ML reranking
- Query suggestion & autocomplete
- Faceted navigation with dynamic filters
Market rollout & localization
Executed phased rollout across 12 markets over 6 months, handling currency, language, tax, legal and logistics differences per region.
- 12-language i18n framework
- Per-market tax & duty calculation
- Local payment method integration
Data migration & integration
Migrated 5 years of order history, customer records and product catalogs from 4 legacy systems with zero data loss.
- ETL pipelines with validation
- Parallel run period for confidence
- Rollback-safe deployment strategy
Tech Stack
Technologies powering Heineken in production.
Next.js + react
Server-rendered storefronts with ISR for marketing pages and CSR for personalized B2B experiences.
Node.js + nestJS
Modular backend services for catalog, cart, checkout, orders and customer management.
Elasticsearch + meilisearch
Dual search stack - Elasticsearch for complex B2B queries, Meilisearch for fast consumer-facing search.
PostgreSQL + redis
Primary data store with read replicas per region; Redis for cart sessions and rate limiting.
AWS (multi-region)
Deployed across 3 AWS regions with per-market data residency compliance and global load balancing.
Stripe + local pSPs
Stripe as primary processor with local payment service providers for markets requiring domestic rails.
Results & Impact
"They engineered a commerce platform that significantly improved engagement and search efficiency across our operations."
Why This Matters
Modern commerce platforms are no longer optional for global consumer brands. They are essential tools for market expansion, distributor efficiency, and customer lifetime value growth.
Moxace's partnership with Heineken enabled:
- Reliable B2B and B2C commerce experiences across 12 markets
- Seamless integration across distributors, warehouses, and local payment rails
- Continuous platform improvements without downtime
- Scalable infrastructure for multi-market growth
- Strong security and regulatory data protection
Conclusion
From AI-powered search to a phased 12-market rollout, Heineken's unified commerce platform demonstrates how enterprise-grade e-commerce engineering can power consistent, high-quality buying experiences across international markets.
Moxace helped Heineken deliver a stable, scalable, and high-performance commerce platform ready to support future market expansion, new product lines, and evolving buyer expectations.
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