Unity Books
Three NZ bookstores, one headless storefront - multi-location stock, Algolia over 30k+ titles.
- Role
- Frontend Lead
- Discipline
- Headless Commerce
- Year
- 2024
- Focus
- Remix, TypeScript
(Overview)
At Brave Digital I led frontend on Unity Books’ headless storefront. One catalog across Wellington, Auckland, and little Unity - per-location inventory, Algolia discovery, and Sanity editorial.
Each store ran its own online channel, so shoppers only saw one location’s stock. Unity needed one site that mirrored in-store depth: combined inventory, bookseller curation, events, and fulfilment rules.
I built the Remix storefront as the join between Shopify commerce, multi-location inventory, Algolia InstantSearch over a bookstore-scale catalog, and Sanity modules for home, staff picks, events, and pages.
Launched unitybooks.co.nz in June 2024. Agency-reported month two: sessions +41%, total sales +46%, orders +45%; Wellington online sales +50%; organic conversion 51.52%.
- Remix
- TypeScript
- TailwindCSS
- Shopify
- Sanity
- Algolia
(By the numbers)
(Brief)
Client context
Unity Books is an independent NZ bookstore group spanning Wellington, Auckland, and little Unity. At Brave I led frontend so a 55+ year literary brand could merge 30,000+ titles, split-location fulfilment, and pre-order flows into one storefront.
(Architecture)
System layers
Remix joins Shopify, Algolia, Sanity, and multi-location inventory into one storefront.
- Remix storefront
- Browse, PDP, search, events, wishlist, cart, and editorial pages
- Shopify + inventory
- Cart/checkout plus per-location stock, on-order, and pre-order state
- Algolia
- InstantSearch over 30k+ titles with bookstore-native facets
- Sanity
- Home, staff picks, events, and page modules
(Product surface)
What shoppers could do
- 01
Discovery
Cover-first grids, Shop All with filter rail, and ISBN/title/author search.
- 02
Inventory & purchase
Per-location stock, on-order / pre-order CTAs, and add-to-cart gated by availability.
- 03
Session shell
Cart drawer, wishlist, featured carousels, and staff-picks surfaces.
- 04
Content
Sanity news and events, store storytelling, and bookseller reviews.
(Product)
Bookstore surfaces
Cover-led discovery, Algolia facets, Sanity editorial, and per-store stock across three NZ bookstores.
Mobile
(Hard problems)
Constraints that shaped the build
One site, three inventories
PDP shows per-store stock, on-order, and pre-order so availability is clear at decision time
Bookstore browse isn’t fashion filters
Algolia facets for author, publisher, format, price, and NZ/Māori category trees
Inventory freshness vs edge cache
Product pages uncached; collections and home stay cacheable
(Lighthouse)
Measured quality
Mobile Lighthouse on unitybooks.co.nz: Performance 100 · Accessibility 90 · Best Practices 100 · SEO 100.
Accessibility sits at 90 because Unity’s brand palette fails some Lighthouse contrast checks - an intentional trade for brand fidelity.
Performance
Accessibility
Best Practices
SEO
(Impact)
What I shipped
- 01
Unified three stores into one storefront where stock and fulfilment are clear at the point of decision.
- 02
Built Algolia search and browse over 30k+ titles with bookstore-native facets.
- 03
Month two (agency-reported): sessions +41%, sales +46%, orders +45%, organic conversion 51.52%.
