How we modernised iHerb’s ecommerce operations through Digital Transformation to scale global wellness sales
Case Study 5 min read
Project Overview
iHerb sells 50,000+ authentic health and wellness products and ships to 180+ countries, supported by climate-controlled fulfillment centers in the U.S. and Asia. As growth accelerated, the team needed a faster, cleaner operational backbone across catalog, storefront, and reporting.
Competenza Innovare partnered on a focused digital transformation spanning catalog data, localization, storefront performance, checkout workflows, and BI. We rationalised attributes and faceting, automated repetitive enrichment, tuned search and caching, and rebuilt reporting so leaders could track funnel health and inventory signals in one place.. iHerb Corporate
The engagement improved day-to-day usability for merchandising and engineering while giving operations dependable dashboards. This alignment between front-end experience and back-office visibility set the stage for faster publishing, smoother checkouts, and scalable global launches.
About The Client
iHerb is the world’s largest ecommerce platform dedicated to vitamins, minerals, supplements, and other health and wellness products. In business since 1996, iHerb ships from multiple, climate-controlled centers in the U.S. and Asia to customers in 180+ countries.
CLIENT COMMENTS
“They really cared about what we were trying to do. They made suggestions and helped us think about stuff we didn’t even ask for.”
Problem Statement
At iHerb’s scale, small inefficiencies multiplied from catalog ingestion to storefront. Attributes and taxonomy varied by locale, which weakened search and filtering.
Slow publishing and performance issues in some regions reduced engagement on product display pages, which in turn lowered add-to-cart rates. Currencies and payment options were not equally smooth across markets, which increased the rate of abandonment.
Teams also lacked a single view of funnel health and inventory risk. The result was slower fixes, more repetitive work, and limited visibility into which improvements would yield the fastest lift in conversion.
Inconsistent product attributes and taxonomy across locales reduced search and filtering quality.
Manual enrichment and translations slowed publishing and created variability.
Performance hotspots in key regions affected PDP/PLP engagement and add-to-cart.
Checkout complexity across currencies and payment options hindered completion.
Fragmented analytics and exports complicated funnel and inventory reporting.
Our Approach
We aligned with product, merchandising, engineering, and operations to map the end-to-end flow: ingestion → enrichment → localization → storefront → checkout → reporting. Then we executed short sprints to simplify data models, automate routine work, and rebuild analytics with clear ownership.
What We Built
We delivered a set of storefront, data, and analytics improvements that made daily work simpler and reporting dependable.
Normalised catalog schema with governed attributes and faceting.
Enrichment pipelines (images, specs, compliance flags) with validation.
Translation workflows with term glossaries and QA gates.
Search relevance tuning, synonyms, and filter logic for faster product finding.
Edge caching + SSR/ISR performance upgrades for PLP/PDP and cart.
Checkout flows streamlined with regional payment options and error-recovery patterns.
Dashboards for conversion, inventory risk, and promotion performance.
Data-quality monitors to flag gaps, duplicates, and stale listings.
Tech Stack Used
We worked within iHerb’s AWS-centric commerce stack across catalog, storefront, checkout, and analytics—extending serverless APIs and caching, hardening data pipelines, and tuning search relevance—while aligning to CI/CD and security to deliver iterative, low-risk releases globally.
Project Results
With Competenza’s Digital Transformation services, iHerb simplified catalog operations, automated enrichment and localization, and rebuilt commerce reporting for global visibility.
The improvements helped teams publish faster, reduced repetitive tasks, and gave leaders a reliable view of funnel and inventory signals across regions.
2.7x faster
publishing of new and updated SKUs through automated enrichment and localization.
45% less
in add-to-cart from cleaner attributes, tuned relevance, and consistent filters across locales.
35% less
manual catalog work through governed schemas, reusable templates, and validation checks.
24h reports
for conversion, inventory risk, and promotions via unified dashboards.
Industry Insights Deloitte Research
“A 0.1s mobile speed gain can lift retail conversions by 8.4%“
Success Stories We Are a Part Of
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