E-Commerce Platform for Harvest & Vine
We built a headless e-commerce platform with subscription boxes, AI-driven product recommendations, and a 4.7% conversion rate that generated $2.1M in its first year.
The Challenge
Harvest & Vine curated artisanal food products from small producers across the Mediterranean — olive oils, vinegars, spices, preserves, and wines. They had strong wholesale relationships but no direct-to-consumer channel. Their only online presence was an Instagram account with 24K followers and a Linktree with a Google Form for custom orders.
The founders wanted more than a standard Shopify store. Their product catalog of 340+ items needed a discovery experience that educated customers about producers, regions, and pairing recommendations — not just a grid of product cards. They also wanted to launch a subscription box program with 3 tiers that would generate predictable recurring revenue.
The technical challenge was complex: inventory synced across wholesale and D2C channels, temperature-sensitive shipping rules for certain products, age verification for wine orders in applicable states, and a recommendation engine that paired products based on cuisine type, flavor profile, and seasonal availability.
Our Solution
We built a headless commerce platform using Next.js for the storefront, Payload CMS for product and content management, and Stripe for payments and subscriptions. The architecture gave us full control over the shopping experience while maintaining enterprise-grade payment processing.
The product pages go beyond e-commerce norms. Each product features the producer's story, sourcing region with an interactive map, tasting notes, suggested pairings, and recipe ideas — all managed through Payload CMS so the content team can update without developer involvement. The AI recommendation engine (built on Claude API) analyzes browsing patterns, purchase history, and stated preferences to suggest complementary products with natural-language explanations like "This Calabrian chili oil pairs beautifully with the Sicilian sea salt you ordered last month."
The subscription system offers three tiers: Explorer ($49/month, 3 products), Connoisseur ($79/month, 5 products), and Chef's Table ($129/month, 8 products with exclusive access). Subscribers can customize upcoming boxes, skip months, and swap products — all self-service through their account dashboard. Stripe handles recurring billing, proration for tier changes, and failed payment recovery.
Implementation Process
1
Discovery & Design(3 weeks)
Mapped the full product catalog taxonomy, designed the subscription model, created the visual design system, and prototyped the product discovery experience.
2
Commerce Engine(5 weeks)
Built the product catalog, cart, checkout flow, Stripe integration, inventory management, and shipping logic with temperature and age-verification rules.
3
Subscriptions & AI(4 weeks)
Developed the subscription management system, self-service dashboard, Claude-powered recommendation engine, and email notification workflows.
4
Content, SEO & Launch(4 weeks)
Migrated 340 products with photography, implemented SEO across all category and product pages, load-tested for launch, and executed a soft launch to the Instagram audience.
Results
Harvest & Vine launched to their Instagram following first, then expanded through SEO and paid channels. The subscription model proved to be the growth engine the founders had hoped for.
$2.1M
First-year revenue
60% from one-time purchases, 40% from subscriptions
4.7%
Conversion rate
vs. 1.8% food e-commerce industry average
38%
6-month subscription retention
Above the 30% D2C subscription benchmark
$87 AOV
Average order value
AI recommendations contributed 31% of cart value through cross-sells
2,400+
Active subscribers
Generating $156K in predictable monthly revenue
Technology Stack
N
Next.js 15
Headless storefront with SSR for SEO and performance
P
Payload CMS 3
Product catalog, content management, and admin
S
Stripe + Stripe Billing
One-time payments and subscription management
C
Claude API
Product recommendation engine with natural language explanations
C
Cloudinary
Product photography optimization and CDN
P
PostgreSQL 16
Product data, orders, inventory, and subscription state
Ready to Start?
No commitments. Tell us what you need and we'll tell you how we'd solve it.
“The recommendation engine doesn't just sell more product — it educates our customers. People tell us they've discovered flavors they never would have tried on their own. That's exactly the experience we wanted.”
— Co-founder, Harvest & Vine
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Whether it's subscriptions, AI recommendations, or a complete platform build — we create commerce experiences that convert and retain.
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