Powering a scalable, Headless experience with Optimizely

Pets

Key achievements

Established Pets at Home’s first headless experience using Optimizely
Enabled centralised digital operations across channels and services
Empowered internal teams with autonomy and long-term confidence

Pets at Home, the UK’s leading pet care brand, partnered with Netcel to future-proof their digital commerce ecosystem.

Working as part of an agile, multi-squad team, Netcel delivered a headless Optimizely experience that laid the foundation for composable commerce and enabled their internal teams to scale digital capability with confidence.

Key takeaways

Laid the foundations for Pets’ first headless experience using Optimizely DXP
Supported the vision for a centralised digital pet care platform
Delivered a proof-of-concept that unlocked strategic buy-in
Built internal capability and handed over with architectural assurance

The goal

With a reorganisation placing digital responsibilities under a central leadership team, Pets at Home needed to rebuild their digital infrastructure to:

Integrate multiple systems (e.g. CMS, PIM, DAM, commerce engine)
Create a seamless omnichannel experience
Empower internal teams to manage content at scale

Their legacy platform lacked flexibility and scalability to support evolving business needs across their veterinary, retail, and online services.

Netcel’s approach

Define Architecture

Validated solution architecture using composable principles

Integrated with five external platforms (PIM, DAM, search, commerce, personalisation)
Deliver Headless CMS

Developed content experience layer for use across multiple channels

Provided front-end architecture and governance support
Support Capability Growth

Created clear documentation and knowledge transfer processes

Provided ongoing architectural assurance

The solution

Pets at Home implemented a headless Optimizely CMS, integrated with a composable commerce stack including:

Headless Optimizely
CommerceTools
Enterprise Search
PIM & DAM
Modular front-end components built for reuse and scale

The impact

Enabled centralised digital operations across content, commerce, and customer engagement
Provided internal teams with autonomy while ensuring long-term governance
Positioned Pets to scale their “digital pet care platform” vision across services and channels

Netcel understood what we were trying to achieve delivered. We are on the path to building a composable platform that is reactive and responsive to evolve with us.

Andy Todman Director of Engineering, Pets at Home