Żabka (meaning “little frog” in Polish) stands as the largest and most innovative convenience store chain in Poland, serving more than 3 million customers daily. The network has expanded to around 11,600 stores nationwide, including both traditional attended locations and modern formats like self‑checkout Nano shops.
The background
Our journey with Żabka began by maintaining an older version of their website. After several months, we initiated a full migration from Symfony to WordPress.
The challenge
The migration wasn’t just about switching to a more user-friendly CMS – it was a strategic decision to restructure the site’s information architecture, improve overall performance, and enhance SEO potential through optimized link management. WordPress also provided a more flexible and scalable foundation for ongoing website development and innovation.
The research, design & prep phase
Our initial step involved thorough research and analysis. We delved into the trends, examining quantitative and qualitative data from the existing service, utilizing tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar. This groundwork was crucial in understanding the current landscape and user interactions.
Following the research, our focus shifted to design. We began by drafting wireframes for mobile and desktop versions of the site, ensuring a seamless user experience across devices. The next stage was the development of the actual design, where our creative team brought the visual aspect of the website to life. Parallel to this, we prepared all the necessary assets for our development team.
Content is king – and our approach fully embraced this principle. We carefully curated and strategically integrated existing materials into the new site structure, ensuring clarity, consistency, and user relevance. This phase encompassed not only content migration and implementation but also the application of solid SEO best practices to preserve and enhance the site's search engine performance.
The development
The development phase was multifaceted. Our team worked diligently, turning the approved designs into a digital reality. A significant milestone was preparing WordPress, with a modular library to allow the client’s team to autonomously build landing pages and new subpages. We designed backend architecture for scalability, including potential future expansions like NFT platforms. We set up and maintained the server on GCP, ensuring robust performance and reliability. Additionally, we integrated the website with Synerise, Snowflake, and Salesforce.
The documentation & training
An integral part of our process was documentation. We compiled detailed guides and conducted training sessions on the CMS, empowering Żabka to manage their constantly changing content effectively.
The new navigation menu
During this project, revamping the navigation menu was a significant modification. In the previous site version, users interacted mostly with three pages.
The updated menu navigation version leads users to discover previously overlooked subpages, broadening their engagement at the new website. This adaptation provides higher user commitment.
The scalability & security measures
When designing the infrastructure for Żabka, we had to consider many factors specific to this project. Żabka is one of the most recognizable brands in Poland, so the infrastructure must handle high traffic. Periodic promotions furtherly increase the number of visits, highlighting the need for infrastructure scalability.
The brand’s popularity also exposes Żabka to numerous attacks that must be mitigated. Ensuring the site’s availability around the clock is crucial to Żabka’s business.
Considering all these factors, we built infrastructure on one of the leading cloud providers. We carefully integrated all components to ensure reliability, availability, and security. We included comprehensive monitoring to maintain stability, and developed secure continuous deployment processes to deliver new features. This approach also emphasizes performance, observability, flexibility, and automated tests to ensure everything runs smoothly.
The performance
Our work on the client’s site brought remarkable improvements in performance, enhanced accessibility, and SEO-friendly solutions, all verified by Google PageSpeed Insights. We achieved this through proven methodologies and focused efforts, ensuring a seamless and efficient online presence for Żabka.
The Google PageSpeed Test Insights scores speak for themselves:
100 - Productivity
100 - Accessibility
100 - Proven methods
100 - SEO