Originally published May 2025. Updated November 2026 with key takeaways and current Amplience product names.
John Lewis & Partners replaced a 14-year-old, heavily customized legacy CMS with Amplience’s headless CMS as part of its move to composable commerce. Homepage updates that once took two weeks now take minutes, and the online trading team finds, optimizes and publishes assets in Amplience DAM without relying on graphic designers.
Key takeaways
John Lewis replaced a 14-year-old, heavily customized legacy CMS with Amplience’s headless CMS.
Homepage updates went from a two-week SLA to minutes.
7.8 million assets were migrated to Amplience in three months.
The online trading team now finds, optimizes and publishes assets itself in Amplience DAM.
A no-cost proof of concept replaced a lengthy RFP.
What was holding John Lewis back?
The legacy CMS, while reliable for 14 years, had become a bottleneck for John Lewis’ digital ambitions. Sam O’Neill, Group Product Lead for Digital Experience Platforms at John Lewis, highlighted the internal complexities and inefficient content operations, saying: “Content is emotive. Everyone wants to own it, but no one wants to own the problems it comes with.”
John Lewis’ internal struggles were taking place against a backdrop of rising consumer expectations, putting pressure on retailers to deliver engaging content, and fast.
For John Lewis, the limitations of their legacy system amplified these pressures, manifesting in several key areas:
Extended time-to-market: A two-week SLA for new content hindered agility.
Manual processes: The highly customized CMS required significant manual effort for routine content updates.
Design inconsistencies: The reliance on a WYSIWYG format led to subtle but noticeable inconsistencies in the user experience across different parts of their website.
Responsive design issues: Ensuring a seamless experience across a diverse range of devices and screen sizes was challenging.
Limited personalization capabilities: Delivering the increasingly expected personalized experiences was a resource-intensive and often impractical undertaking.
Inefficient omnichannel content reuse: The lack of an integrated system meant that reusing content across various channels required manual content duplication.
Siloed teams and disconnected strategies: Content strategy disconnects and siloed ownership across various teams (retail media, loyalty, creative, trading) further complicated efficient content production and delivery.
Lack of content supply chain visibility: The absence of an end-to-end view of their content processes made it difficult to identify and address bottlenecks.
Amplience’s headless CMS and AI-driven solutions were poised to address these pain points.
How did John Lewis move to composable commerce?
The move to composable commerce, powered by Amplience CMS, Amplience’s headless CMS, represents a significant shift for John Lewis. Opting for rapid Proofs of Concept (POCs) over a lengthy RFP, John Lewis tested Amplience CMS and its ability to integrate with their workflows. Hands-on demos and custom features showcased Amplience’s flexibility. John Lewis set out to migrate its 14-year-old legacy CMS to Amplience within nine months, enabling a modern, agile content ecosystem.
Key priorities included:
Democratizing content creation: Amplience’s intuitive headless CMS empowers marketers and merchandisers to update content in real time, reducing reliance on developers and boosting reactivity.
Personalization and relevance: Amplience CMS enables faster testing and personalization, allowing John Lewis to deliver tailored experiences that resonate with customers.
Omnichannel efficiency: Amplience DAM, Amplience’s digital asset management (DAM) solution, enables the online trading team to easily locate, optimize and publish assets across all channels, moving away from reliance on graphic designers. Amplience’s “build once, deliver everywhere” model simplifies content reuse across channels, eliminating manual duplication.
Looking ahead, John Lewis plans to maximize Studios to enhance their buying guides, tapping into the deep product knowledge of their in-store partners to create valuable online content, augmenting human creativity to create compelling content.
What results has John Lewis seen?
At an event with Deloitte Digital and Amplience on April 30, 2025, Sam O’Neill shared early successes:
Accelerated updates: Homepage updates are moving from a two-week SLA, to being delivered in just minutes.
Asset migration at scale: 9 million assets successfully migrated in just 3 months.
Improved KPIs: Initial A/B testing for stage one of the migration demonstrated an uplift in key customer metrics.
No-cost POC: Amplience’s risk-free POC cemented the partnership.
The results highlight Amplience’s composable commerce solutions in action.
What can other retailers learn from John Lewis?
John Lewis’ transition to composable commerce with Amplience proves their drive to innovate and prioritize customers. By overcoming legacy constraints with agility, automation, and personalization, they’re redefining retail excellence, delivering engaging experiences that ensure lasting relevance.
To find out more about how Amplience’s AI solutions can help you address challenges with content production at scale, get in touch with a member of our team today.