How the National Retail Federation Improved Time to Market by 70%
As the world's largest retail trade association, the National Retail Federation needs to react quickly to changing market trends in a viral world. When its aging infrastructure couldn't keep up, the NRF adopted a decoupled architecture and saw improved delivery times up to 70% faster.
Response time matters
When you have global reach, being able to evolve brand messaging in response to global trends is not just important, it’s basic survival.
Before its recent digital transformation, the NRF’s website was hard to update. Legacy systems like Drupal and Solr were so brittle they required routine developer intervention even for basic content updates. These common challenges hindered the team’s responsiveness, especially during large events like NRF’s annual “Big Show.”
Zero IT intervention
Site launches were slow too, sometimes taking up to 8 weeks. And the inability to quickly adapt content for major shifts in retail or political landscapes put tremendous pressure on the business. The NRF team wanted to personalize the user experience and empower marketing teams to build rich digital experiences with zero IT intervention.
The NRF needed a flexible, future-proof platform that could support everything from evolving AI initiatives to real-time content updates amid a 24-hour news cycle. CIO Jason Hoolsema found that flexibility in headless architecture.
“[This deployment] gave us the ability to act in near real time… and that was tremendous for us,” said Hoolsema in a March 2025 interview with The Retail Podcast. Composable architecture provided by Netlify allowed the NRF team to begin deploying quickly and with a low level of effort – and, importantly, “to be confident that what we're presenting is accurate and timely.”
Improved velocity
Digital agency RDA worked closely with the NRF team to establish a flexible solution using modern tools like Storyblok for content management and Algolia for an AI-powered search apparatus. Working closely with NRF stakeholders, RDA architected and executed the replatforming strategy, including migration of content from legacy systems and deep integrations with third-party services (like databases for speakers, exhibitors, etc.).
This modernization also enabled omnichannel content delivery, which is critical to companies like the NRF for unifying brand messaging via a single, consistent digital experience. Working closely with Netlify, the result was a scalable, on-demand content infrastructure that has empowered the NRF to respond rapidly without the need for developer intervention.
Early skepticism leads to surprise & delight
At first, Hoolsema was skeptical of the promised productivity gains from moving to a headless, decoupled architecture. For most executives, trying to figure out how to take advantage of today’s technical landscape can be confusing, especially amid targeted marketing and outlandish claims from literally every service provider.
However, after fully embracing the architecture and seeing it in action, NRF stakeholders were surprised by the magnitude of the impact—site launches dropped from 8 weeks to 3, content teams gained full autonomy with zero IT intervention, and the entire organization became more agile and responsive as a result. Other notable impacts of the switch include:
- 70% faster development times and 75% reduction in integration work
- Marketers are able to create or update content in a quarter of the time, enabling near real-time responses to industry events
- Instituted a single source of truth across multiple platforms (web, event sites, kiosk displays) Developers freed from small content requests and able to focus on higher-level features and integrations
In retrospect, NRF stakeholders wish they had made the move sooner, acknowledging that the transformation has reshaped not just their digital presence, but how they conduct everyday business.
A foundation for the future
NRF’s transformation didn’t just improve speed—it redefined how their teams work, collaborate, and communicate. With a composable architecture powered by Netlify, they now have a scalable, secure, and flexible foundation for the future. Content teams can move at the speed of retail, while IT focuses on innovation instead of maintenance. The organization is better equipped to respond to industry trends, audience needs, and global events—often within hours, not weeks.
For forward-looking organizations facing similar digital bottlenecks, NRF’s success story offers a clear blueprint: decoupling your architecture isn’t just a tech upgrade—it’s a strategic advantage.
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