01
Moved the store off InSales to our own engine - full control over the site, data, and speed, with no platform limits or tariffs.
Owned sales channel
IWANT - store migration from InSales to a custom engine
- Challenge
- IWANT is our own fashion store. On InSales, a hosted store platform popular in Russia, the features we needed came only as paid add-on apps, and we had no control over the code, the data or the speed.
- What we built
- Our own store engine with the full catalog, the order history since 2016 and every old page address. Features platforms charge extra for are built in: abandoned-cart emails, gift cards, rewards, reviews, back-in-stock alerts and an AI stylist that puts outfits together from the catalog.
- Result
- Hosting costs about $16 a month instead of a platform plan plus apps. The same engine now runs a client store, Gembox.
IWANT is our own fashion brand and online store. It started on InSales, but the platform capped us with tariffs, limits, and paid add-ons. We moved it to our own engine: moved the catalog, the order history, and every page URL under 301 redirects, gained full control over the site and data, and cut the cost of ownership.
3,786
products in the catalog
30.05.2026
store live on its own engine
~$16/mo
cost of ownership
The brief in detail
On InSales the brand hit the ceiling of the platform: needed features only through paid apps, and no full control over code, data, or speed. We needed a custom engine - without losing order history, page URLs, or day-to-day store operations.
IMPLEMENTATION STAGES
Step by step
02
Migrated the data and the URLs: the catalog, the order history, and the pages of the old site. Old product and category URLs lead to the new pages with a single 301.
03
Built features you pay extra for on InSales: abandoned-cart and win-back emails, gift cards, rewards, reviews, back-in-stock alerts, personal recommendations.
04
Added the IRIS AI stylist: it helps shoppers put an outfit together right on the site and picks items from the catalog on its own.
05
Built the admin in the familiar InSales layout: orders with filters and bulk actions, customers with tags, staff roles, custom fields and statuses. The store edits menus, categories, and brands itself, and a redirect is added automatically when a product URL changes.
06
Connected CDEK Fulfillment, a Russian courier's warehouse service, and email campaigns sent in waves: orders go to the warehouse, and the tracking number reaches the shopper by email.
07
Moved the brand, categories, and styling into settings, so the engine can be reused: the Gembox store already runs on it.
08
Built our own cookieless analytics that runs alongside Yandex Metrica (Yandex's counterpart to Google Analytics) and does not depend on tracking consent: cart→order funnel, sources, and devices (152-FZ, Russia's personal data law).
OUTCOMES
- Full control over the engine and data - no platform tariffs or limits.
- Cost of ownership around $16 a month on a VPS vs an InSales subscription plus paid apps.
- Features you pay extra for on a platform are first-party here, at no add-on cost.
WHY THIS MATTERS FOR CLIENTS
We migrated our own store - so we know your migration from the inside
We do not just build e-commerce - we moved our own store off a platform onto a custom engine. We know the cost of every step: redirect every old URL, do not lose order history, do not stop sales.
We do the ownership math honestly: an InSales tariff plus paid apps versus a custom engine on a VPS at around $16 a month. Over a year the gap is real.
It fits brands on InSales or Shopify, brands that run on an accounting system such as 1C, the main accounting system in Russia, and sellers who live only on marketplaces and want an owned sales channel.
FROM A DEVELOPER FORUM
A reader on a developer forum, who also runs a store on InSales, said they had not found another breakdown of a migration to a custom engine like this anywhere.
a store owner on InSales, developer-forum reader
For technical readersStack, integrations and how the project is built.
Technical details
- Stack
Next.js 15 (React Server Components, Server Actions), TypeScript, Tailwind, Prisma and PostgreSQL, self-hosted on a VPS.
- Migration
Our own parser for InSales exports (UTF-16): products, categories and the order history moved into PostgreSQL. Old URLs lead to new pages with a single 301; outdated newsletter articles return 410 so search engines drop them.
- Payments and delivery
YooKassa, a Russian payment provider; CDEK and CDEK Fulfillment for delivery and warehousing.
- AI stylist
IRIS runs on Yandex AI Studio, in line with Russia's personal data law (152-FZ).
- Analytics
First-party cookieless analytics alongside Yandex Metrica: cart-to-order funnel, sources, devices.
- Releases
An idempotent email queue and a blue-green cutover with no downtime.
- SEO
Sitemap, Schema.org, llms.txt, Open Graph, a product feed for Yandex.
- Next.js 15
- RSC
- Prisma
- PostgreSQL
- YooKassa
- CDEK
- Yandex AI Studio
Free
A free 3-minute video review of your site
Send a link and we will record a personal review: where you lose on speed, conversion, and SEO, and what a move to your own engine would change. No call, within 48 hours.
Want a similar store for your brand?
We can break down the owned sales channel that fits your catalog, content workflow, and order flow.
Write to us
hello@etern8.tech