VeVe: Launching a comics store with Marvel and handling 10k rps using Medusa’s Cart Module

VeVe is the world’s leading platform for digital collectibles and comics with over 10 million collectibles sold to date. Launched in 2020, the platform serves users globally and has built established partnerships with iconic brands like Disney, DC, and Coca-Cola.

VeVe entered the market with VeVe Collectibles, a platform offering digital 3D models of figures like Venom and X-Man. Building on this success, they've since launched VeVe Comics, a specialized store where fans can purchase limited-edition digital comics from renowned brands such as Marvel.

VeVe implemented Medusa’s Cart Module for the comics store. The module seamlessly integrates with their existing systems while efficiently handling traffic spikes during new product drops of over 1,000,000 requests per minute with sub-500ms p95 latency.

1M requests per minute during product drops

In early 2024, following an exclusive distribution deal with Marvel, the team introduced their new comics store. In the online store, new comics are released in batches three to four times per week, each featuring exclusive and rare comic editions that capture the interest of millions of collectors. The team integrated Medusa's Cart Module into the comics store within a few months. Since its implementation, the team has been astounded by Medusa's performance.

On a typical day, VeVe processes a few thousand orders in the store. However, during new product drops, the platform experiences traffic surges far exceeding these normal levels. At peak, they encounter over 10,000 cart requests per second and more than 1 million cart requests per minute.

While VeVe’s other systems experienced some initial crashes under extreme loads during the launch, Medusa’s Cart Module handled the traffic effortlessly. It managed the spikes with minimal latency and 0% failure rates, proving its reliability under pressure.

“

Medusa's cart engine has performed beyond our expectations. It proved its robustness during our biggest product drops, processing thousands of requests per second without breaking a sweat. Even with massive traffic spikes, we maintained extremely low latency.

Clovis Warlop

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Head of Architecture at VeVe

Building a modular comics platform

VeVe’s initial collectibles store had several custom systems in place, such as a reservation system for locking collectibles during payment, a partner admin panel, and an Elastic-integrated product catalog. To launch quickly, the plan was to reuse these systems for the comics platform. However, the collectibles store lacked a cart engine, which meant the team would have to find one to integrate or build one from scratch. Facing a tight deadline and high platform demand, the team opted to find an existing cart engine that would be:

• Scalable: Manage to handle thousands of orders per second.
• Independent: Function without needing to bring other sub-systems to support it.
• Modular: Able to mesh with VeVe's current product catalog and other systems.

Evaluating platforms, it became clear that existing SaaS platforms did not offer the flexibility to use their carts without adopting other parts of their platform, like product catalogs, admin panels, etc. At this point, Medusa's modular architecture stood out, as it allowed VeVe to use the Cart Module in isolation without the need to adopt services they had already built in-house.

“

We looked at other platforms like Commercetools and BigCommerce, but they required us to use their product catalogs, admin panels, and other services. Medusa was the only solution that allowed us to break out just the pieces we needed, while using our existing systems to handle the rest.

Clovis Warlop

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Head of Architecture at VeVe

Given the success of this implementation, VeVe has now decided to move its entire commerce stack to Medusa 2.0.

How VeVe built a custom cart and checkout flow

Unlike other platforms, Medusa is built for flexibility and customization from the ground up. Where many platforms are only functional when you use its full system, Medusa’s architecture is built to ensure there are no strict dependencies between commerce modules.

For VeVe, this meant they could leverage Medusa’s Cart API. Instead of being forced to store and sync product data with Medusa, they could configure Medusa to fetch product, price, and inventory data directly from their existing systems.

When the customer proceeds to checkout VeVe implements the following steps:

1. Checkout initiated: Medusa registers the items in the cart based on their Copy to clipboardproduct ID.
2. Login prompt: All users need to log in to continue since all collectibles are unique to them. This information is stored in the Copy to clipboarduser ID.
3. Product data: Medusa pulls product information from Elastic using the Copy to clipboardproduct ID.
4. Pricing data: Medusa pulls pricing and availability data from the VeVe inventory using the Copy to clipboardproduct ID.
5. Reservation: Medusa calls the reservation system to hold the cart items for 10 minutes. The reservation management system assigns each item a Copy to clipboardunique ID.
6. Payment: Payment is handled through Checkout.com using the Copy to clipboarduser ID and total amount.
7. Fulfillment: If the payment is made within 10 minutes, the cart status is updated, and the order is complete.
8. Update availability: Medusa updates availability in the inventory using the Copy to clipboardproduct ID.

If the order is completed, the buyer will receive the collectible and be able to read it in the VeVe reader portal app.