Deplatformed Overnight: Inside WNC’s Two-Week Ecommerce Rebuild

In May 2023, WNC’s ecommerce business went dark.

There was no gradual warning and no drawn-out transition period. One day, customers could place orders online. The next, they could not. 

A change in Shopify’s policy around total THC limits meant WNC, a hemp brand based in Asheville, North Carolina, was suddenly without a place to sell.

“We’re a high-risk brand, and unfortunately, Shopify was not willing to continue with us as a cannabis brand,” said Sav Jack, Technical Operations Manager at WNC.

For a company that sells both direct-to-consumer and wholesale to dispensaries across most of the United States, the impact was immediate. With their site offline, sales paused entirely. 

Every hour mattered. Every decision carried weight.

WNC did not have the luxury of a long discovery phase or a drawn-out replatforming plan. The priority was simple and urgent: get back online, fast, without compromising compliance or the future of the business.

What followed was an all-hands sprint to rebuild their ecommerce operation in less than two weeks.

The reality of running a high-risk ecommerce business

In ecommerce, “high-risk” is less about how a business operates and more about how it is classified by platforms, payment providers, and partners. Certain products face greater scrutiny, shifting rules, and tighter thresholds for what is allowed.

For brands selling regulated or closely monitored products, compliance is continuous. It touches formulation, labeling, marketing, and fulfillment, and it requires teams to stay alert as regulations and enforcement evolve.

Even then, platform policies can change faster than businesses can plan for.

That volatility adds a layer of risk most brands do not face. For high-risk businesses, access to ecommerce infrastructure depends heavily on whether a platform is designed to support regulated products as policies and enforcement evolve.

The impact extends beyond lost orders. Customers lose a way to buy. Teams lose a system they depend on. Momentum slows at exactly the wrong time.

In those moments, survival depends less on long-term strategy and more on execution. The brands that endure are the ones that can prioritize quickly, adapt under pressure, and keep moving.

For WNC, that reality set the stage for what came next.

A rebuild under pressure

Once WNC’s site went dark, there was no buffer period to regroup. The business needed a new ecommerce platform immediately, and it needed to go live fast.

The rebuild stayed with a small internal group: Sav, the company’s CEO, and a trusted peer already familiar with BigCommerce. There was no agency support and no formal replatforming plan, only a shared understanding that the store had to be rebuilt as quickly as possible.

“We were scrambling because our website was down,” Sav said. “We didn’t want business to stop.”

With customers unable to place orders, speed became the defining constraint. The team focused on what was essential to restore operations.

What made the two-week turnaround possible was a combination of clarity and usability:

• A platform that could be set up and configured quickly without long onboarding cycles

• Clear documentation and support that helped the team move through setup questions in real time

• An interface that allowed a small team to manage catalog, storefront, and checkout without outside developers

“There was no time for a long onboarding cycle,” Sav explained. “It was very critical to us, our business, and our staff that we get up and rolling as quickly as possible.”

The long days were not about perfecting every detail. They were about restoring the core of the business: a working storefront, a manageable catalog, and a checkout customers could rely on.

In under two weeks, WNC was back online.

The sprint was intense, but it reinforced a clear lesson. With the right platform and a narrow focus on execution, a small team could move fast enough to keep the business moving, even under extreme pressure.

Turning a fast fix into a stronger operation

Getting back online was the immediate priority. Once that urgency eased, WNC could start building on the foundation they had just put in place.

With a stable ecommerce site running again, the team shifted from crisis response to improving how the business operated day to day. The same platform that supported a rapid rebuild now gave them room to make more deliberate decisions about efficiency and scale.

One of the most meaningful changes came on the wholesale side of the business.

For years, WNC’s B2B operation had been entirely manual. Orders came through calls, emails, and one-on-one conversations, often involving the CEO or sales team directly. There was no online storefront for wholesale customers.

“We had been doing B2B for five years, but it was very hands-on,” said Sav. “We didn’t have a storefront.”

With a stable ecommerce setup in place, the team launched a self-serve wholesale experience that allowed dispensary partners to:

• Browse the full product catalog on their own time

• Build and place orders without manual back-and-forth

• Check out online like they would on any modern ecommerce site

“Our CEO and sales team probably got 50% of their time back,” remarked Sav. “Now, dispensaries can just go in, see what they want, and order like they would on any other site.”

On the direct-to-consumer side, the team was also able to improve how customers navigated a large and growing catalog. Better organization made it easier for shoppers to find the right products across hundreds of SKUs, without adding complexity for a small internal team.

Taken together, these changes marked a clear shift. What began as an urgent rebuild became a more scalable way of operating — one that supported both retail and wholesale customers without increasing operational strain.

The final word

Platform policies change. Enforcement shifts. For brands selling regulated products, the ability to sell online can depend on requirements that evolve faster than most businesses can plan for.

When WNC’s site went dark, the challenge was not only speed. It was finding a platform that could support a high-risk category without adding friction at the moment it mattered most.

BigCommerce provided that path forward. During an urgent rebuild, WNC was able to relaunch quickly using clear documentation, direct support, and a platform flexible enough to handle the realities of regulated commerce. 

Just as important, that same foundation continued to support the business once the immediate pressure passed.

For brands operating in regulated spaces, continuity matters. Moving fast during disruption is only part of the equation. Long-term resilience depends on infrastructure that can adapt as policies change, without forcing teams to rebuild from scratch.

WNC’s experience reflects a broader truth for high-risk ecommerce brands. When the unexpected happens, platforms designed to handle complexity make it possible to respond with confidence instead of compromise.

To learn more about WNC’s ecommerce journey, read the full case study.