RetailBoss

An editorial and intelligence platform powered by custom WordPress systems.

Live site

Year: 2026
Role: Design, development & platform systems
Stack: WordPress · Custom plugins · Editorial backend
Status: Live and in production

Selected views

The work, before the process.

Two representative views establish the range before the case study moves into the decisions behind them.

RetailBoss events directory showing upcoming retail conferences and trade shows — Industry events
A structured calendar turns conferences, trade shows, and industry gatherings into a useful planning tool.

RetailBoss All rankings page with category and access filters above retail ranking cards — All rankings
Filters and equal-format entries turn recurring market data into a browsable intelligence product.

Responsive proof

Built for full-width reading and inspection on smaller screens.

Current mobile captures show the editorial front page, events calendar, and ranking filters adapting without collapsing the interface into thumbnails.

RetailBoss mobile homepage with navigation, subscription banner, featured store image, and featured story — **Editorial front page**The live publishing hierarchy remains readable in a narrow viewport.

RetailBoss mobile events page with navigation, calendar heading, description, and event imagery — **Events calendar**Event discovery keeps its editorial hierarchy and full-width reading flow.

RetailBoss mobile rankings page with navigation, search, topic, year, and metric filters above a ranking entry — **Ranking filters**Search and filters become touch-sized controls before the ranking entries.

Project story

One newsroom for fast-moving stories and durable retail intelligence.

I designed and built RetailBoss as a custom WordPress platform for daily publishing and structured destinations for brands, research, jobs, and events. The public experience and editorial tools had to support both without turning each new format into a separate product.

The defining challenge was content structure: fast-moving articles and durable intelligence need different fields, filters, archives, and editorial workflows.

Publishing model

News and intelligence do not behave like the same content.

Stories move through a chronological newsroom. Brand profiles, jobs, events, rankings, and reports remain useful as structured records. RetailBoss needed both publishing models without forcing durable information into article templates.

Product expansion

Every new destination adds structure without adding another CMS.

Each content product needs focused fields, archives, and discovery paths. Shared navigation and backend conventions keep the publication recognizable while editors continue working inside one WordPress environment.

Response

Custom tools make recurring editorial work reusable.

I built the public templates and custom plugins behind the jobs board, event directory, brand records, research, and rankings, so each format has a defined workflow instead of a single page.

The build

A publishing stack shaped around the newsroom.

WordPress is the editorial core; custom PHP, JavaScript, and CSS support the platform-specific workflows and interface.

What I owned

01
End-to-end platform design and WordPress development
02
Custom plugins for platform-specific editorial and operational workflows
03
Backend content systems for brands, research, jobs, and events
04
Responsive frontend, technical SEO, deployment, and production stewardship

Technology roles

Publishing system

WordPressEditorial CMS and reusable content model
PHPCustom theme, plugins, and backend workflows

Experience & delivery

JavaScriptSearch, filtering, and progressive interactions
CSSResponsive editorial and intelligence layouts
ApacheProduction web delivery for the WordPress application

System architecture

A custom WordPress publishing architecture.

The public editorial experience and its backend tools live in one custom WordPress platform, extended with purpose-built plugins for the work RetailBoss actually needs to do.

Experience
Responsive WordPress frontend and reusable editorial templates
Application layer
Purpose-built WordPress plugins for publishing and platform workflows
Content system
Structured backend models for stories, brands, research, jobs, and events
Operations
Technical SEO, deployment, integrations, and production stewardship

Selected screens

The system, seen in practice.

Readable views of the site and the system behind it.

Retail jobs
A custom jobs destination connects filters, role details, structured data, and application paths.
Reports library
Search, topic filters, and report briefs extend the newsroom into long-form market intelligence.
Brand directory
An alphabetized directory gives structured brand records a direct discovery path.