How to modernize mobile retail apps with Expo

Jonathan Bones from bitglow turned a crashing retail app into a performance powerhouse. His team cut React Native upgrade time by 80% and boosted performance scores from 36 to 90 for German retailer DEPOT.

DEPOT's React Native app was stuck on version 0.63 with mounting technical debt, causing constant crashes and slow load times that frustrated users. Bitglow's team systematically modernized the codebase using Expo Prebuild, performance optimizations, and automated CI/CD to transform the user experience.

Key Takeaways

• Expo Prebuild reduced upgrade cycles from weeks to days (80% time savings)
• Performance score jumped from 36 to 90 through image optimization and network batching
• OTA updates saved a weekend sale campaign by fixing critical bugs in minutes
• Automated CI/CD with EAS eliminated manual build hardware and submission processes
• Dependency pruning and React Navigation v7 upgrade cleared years of technical debt

The article reveals exactly how they used Maestro and Flashlight to benchmark performance improvements, plus the specific config plugin strategy that made native dependency migration surprisingly straightforward.