Replatforming a Canadian DTC Brand to Shopify

The challenge

The brand ran on an ageing WooCommerce installation that fell over during every promotional peak. Checkout was a four-step flow with a 71% abandonment rate, and the team could not ship design changes without developer involvement.

What we did

• Audited the existing catalogue, customer records and order history, then built a migration plan with a full URL redirect map.
• Developed a custom Shopify theme matching the brand system, with editable sections so the marketing team could change layouts without a developer.
• Compressed checkout from four steps to two and added express payment methods.
• Integrated inventory with the brand's existing warehouse system and connected the catalogue to social commerce channels.
• Ran the cutover during the lowest-traffic window with a tested rollback path.

The outcome

Cutover completed with 11 minutes of downtime and no measurable ranking loss. Checkout abandonment fell 38%, and the store handled its next Black Friday — three times prior peak traffic — at 99.98% uptime.