Shopify Makeover

Shopify redesign project leading to a 150% improvement in the conversion rate at the time of analysis.

Soul Design is a beautiful women-owned business, inside and out.

Meaning is woven into everything they create. Each product has a story to tell of where it came from and why they made it. They work with artisans across Africa and here in South Africa they’ve built a team of women from their local community.

They reached out to me in 2022, wanting to redesign their Shopify website to reflect their brand aesthetic and communicate their values. They also wanted to make sure they had a strong foundation before investing in paid ads.

A stunning,
sales-driven homepage

One of the main goals for this project was to design an aesthetically beautiful website that made it easy and smooth for someone to buy.

We designed a sales-focused homepage, using cohesive imagery and colours, and highlighting Soul Design’s bestselling products. We encouraged the brand to bring their story into the homepage, through video, brand highlights and custom illustrations.

The result is an impactful homepage that encourages people to go deeper into the website. The more time someone spends on a website, the more likely they are to buy or sign up to a mailing list.

Before After

Toggle for the before and after snapshots of the homepage

Project Highlights

Choosing a new Shopify theme

Part of my Shopify consulting service includes helping brands identify the right-fit Shopify theme base to use for their project. I only use themes from the theme store – https://themes.shopify.com/themes.

As you can see, there are a many themes to choose from, which makes it confusing and sometimes overwhelming for store owners to know which one’s will work best for them.

My job is to make sure the theme ticks all the must-have boxes. I also test out the theme before purchasing by creating a simple homepage mockup design. Only once we’re all happy, we purchase the new theme.

I shortlisted two Shopify theme bases to use for Soul Design’s revamp:
–Broadcast by Invisible themes
–Lorenza by Fluorescent Design Inc

These are two of my favourite themes. We decided to go with Broadcast because of one stand-out feature – the lovely product upsell box on the product page that works so well for Soul Design’s niche.

Once the theme was installed, I redesigned all the main content pages, including the homepage, collection pages and product page templates. The website remained live and functional while I rebuilt everything on an unpublished version of the new theme. This is one thing I love about Shopify – you can completely redesign your website’s look and feel on the backend while your old design remains active! And store owners can preview and approve the new design via preview links.

Conversion-focused features

The new website has the following features to improve user experience and drive sales:

An automated reviews system to collect customer reviews after purchase.
Abandoned cart automation designed in MailChimp.
A simpler navigation system with less links.
A newsletter signup that is connected to MailChimp. This includes a sign up incentive (10% off the customer’s first purchase) to incentivise sign-ups.
Free shipping progress bar in the slide-in cart drawer. This shows users when they’re nearing the free shipping threshold and helps to boost average order values.
Clear indication that a product has been added to the cart – the beautiful slide-in cart menu pops out to show the product in the cart when a user clicks the add to cart button.
More saturated and noticeable add-to-cart button colour (it’s now a lovely gold – it was a pink colour that didn’t stand out).
Contact form on the contact page so people can easily contact the business (helps to build trust).
New Shopify 2.0 theme with sections everywhere, which means we can easily create more designer-feel content pages (and the store owner can easily edit these pages now).
Added a lovely product upsell feature.
Used Shopify metafields to create Bestseller labels for products (this improves the shopping experience).
Set up an additional payment gateway to give customers another payment option at checkout.
Designed a beautiful new homepage that encourages website visitors to scroll and view products and go further into the website.
Soul Design’s brand values are clearly communicated throughout the website.

The Result

It’s hard for me to articulate in words exactly how I feel about this project, and even thinking about it tears me up. Soul Design’s old Shopify website didn’t reflect the heart and soul of their business. This one really does. And it’s truly been a joy to help the team create this new online space, that gives them confidence knowing their website has been designed with so much thought and consideration. Designed to convert.

Souldesign.co.za

We’d love to help your brand optimise and grow sales with Shopify eCommerce. Inquire here:

"Her knowledge of Shopify's technicalities, and her ability to create a not only functional but visually beautiful website, was beyond expectations."

– Victoria Bresler, Soul Design

Read the full testimonial

“I had the pleasure of working with Meg, who helped me redevelop our website using the Shopify platform. She is incredibly patient, willing to help and importantly able to explain things in a very clear manner. Meg created an amazing video library which I am always referring back to in order to manage the website myself as much as possible. I often still get stuck and will call on her expertise when I do. I can highly recommend Meg to help you create a gorgeous website for your business.”

Easy-to-follow Checklist

Get more sales from your Shopify website

Simple checklist showing you how to optimise your eCommerce website for conversions.

After subscribing, you’ll be added to our mailing list. We send out semi-regular newsletters with studio updates as well as tips and tricks for improving your Shopify website. You can easily unsubscribe at any time. We promise – no spam or selling your details to third parties.