Did you know that only 43% of Shopify stores pass all three Core Web Vitals according to Google’s 2025 CrUX data? We’ve identified that the same handful of issues – duplicate product URLs, app bloat, thin collection pages, broken redirects after slug edits – cause most of the lost traffic in scandiweb’s audits.

To improve SEO on Shopify, start with technical foundations: Google Search Console, GA4, sitemap submission, clean indexation, and a fast theme. Then optimize product and collection pages, build internal links, publish useful content, add structured data, and run regular audits. The order below is the one that holds up in audit after audit.

This article outlines all you need to know about technical SEO and on-page SEO for Shopify and Shopify Plus stores.

Shopify SEO checklist: what to fix first

Duplicate URLs, page speed, and product and collection metadata are the first issues to fix on a Shopify store. These are the issues most likely to block rankings or waste crawl budget. Once technical health is stable, move to on-page content, internal links, structured data, and ongoing audits.

• Connect Google Search Console and GA4 before any optimization work, because without measurement you cannot identify ranking drops or improvements.
• Validate indexation through the Coverage report, not the sitemap itself, since pages in the sitemap are often not indexed.
• Fix duplicate product URLs caused by collection paths, because duplicate URLs split ranking signals and waste crawl budget.
• Audit app bloat and unused theme code, since excess scripts slow pages and directly impact rankings.
• Treat the SEO checklist as phased, not flat: setup, technical, on-page, content, and audit each depend on the previous layer.

Priority framework: high-impact tasks vs low-impact

This Shopify SEO checklist groups tasks by ranking impact, not by effort, so merchants know what to fix first. The priorities below reflect what moves traffic in scandiweb’s audit work, not a generic “do everything” list.

How to set up SEO for Shopify

To set up SEO for Shopify, connect Google Search Console and GA4, submit your sitemap.xml, confirm HTTPS is active. Choose a lightweight theme like Satoshi which is the #1 Shopify theme with exceptional UX and optimized performance baked-in. Also a good tip is to review the default title and meta description templates.

Six steps cover the practical setup work, and any Shopify SEO checklist that runs longer than this in the setup phase usually buries the items that move rankings.

1. Connect GSC: verify domain, submit sitemap.xml, and set the preferred domain.
2. Connect GA4 through Shopify’s built-in integration in admin preferences.
3. Confirm HTTPS is active and the primary domain redirects correctly (www vs non-www).
4. Review default title and meta templates in theme settings, since most Online Store 2.0 themes ship with generic placeholders that need replacing.
5. Set up Online Store 2.0 structured content if your theme supports it, so app blocks live where you place them rather than injecting into every template.
6. Install one metadata management app or use Shopify’s native fields, and avoid stacking multiple SEO apps that modify the same elements.

In scandiweb’s Shopify audits, the most consistent setup error is not what gets installed, but what gets left behind from a previous theme or app stack. Old metadata templates, abandoned redirect tools, and three competing schema apps tend to outlast the team that installed them. Setup is the right moment to remove them, not to layer on more. For the wider operational picture, our guide on setting up a Shopify store correctly from the start covers the questions that come up before SEO work even begins.

What Shopify handles automatically

• sitemap.xml generation, auto-updated as products and collections change
• Canonical tags on product and collection pages
• HTTPS across all pages
• Mobile-responsive themes by default
• robots.txt, editable through robots.txt.liquid in theme code since 2021
• Editable title and meta description fields on every page

Shopify covers the technical foundation, not the strategy. The platform will not decide what your H1 should say, which collections deserve internal links, or whether your product copy answers a buyer’s actual question.

What you still need to optimize manually

Technical SEO for Shopify

Technical SEO for Shopify focuses on making sure Google can crawl, index, and understand the right pages without wasting crawl budget on duplicates, broken URLs, or slow templates. The most common issues on Shopify stores are duplicate product URLs from collection paths, app-induced script bloat, unused theme code, missing product schema, and 404s left behind after URL edits. All of them are fixable in the admin or theme code, and all of them compound when ignored.

Check indexing, sitemap, and crawlability

Work through the indexation review in this order:

1. Submit sitemap.xml in Google Search Console so new and updated pages are queued for crawling.
2. Use the Coverage or Pages report to find non-indexed URLs. The sitemap tells Google what exists, not what got indexed.
3. Inspect critical URLs (homepage, top collections, top products) through URL Inspection to confirm Google’s last-crawled version.
4. Review robots.txt.liquid for unintended blocks introduced by apps or theme edits.
5. Confirm product and collection pages return a 200 status with indexable meta robots tags.

Shopify stores often over-block through app-injected noindex tags, so check response headers, not just on-page meta. The most common pattern: a review or upsell app sets noindex on out-of-stock product pages by default, and the merchant only finds out when those products come back in stock and refuse to rank.

Fix duplicate URLs, redirects, and canonical issues

Four named issues cause most of the duplicate-content losses on Shopify:

• Collection-path duplicates. /collections/summer/products/x vs /products/x. The canonical points to the bare path by default, but merchants often break this with app modifications or theme edits. With 500 products, 1,000+ URLs end up crawlable, even if only half deserve to rank.
• Outdated product URLs after slug edits. Shopify prompts you to create a 301 redirect when you change a URL, but the prompt is frequently missed during bulk edits, CSV imports, or migrations. Broken redirects are one of the most common causes of traffic loss in scandiweb audits, and the risk peaks during platform migrations where URL mapping has to be handled deliberately.
• 404s from deleted products that were never redirected to the parent collection or a relevant alternative.
• Seasonal or out-of-stock products. Decide redirect vs noindex, but do not delete pages that already earned backlinks or rankings.

Our guide on migrating to Shopify without losing SEO covers URL mapping and redirect handling in detail. Inside the admin, manage redirects under Online Store, Navigation, URL Redirects.

Improve Shopify speed and Core Web Vitals

Speed is the single most common SEO failure scandiweb sees in Shopify audits. Google’s current Core Web Vitals thresholds are LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, and CLS at or below 0.1. The fixes worth prioritizing are Shopify-specific, not generic:

• App script bloat, especially review, popup, and tracking apps that inject scripts on every page rather than the templates that need them
• Unused theme sections that load even when hidden behind feature flags
• Unoptimized product images, where switching to .webp and lazy-loading below-the-fold media usually clears the LCP threshold on its own
• Third-party tracking scripts firing synchronously instead of through deferred or async loaders
• Heavy hero sliders and autoplay videos that push LCP past 4 seconds on mobile

The Dawn theme on Online Store 2.0 ships with strong Core Web Vitals out of the box, often scoring 95+ on Lighthouse before customization. In scandiweb’s audits, Dawn stores routinely drop to 55-65 on mobile once 5-10 apps and unoptimized media land on top, which is why theme choice usually matters more than post-launch optimization. For a deeper view of fixes that move the score, see scandiweb’s guide on improving Shopify site speed and performance.

On-page SEO for Shopify

On-page SEO on Shopify optimizes each product, collection, and blog page so search engines understand what it should rank for. Focus on unique title tags, meta descriptions, one clear H1 per page, useful body copy, image alt text, and internal links to relevant products or collections. Shopify provides the fields. Merchants are responsible for filling them with intent-matched content.

Product page SEO checklist

• Unique title tag with primary keyword and brand, 55 to 60 characters
• Meta description with value prop and CTA, 150 to 160 characters
• H1 matches the product name, with no duplicate H1s injected by theme sections
• Product description answers the top three buyer questions, not just specs
• Image filenames use a descriptive slug like linen-shirt-navy.jpg, not DSC_0423.jpg
• Alt text describes the image for accessibility, with keyword use only where natural
• Product schema is in place (Online Store 2.0 themes add this by default, but verify on the rich results test)
• Internal links to two or three related products or the parent collection

The “300 words per product” rule is outdated. Say enough to answer buyer questions, then stop. Thin product pages fail. Padded ones fail too. The pattern that holds up across audits: a 120-word description that resolves three real buyer questions outperforms a 400-word block of brand voice that resolves none.

Collection page SEO checklist

Collection pages typically rank for higher-volume keywords, while product pages capture long-tail intent. This is where most Shopify SEO traffic comes from, yet many stores leave collection pages thin or poorly structured. The fix is usually copy and structure, not new features.

• One primary keyword target per collection, for example “women’s running shoes”
• 100 to 200 words of intro copy above the product grid, not below it where users scroll past
• Useful filters: size, color, price range, brand
• Internal links to subcategories and bestsellers inside the intro copy
• Avoid thin collections with fewer than four or five products, since they should be merged or redirected
• Internal links into the collection from blog content that targets related queries

Blog and content SEO checklist

Shopify blog content supports product and collection rankings by targeting informational queries and linking down to money pages. Avoid publishing content without clear search intent, since generic updates and low-value posts dilute topical focus. Most Shopify stores lack a clear internal linking hierarchy. Collections do not link to related collections, and product pages do not link back to their parent categories. This is one of the most common reasons stores fail to scale organic traffic.

• Target questions buyers ask before purchasing, using GSC Search Terms and AnswerThePublic
• Every blog post links to at least two products or collections using descriptive anchor text
• Internal links from product pages back to relevant blog content, such as care guides or comparisons
• Avoid brand updates and press releases in the main blog, since they dilute topical focus

Shopify SEO apps and tools: what do you actually need?

Shopify SEO apps handle specific technical tasks well: image compression, schema markup, redirect management, metadata bulk editing, and audit reports. They do not replace SEO strategy, keyword research, or content quality work. Most stores need one or two apps, not five. Stacking SEO apps often adds script weight that cancels the ranking benefit.

The categories worth considering, picked by problem rather than brand:

• Image compression for speed and LCP improvement
• Schema markup for rich results, only if your theme does not already cover it
• Redirect management, especially after a migration or large slug change
• Metadata bulk editing for stores with several thousand products
• Technical audits, used as one-time or monthly diagnostic, not as a permanent install

Most SEO apps overlap heavily. Installing multiple apps that modify metadata or schema often creates conflicts rather than improvements, and each one adds JavaScript weight and database calls to every request. Treat apps as tools for specific jobs, not as strategy: they earn their slot when a Shopify-native field cannot do the same work. If a function already lives in Online Store 2.0 or in your theme, an app for it is overhead, not optimization.

Shopify SEO audit: monthly workflow

A Shopify SEO audit should check indexation, page speed, duplicate URLs, structured data, internal links, and content quality. The goal is not to surface every issue, it is to identify the fixes most likely to move rankings and revenue this month. A repeatable workflow beats occasional deep audits, and that is how scandiweb’s SEO team runs monthly checks across Shopify clients.

Where the previous Technical SEO section covered what to optimize, this section covers how to find what needs optimizing.

Step-by-step audit process

1. GSC Coverage and Search Results. Check the Coverage report for indexation drops, then review Search Results for query and CTR declines compared with the previous 28 days.
2. GA4. Review organic sessions, top landing pages, and revenue by landing page. Sudden drops on a single template usually indicate a technical change, not a content issue.
3. Crawl key templates. Run Screaming Frog or Sitebulb on the homepage, top collection, top product, and blog templates to surface broken links, duplicate metadata, and orphan pages.
4. PageSpeed Insights. Run on three page types (homepage, top collection, top product) on both mobile and desktop. Mobile is where Core Web Vitals usually fail first.
5. Recent app and theme changes. Review installs and theme edits from the last 30 days. Most sudden ranking drops trace back to a deploy in this window.
6. URL Redirects list. Check for broken chains, missed 301s, and orphaned redirects from old slugs.
7. Schema validation. Run product, breadcrumb, and organization schema through Schema.org validator and Google’s Rich Results test.
8. Internal links. Spot-check links from blog posts to money pages and from product pages back to parent collections.

Always compare performance against the previous 28 days to identify real changes, not normal fluctuation. The same eight steps run monthly catch most regressions before they show up in revenue, which is why this is the workflow scandiweb’s team uses on retainer accounts rather than reserving deep audits for once-a-quarter exercises.

Is Shopify good or bad for SEO?

Shopify is good for SEO for most eCommerce stores because it handles hosting, HTTPS, sitemaps, canonical tags, and mobile-responsive themes by default. Shopify becomes limiting when merchants rely on too many apps, use slow themes, create thin collection pages, or need deeper control over URL structure (including the forced /products/ and /collections/ path prefixes). Shopify rankings usually come down to app discipline and how much intent-matched copy lives on collection pages, not the platform underneath.

Out of the box, Shopify gets the foundation right. Hosting and HTTPS ship by default, sitemaps and canonical tags generate automatically, and the admin lets merchants edit title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, and URL handles without touching code. Mobile-responsive themes are the baseline, and for 80% of stores that covers what is needed.

The named limitations are worth understanding before committing to the platform. The /products/ and /collections/ URL path prefixes are forced and cannot be restructured. Advanced checkout customization sits behind Shopify Plus, while standard plans allow only limited styling and settings. Shopify allows editing robots.txt through robots.txt.liquid, but access remains more limited than fully self-hosted platforms.

For most stores, these are acceptable trade-offs. For brands with complex taxonomies, multi-brand structures, or custom URL requirements, they are constraints to plan around. Our analysis of Shopify’s SEO limitations covers the edge cases in detail.

Shopify SEO tips for new stores

For a new Shopify store, SEO priorities are narrower: connect GSC and GA4, write unique titles and meta descriptions for products and collections, add 100 to 200 words of useful copy to top collections, build internal links from blog to money pages, and avoid installing apps that duplicate native Shopify features. Content marketing and link building come after the core pages are strong, not before.

A few stage-specific guidelines that consistently hold up for new stores:

• Start with product and collection page optimization, not blog content. Money pages compound. Blog posts route traffic into them.
• Pick an SEO-friendly theme on Online Store 2.0, with Dawn as the reference benchmark for Core Web Vitals. Our roundup of choosing an SEO-friendly Shopify theme compares the most credible options.
• Avoid installing more than two or three apps in the first month. The temptation to bolt on review, popup, and upsell apps before the catalog is even fully populated is the single biggest source of avoidable speed regressions.
• Set up URL Redirects from day one for any product slug changes, not after a slug edit goes wrong.
• Wait until you have 50 or more products before investing in content marketing. Linking to a thin catalog from a blog post does not generate traffic, it generates bounces.

How to improve SEO on Shopify: action plan by store stage

If your Shopify store is new, start with setup, indexation, metadata, and collection structure. If your store already gets traffic but growth has plateaued, prioritize technical audits, page speed, internal linking, and content refreshes. If rankings have dropped, check recent theme changes, app installs, URL edits, and broken redirects first. These account for most sudden Shopify SEO drops.

Fix first if you are growing:

• Core setup: GSC, GA4, sitemap, HTTPS
• Title and meta on top 10 products and top 5 collections
• Internal links from blog to money pages
• Basic product schema

Fix first if you are diagnosing a drop:

• Recent theme or app changes from the last 30 days
• URL edits without 301 redirects
• Indexation drops in GSC Coverage report
• Core Web Vitals regression
• Broken redirect chains

In a recent Magento 2 to Shopify migration, scandiweb’s SEO program for Kouboo used full metadata mapping, redirect handling, and ongoing optimization to grow organic revenue 107% post-launch, with the post-migration traffic dip held to 8-9% and recovered inside the first month. Migrations are the highest-stakes version of this action plan, but the underlying logic is the same on a stable store: control what changed and protect the URLs that already rank.

Shopify SEO priorities by use case

Frequently asked questions

What is SEO in Shopify?

SEO in Shopify is the process of optimizing your store so search engines can crawl, understand, and rank your product, collection, and content pages. Shopify handles basics like sitemaps, HTTPS, and canonical tags, but rankings depend on how well you optimize content, internal links, site speed, and technical setup.

Do SEO apps work for Shopify?

Yes, SEO apps work for Shopify when they solve a specific technical task such as schema, redirects, image optimization, or bulk metadata edits. They do not replace SEO strategy, content quality, or site structure, and stacking too many of them often creates more problems than they fix.

How do I improve SEO on Shopify?

To improve SEO on Shopify, fix technical issues first (duplicate URLs, page speed), then optimize product and collection pages, strengthen internal linking, and publish content that supports buying decisions. Ongoing audits are needed to maintain rankings and prevent regressions as the store grows.

How do I fix common Shopify SEO issues?

Start by identifying the issue in tools like Google Search Console or a crawler, then fix the root cause before making structural changes. Most Shopify SEO issues come from duplicate URLs, slow pages, broken redirects, and thin collection content.

What is the best SEO app for Shopify?

There is no single best SEO app for Shopify. Different apps solve different problems, such as image compression, schema markup, redirects, or bulk metadata editing. Most stores only need one or two, and installing too many can slow the site and create conflicts.

Is Shopify good for SEO?

Yes, Shopify is good for SEO for most eCommerce stores. It handles hosting, HTTPS, sitemap generation, canonical tags, and mobile-responsive themes by default. It becomes limiting for merchants who need deep URL structure control, run into the forced /products/ path prefix, or require checkout customization outside of Shopify Plus.

Do I need Shopify SEO services?

You may need Shopify SEO services if your store has unresolved technical issues, traffic drops, slow performance, or limited internal resources. Agencies usually pay for themselves on audits, technical fixes, performance optimization, and migrations, where mistakes are expensive to fix later.

If your Shopify store is losing traffic or you are planning a migration where SEO cannot afford to slip, scandiweb takes responsibility across the full system: technical SEO, performance, content, and on-page execution under one team. Talk to scandiweb’s Shopify SEO team and we will walk through the audit findings against your catalog and current rankings, with a migration timeline if one is on the table.

The post Shopify SEO Checklist: How to Improve SEO on Shopify appeared first on scandiweb.

If you’re evaluating platforms right now, you’re not alone. Only 14% of merchants say they are satisfied with their current eCommerce platform, and 77% feel real urgency to migrate within the next year. Gartner expects businesses on legacy infrastructure to spend up to 40% more on maintenance through 2026 than peers on modern platforms – and with Salesforce projecting that 90% of B2B purchases will be intermediated by AI agents by 2028, the platform underneath your operation is becoming more consequential by the year.

For CTOs, Heads of Digital, and commerce leads at upper mid-market brands, this guide breaks down how BigCommerce and Shopify actually compare in 2026 – pricing, features, enterprise readiness, and migration risk – with the trade-offs scandiweb sees on real builds.

BigCommerce vs Shopify: key differences at a glance

Shopify is generally the better choice for teams that want to launch quickly and scale with minimal technical overhead. BigCommerce is better for businesses that need more built-in features and greater control without relying heavily on third-party apps. In most cases, the decision comes down to speed and simplicity versus native functionality.

• Shopify is a fully managed SaaS platform; BigCommerce is also SaaS, with more built-in features and fewer app dependencies.
• Shopify relies heavily on apps to extend functionality; BigCommerce includes more features natively.
• Shopify is easier to use and faster to set up; BigCommerce has a steeper learning curve.
• Shopify has a larger partner and app ecosystem; BigCommerce offers more out-of-the-box control.
• The right choice between BigCommerce vs Shopify depends on scale, catalog scope, and internal technical resources.

BigCommerce vs Shopify comparison table

This BigCommerce vs Shopify comparison highlights the key differences in pricing, features, and scalability.

BigCommerce vs Shopify pricing

Shopify pricing is predictable, with plans ranging from $29 to $299 per month (billed annually) plus potential app costs. BigCommerce pricing is similar at the base level but includes more built-in features, which can reduce reliance on paid apps. Total cost depends on app usage, integrations, and how much your team relies on the platform versus custom work.

Shopify’s tiers in 2026 are Basic ($29 annually, $39 monthly), Grow ($79 annually, $105 monthly), Advanced ($299 annually, $399 monthly), and Plus (from approximately $2,300 per month). BigCommerce mirrors the structure: Standard ($29 annually, $39 monthly), Plus ($79 annually, $105 monthly), Pro ($299 annually, $399 monthly), and Enterprise (custom pricing). At the headline level, the two look almost identical. The real cost lives further down the page.

Transaction fees are the first divergence. Shopify charges 0.5% to 2% on third-party payment gateways, waived when stores use Shopify Payments. BigCommerce charges no platform-level transaction fees regardless of which gateway a merchant chooses, which can matter for stores routing high volume through Adyen or Authorize.net.

The second divergence is harder to see upfront: BigCommerce ties its plan tiers to annual online sales revenue. Standard caps at $50,000 in annual sales, Plus at $180,000, and Pro at $400,000 in trailing 12-month GMV, with an additional $150 per month for every $200,000 above that. A store growing past a tier ceiling is forced to upgrade, which can introduce cost surprises during a strong quarter. Shopify does not gate plans by revenue, which makes its pricing easier to forecast.

The third, and the one finance teams miss most often, is app cost. A typical mid-market Shopify store on the Advanced plan often layers $400 to $800 per month in essential apps (reviews, subscriptions, advanced search, customer groups) on top of the $299 base, pushing real monthly cost well past $700. The same business on BigCommerce Pro might run closer to $400 because more of those features ship in the platform.

When evaluating total cost of ownership, scandiweb usually finds Shopify cheaper at launch and BigCommerce competitive over a 24 to 36 month horizon for catalog-heavy or B2B stores. “Cheaper” depends on the feature set a business actually uses.

Features and customization

Shopify extends functionality through apps, while BigCommerce includes more features natively. Shopify offers a larger ecosystem, while BigCommerce provides built-in capabilities for areas like B2B pricing, faceted search, and multi-storefront. This is the single most important trade-off in the BigCommerce vs Shopify features comparison, and it shapes almost every downstream decision.

Shopify’s app-heavy model gives merchants flexibility, since there is an app for almost any requirement. The flip side: each app adds a recurring cost, a third-party dependency, and another piece of the stack to monitor when something breaks. BigCommerce’s native features reduce that vendor dependency, at the cost of a smaller ecosystem when a need falls outside what is built in.

Both platforms support custom themes. BigCommerce gives merchants more control over URL structure, which advanced SEO teams sometimes prefer. Shopify’s Liquid templating language is widely supported across the developer community, with extensive documentation and a large pool of available agencies. BigCommerce’s Stencil framework is capable but has a steeper technical learning curve, which narrows the developer pool.

Shopify enforces a fixed /products/ URL path, requires Shopify Plus for full checkout customization, and routes all stores through its managed infrastructure. In practice, performance depends heavily on implementation, and proven Shopify performance optimization strategies can measurably improve Core Web Vitals and load times. Shopify also simplifies development, but there are real trade-offs around URL structure and checkout customization, areas where Shopify has limitations that brands should weigh before committing.

For multi-store operators, the platforms diverge more sharply. BigCommerce ships native multi-storefront on standard plans, useful for brands running multiple regional or category-specific sites with shared inventory. Shopify supports this through Markets and, at Plus, multiple stores under one organization, but full parity sits behind Plus-level pricing.

On AI tools, both platforms moved fast in 2025 to 2026. Shopify Magic is free for every merchant and now includes brand voice cloning trained on your past blog and social content, automated product tagging from images, and generative copy across product descriptions, emails, and blogs. Shopify Sidekick, launched in 2025 and expanded with Sidekick Pulse in 2026, surfaces proactive insights and can edit themes, run reports, and execute admin actions through natural language. BigCommerce offers BigAI Copywriter for generative content but with narrower output and less native tie-in with the rest of the admin. Neither replaces an editorial or analytics team. Shopify’s AI layer is currently the more deeply integrated of the two.

Shopify vs BigCommerce for different use cases

The right platform changes by business model. Below is a direct verdict for each common scenario, then the reasoning.

Small business

Shopify is the better choice for small businesses due to ease of use, faster setup, and a lower barrier to launch. BigCommerce may be more involved than needed at this stage, unless the business already has technical resources.

A non-technical founder can have a Shopify store live, accepting payments, and synced with social channels in a weekend. Honestly, the gap is that wide. The app store covers nearly every common SMB requirement out of the box: email, reviews, shipping, inventory. Onboarding flows guide first-time merchants through the steps a developer would otherwise handle. BigCommerce can serve the same merchant well, but the time-to-launch is typically longer.

B2B

BigCommerce is the stronger choice for B2B due to native features, including pricing rules, customer groups, an invoice portal, and custom catalogs available without additional apps. Shopify requires Shopify Plus for comparable B2B functionality.

BigCommerce ships native quote portals, tiered pricing, customer-group catalog visibility, and account hierarchies on its standard plans. For Shopify, the equivalent feature set lives on Shopify Plus through company accounts, net payment terms, and quantity rules. For brands already operating on Shopify at scale, Plus’s B2B module is a credible answer. For B2B-first businesses starting fresh, BigCommerce typically gets to a working setup with fewer integrations.

For upper mid-market brands running global B2B operations across ERP, PIM, and multiple regions, the platform is only one input. When scandiweb rebuilt a global B2B environment with a 10,000-product catalog, the work spanned architecture, data, and integration before any storefront change, producing +29.8% YoY revenue and a +132.5% conversion uplift.

Developers

BigCommerce offers more built-in flexibility for developers, with greater URL control and fewer constraints. Shopify works within a defined architecture and APIs, which speeds up builds but limits deeper customization.

Shopify’s Liquid templating, GraphQL Storefront API, and Hydrogen framework give development teams a mature, well-documented path, particularly for headless builds. For advanced builds, Shopify Hydrogen and headless commerce enable full frontend control while keeping Shopify’s backend. BigCommerce’s Stencil framework and broader API surface allow more out-of-the-box customization but require specialist developers to maintain.

Dropshipping

For dropshipping, Shopify is the stronger choice due to its large app ecosystem and native integrations. DSers, which replaced Oberlo, provides direct AliExpress sourcing and automated fulfillment. BigCommerce supports dropshipping but with a smaller app ecosystem.

Shopify’s ecosystem includes DSers, AutoDS, Spocket, and dozens of niche supplier integrations, which makes testing product-market fit fast and inexpensive. BigCommerce supports the model, but the supplier app catalog is narrower. BigCommerce does offer a 15-day free trial, which is useful for testing before committing.

Enterprise (Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce)

Shopify Plus, from approximately $2,300 per month, is purpose-built for high-volume merchants and includes custom checkout scripting, Shopify Flow no-code automation, B2B company accounts (buyer hierarchies, net payment terms), and a dedicated merchant success manager. BigCommerce offers strong enterprise flexibility and built-in features, particularly for B2B, but requires more custom development to match Shopify Plus’s managed reliability. The right choice depends on operational scope and technical requirements.

For DTC brands prioritizing managed infrastructure and fast scaling, Shopify Plus is the more direct path. The platform absorbs Black Friday-level traffic spikes automatically, and the dedicated success manager shortens the loop on incidents and feature requests. BigCommerce enterprise is the stronger fit for catalog-heavy B2B and teams that want full code ownership. Native B2B is included on all plans, URL structure is more flexible, and API access is broader. The trade-off is that performance under heavy load depends more on hosting and caching configuration that the merchant or agency owns.

A representative example: when a luxury jewelry brand managing 150,000 SKUs moved from Magento 1 to Shopify Plus, the deciding factor was Plus’s managed scaling combined with custom scripting to clean legacy data, something neither platform’s stock tools handled out of the box.

Read more: Magento 1 to Shopify Migration for a Luxury Jewelry Brand

Migration considerations

Businesses typically migrate from BigCommerce to Shopify when they want a simpler operational model, faster iteration, and access to a broader app ecosystem. A successful migration requires careful planning to maintain SEO performance and data integrity, including accurate URL mapping with 301 redirects, complete data transfer (products, customers, orders), and rebuilding the storefront in a new theme.

A clean migration follows four phases. First, data export: products, variants, customers, orders, and order history pulled out of BigCommerce in formats Shopify can ingest. Second, URL mapping with 301 redirects: this is the most common point of failure and the single largest SEO risk, since every indexed URL needs to map to its new equivalent before launch. Third, theme rebuild: BigCommerce themes do not port across, so the storefront is rebuilt in Liquid, ideally improving performance and conversion at the same time. Fourth, app and integration re-mapping: each BigCommerce native feature now in use needs a Shopify equivalent, whether through an app, a Plus capability, or custom development, including reconnecting ERP, PIM, and any operational data flows.

The risks worth budgeting for: SEO ranking loss when redirects are incomplete or built incorrectly, data loss when exports are not validated against source records, and downtime risk during the cutover window. DIY migrations using off-the-shelf tools cost less but carry more risk. Agency-managed migrations typically run 4 to 8 weeks for mid-size stores and trade higher upfront cost for lower SEO and data risk.

In one Magento 2 to Shopify migration scandiweb supported, an SEO-led approach with full metadata and redirect mapping helped the merchant grow organic revenue 107% post-launch, a useful illustration of why the SEO workstream cannot be an afterthought.

Read more: SEO Program Secures Kouboo Migration and Drives Organic Growth

For the full step-by-step process, see our guide on migrating from BigCommerce to Shopify, covering data, redirects, and integrations without ranking risk.

Which is better: Shopify or BigCommerce?

Choose Shopify if you need to launch quickly, iterate without heavy technical overhead, and rely on a large ecosystem of apps and integrations to extend functionality. Choose BigCommerce if your business depends on built-in features, structured catalog management, or B2B workflows that would otherwise require multiple integrations.

Choose Shopify if…

• You’re a non-technical founder or small team that needs to launch quickly.
• You want access to a large app ecosystem for customization and growth.
• You need multichannel selling (TikTok, Amazon, Instagram) with native integrations.
• Predictable pricing and a managed platform matter more than built-in features.
• You’re scaling globally and want Shopify Markets or Shopify Plus infrastructure.

Choose BigCommerce if…

• You need native B2B features (pricing rules, customer groups, invoice portal) without paying for Shopify Plus.
• You manage a catalog with high SKU and variant counts.
• You want no platform-level transaction fees regardless of payment gateway.
• Your team has technical resources and wants more out-of-the-box flexibility.
• You’re migrating from a custom cart and want strong built-in tools.

Frequently asked questions

Which is better, Shopify or BigCommerce?

Shopify is better for most businesses due to ease of use, a larger app ecosystem, and managed scalability. BigCommerce is better for businesses with B2B requirements, large catalogs, or teams that want more built-in features without third-party app dependency. The right choice depends on your technical capacity and business model.

Should I use BigCommerce or Shopify for SEO?

Shopify is easier to manage for SEO because hosting, HTTPS, canonical tags, and sitemap generation are handled automatically. BigCommerce offers more flexibility in areas like URL structure and faceted navigation, which can benefit advanced SEO strategies. The better option depends on whether you prioritize simplicity or control.

BigCommerce vs Shopify pricing: which costs more?

Base plan pricing is similar, with both starting at $29 per month billed annually. Shopify’s total cost can rise with app subscriptions for features BigCommerce includes natively. BigCommerce pricing is tied to annual sales revenue, which can trigger forced plan upgrades for fast-growing stores. Total cost of ownership depends on your app usage, integrations, and growth rate.

What happened to BigCommerce?

BigCommerce has shifted its strategic focus toward enterprise and B2B merchants, scaling back from the SMB market where Shopify dominates. The platform continues to operate and serve over 130,000 merchants globally, but has seen slower merchant growth compared to Shopify. It remains a strong option for mid-market and B2B businesses with catalog-heavy requirements.

Shopify vs BigCommerce vs Volusion: which should I choose?

Shopify and BigCommerce are both modern, actively developed SaaS platforms with strong scalability and ecosystems. Volusion is an older platform with more limited development investment and a smaller ecosystem. For most businesses evaluating eCommerce platforms in 2026, Shopify or BigCommerce are the more viable long-term choices.

Shopify vs WooCommerce vs BigCommerce: how do they compare?

Shopify and BigCommerce are both fully hosted SaaS platforms: you pay a subscription and the platform manages hosting, security, and infrastructure. WooCommerce is a free self-hosted WordPress plugin that requires you to manage your own hosting, security, and updates. Shopify suits most growing businesses, BigCommerce suits B2B or catalog-heavy needs, and WooCommerce suits technically capable teams who need full code control or deep WordPress content integration. For a deeper view, see how Shopify compared to WooCommerce plays out across hosting, cost, and customization.

Planning a Shopify or BigCommerce build? scandiweb takes responsibility across the full commerce system: architecture, integrations, delivery, and performance. Get in touch and we’ll walk through the trade-offs against your catalog, team, and growth targets.

The post BigCommerce vs Shopify: Complete 2026 eCommerce Platform Comparison appeared first on scandiweb.

Läderach sells premium Swiss chocolate in over 250 stores worldwide. Behind that experience is a complex product data operation spanning multiple markets, languages, and systems. We built the infrastructure to manage it properly.

About

Läderach is a Swiss chocolate and confectionery manufacturer crafting premium chocolate. With 250+ stores worldwide, its own chocolate museum, and a growing international presence in Europe, North America, Asia, and beyond, Läderach is one of the most recognized names in artisan chocolate.

scandiweb has been Läderach’s long-term digital partner. In this case study, we’ll focus on the implementation of Pimcore as a dedicated product enrichment platform, which marked a foundational step in modernizing Läderach’s product data management and distribution.

Also read:
Case Study: Elevating the Digital Chocolate Experience with Läderach’s Transformation Journey

Project goals

Läderach’s product catalog is sold across multiple markets, each with its own language, regional assortment, and SKU structure. Historically, all product data was in Comarch, an ERP system built for operations, not content enrichment. The main goal of this project was to implement Pimcore as a dedicated PIM layer between Comarch ERP and Magento 2, transforming it into the single source of truth for product content, while keeping existing operational flows in Comarch and storefront logic in Magento intact.

• Introduce a new product structure in Pimcore that merges market-specific duplicate SKUs into unified parent products, allowing enrichment to happen once and inherit across all relevant markets and languages
• Transfer product data management from the ERP to PIM, creating the ability to manage merchandising data, digital assets, and categories that were previously constrained by ERP limitations
• Integrate Pimcore bidirectionally with ERP and Magento 2, replacing legacy SOAP-based connections with a more maintainable architecture
• Enable faster product onboarding and lay the groundwork for expansion into new markets and languages

Problem

Läderach’s existing setup had Comarch ERP as the base of all product operations – inventory, pricing, order processing, and product data. While Comarch handled the operational side well, it was never designed for product content enrichment. 

Every product sold online required detailed descriptions, images, translations, and merchandising attributes. All of that had to be manually entered directly into Comarch, and because Läderach sells the same products across multiple markets, each with its own regional SKU, the same data had to be entered repeatedly. In practice, a single product could require 10 to 20 manual data entries.

Duplicate SKUs by design

The root of the duplication was a technical constraint. Comarch requires separate SKUs per market to generate country-specific product labels, and Magento’s order structure had to mirror that same SKU layout to keep refunds and order management working correctly. That meant every product existed as multiple records in the system, and every piece of content had to be managed for each one individually. There was no way to enrich a product once and have it apply across markets.

ERP constraints

Due to ERP constraints, some products simply couldn’t be published online at all. The direct Comarch–Magento pipeline left no room to add enrichment data, merchandising values, or category assignments that didn’t already exist in Comarch. If the ERP didn’t support it, Magento couldn’t show it.

With Läderach expanding into new markets and languages, the existing approach had to change. Adding a new market meant multiplying an already heavy manual workload, with no mechanism for inheritance, reuse, or automation. The team was spending time on repetitive data tasks rather than on product development.

Solution

scandiweb introduced Pimcore as an intelligent enrichment layer between Comarch and Magento. Comarch would remain the source of truth for inventory, pricing, and order data. Magento would remain the storefront. Pimcore would own everything in between. We held a three-week discovery process, including on-site workshops, to lay the foundation for every architectural decision that followed.

A new product structure

The solution centered on a custom parent–child product structure designed specifically around Läderach’s multi-market reality. Rather than managing each market SKU as a fully independent product, Pimcore now groups them under a single unified parent. Enrichment occurs at the parent level (descriptions, images, merchandising attributes, translations) and is automatically inherited down to each market-specific child SKU.

Child products can still be overridden individually and can revert to inheriting from the parent at any time. This single change eliminated the need to repeat enrichment work across every market variant, reducing what previously took hours to a matter of minutes per product. 

Importantly, the SKU structure pushed to Magento remains unchanged, meaning order management, refunds, and the Comarch integration all continue to work exactly as before.

Pimcore–Magento 2 integration

We built and maintained the integration between Pimcore and Magento 2, handling the full product and category data sync. The connector required significant custom development and troubleshooting during delivery, with several issues identified and resolved in parallel with feature development.

Data flows from Pimcore to Magento automatically on a scheduled basis, using a delta sync approach that pushes only what has changed, keeping the integration efficient and the storefront up to date.

Also read:
Get to Know The Pimcore Connector for Magento 2 by scandiweb

Comarch ERP integration

We built the receiving endpoint within Pimcore to accept product data pushed from Comarch. Pimcore applies validation rules during ingestion, which introduces a data quality layer that didn’t exist before, reducing the risk of incomplete or inconsistent product records reaching the storefront.

Custom interfaces and workflow tools

Beyond the core data architecture, we delivered a suite of purpose-built interfaces to support the enrichment team’s day-to-day work:

• Custom image management interface with inheritance support
• Product position management tool for controlling category display order
• Category assignment rule setup interface
• Structured product enrichment workflow to bring approvals and process visibility into the platform
• CSV import profiles for products and categories to support bulk operations
• KPI reporting dashboards to give the team visibility into data completeness and enrichment progress.

Results

With Pimcore set up, Läderach can add new markets and languages without multiplying the manual workload. The architecture supports multi-language inheritance out of the box, and the first expansion is already underway as part of ongoing development.

Product enrichment went from hours to minutes

The most direct outcome of the new parent–child structure is the time saved on enrichment, with a task that used to take hours now takes minutes, regardless of how many markets a product is sold in.

More products can go online

Products that were previously blocked from the online catalog due to ERP constraints can now be published. Pimcore enables the team to add merchandising values, digital assets, and category assignments independently, expanding what’s available to customers online without requiring changes to the ERP.

A single platform across markets

Pimcore serves as the central hub for all product content, with changes flowing automatically to Magento. The team no longer needs to access Magento directly for product updates, and content entered in Pimcore is never lost during ERP imports or Magento deployments.

This project is another chapter in an ongoing long-term partnership between Läderach and scandiweb. With the PIM layer now in place, the foundation exists for further automation and continued expansion, and we’re already there to support it. 

Ready to take control of your product data? As an official Pimcore Platinum Solution Partner with a range of PIM implementations across B2B and B2C, scandiweb has the certified expertise to integrate a product enrichment platform that fits your business. Let’s talk about what’s possible.

The post Managing 250+ Stores’ Worth of Product Data with a Pimcore Enrichment Platform appeared first on scandiweb.

About 

PUMA is one of the world’s leading sports brands, designing, developing, and marketing footwear, apparel, and accessories across more than 120 countries. They’re a global athletic and lifestyle powerhouse competing alongside Nike, Adidas, New Balance, On, and Asics, with a significant digital commerce presence and dedicated storefronts in key markets, including the US, Canada, UK, India, and Japan (CBC – Cross-Border Commerce region).

In mid-2024, PUMA partnered with scandiweb to strengthen the SEO foundation of its CBC storefronts and unlock organic growth through technical SEO delivery for CBC, technical SEO support for all regions, and EU migration support.

Over the course of the collaboration, scandiweb’s team has worked hand in hand with PUMA’s internal stakeholders and VML’s development team to diagnose long-standing technical issues, rebuild a reliable release workflow, and implement fixes that directly translate into indexation, visibility, and organic revenue gains across all five CBC markets.

Project goals

1. Build a strong technical SEO foundation – resolve the backlog of indexation, crawling, rendering, and structural issues preventing PUMA’s CBC sites from capturing organic visibility.
2. Grow organic revenue in non-US CBC markets with strong brand recognition but underdeveloped technical and on-page SEO.
3. De-risk the upcoming EU migration and extend the CBC playbook to EU markets.
4. Lay the groundwork for AEO (answer engine optimization) and begin positioning the brand for visibility inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and other AI search engines.

Problem

Puma’s CBC storefronts were underperforming their potential in organic search, largely due to accumulated technical debt and an over-reliance on branded traffic. 

Fragmented technical SEO foundation

PUMA’s CBC sites had accumulated technical debt that was limiting indexation, crawlability, and search performance, including rendering issues that caused pages to return 404s in Google, inconsistent search titles, menu navigation crawl issues, and missing product variant schema markup.

Upcoming EU migration risk

An EU migration was on the horizon for PUMA ahead of Black Friday. EU stores contribute roughly 10.9% of traffic and 9% of revenue from organic channels, and other recent migrations carried out without dedicated SEO adjustments caused ~10% long-lasting organic drops, translating into significant lost revenue every year.

Approach

Our approach for PUMA was built around a simple principle: fix the foundation first, unblock the pipeline, then scale. Before kicking off meaningful technical SEO work, we fixed the delivery process itself, defining a new end-to-end workflow that gave every party clear ownership at each stage.

We then systematically resolved the technical SEO backlog across CBC storefronts, including:

• Pagination fix on product listing pages, improving how reliably Google can crawl the catalog
• Menu navigation fix, correcting crawl and click paths through the site’s primary navigation.
• Search title consistency fixes
• Rendering fix for pages becoming 404s on Google
• Product variant schema markup implementation.

What’s next for PUMA

With two new markets set for migration ahead of Black Friday, scandiweb is positioning SEO as a day-one priority to ensure the technical fixes already delivered for CBC are implemented correctly in EU markets, protecting organic traffic and revenue through the transition.

Results

The combined impact of a stabilized delivery and a cleared technical SEO backlog resulted in +62% organic revenue YoY across PUMA’s CBC markets, with projected $3.9M in additional organic revenue.

YoY revenue increase by market 

• Canada +73.98%
• UK +36.26%
• India +124.73%
• Japan +53.92%

Search performance improvements from technical fixes

• +140% clicks on product pages after fixing pages incorrectly reported as 404s, restoring indexation for a large portion of the catalog
• +52% increase in product snippet clicks following product variant schema markup implementation, with significant growth in merchant listings and translated results visibility as well
• +35% impressions on product pages after the pagination fix (US +32.5%, JP +33.8%)
• +35% clicks and +48% impressions on UK non-product pages after menu navigation fixes
• +20% clicks after resolving inconsistent search titles (CA +20.4%, JP +29.1% on branded keyword clicks).

Ready to see what the right SEO strategy can do for your revenue? scandiweb’s SEO and technical delivery teams partner with enterprise eCommerce brands to fix what’s holding organic growth back. Reach out today, and let’s connect!

The post Enterprise SEO Case Study: How PUMA Grew Monthly Organic Revenue by 62% YoY in 4 Markets appeared first on scandiweb.

Omnichannel retailers simultaneously have to manage processes, systems, and customer experience across eCommerce, POS, loyalty, CRM, ERP, data, in-store tools, wholesale, and other sales channels.

Making them work as one is the real challenge. 

Actually, most retailers we meet are dealing with a connection problem. Each system in the stack does roughly what it’s supposed to do in isolation, but in between, there’s a disconnect. As a result:

• Store associates don’t see accurate online stock
• Online and in-store experiences are not continuous for customers
• Launching in new markets takes more effort than expected
• Finance reconciles three systems manually every month
• Internal teams spend time aligning systems instead of improving them, 
  and hundreds of other frictions due to a fragmented retail stack.

Fixing it is a retail operating model project, and the partner you choose has to understand the whole picture: how point-of-sale connects to inventory, how loyalty ties into CRM, how wholesale orders flow into the same ERP as DTC, how in-store tools need to behave for associates who have eight seconds to help a customer. Miss any of those, and the omnichannel promise stays a slide in a strategy deck.

Over the years, scandiweb has helped retailers design and implement this kind of end-to-end connected setup, covering the full operating model behind the storefront. In this article, we’ll walk through omnichannel enablement projects we’ve delivered for Byggmax, Läderach, Sportland, JYSK, and Lafayette 148. 

What end-to-end omnichannel requires

Omnichannel is best understood as a set of conditions that either hold across your operation or don’t. When they hold, the customer experience feels seamless, and operational costs decrease. Otherwise, every channel becomes a silo that someone has to manually bridge. Four conditions, in our experience, ensure an end-to-end omnichannel experience:

A single view of the customer across every touchpoint. A customer who buys online, returns in store, joins the loyalty program on their phone, and gets a service email the following week should appear as one person across every system that sees them. This sounds obvious and is surprisingly rare in practice. Achieving it requires CRM, eCommerce, POS, and loyalty to share data in real time.

Inventory and product data your teams trust. If a store associate has to call another location to check stock because the system is “usually wrong,” the omnichannel promise has already broken down at the point where it matters most. What this condition requires is near-real-time inventory visibility, consistent product data across channels, and a master source that your ERP, webshop, POS, and marketplaces all defer to. 

Loyalty, pricing, and promotions that behave consistently everywhere. A promotion the webshop runs, and the POS can’t apply, becomes a promotion that generates complaints. Points earned in one channel that fail to redeem in another erode trust in the brand over time. The loyalty and pricing engines need to sit above the channels, governing them, rather than living inside one of them.

Systems designed so operations don’t depend on manual workarounds. Every retailer has people who hold the stack together with spreadsheets and other workarounds. A good omnichannel setup steadily reduces the number of those people you need, e.g., integrations can handle edge cases, and in-store tools are built around how staff actually work.

To make omnichannel work, retailers need alignment among:

• Customer experience – consistent journey from discovery to purchase to post-purchase, even if switching between channels
• Operational workflows – how orders are placed, fulfilled, returned, or assisted in-store → how store teams access information → how inventory is used
• Systems and architecture – eCommerce, POS, ERP, CRM, PIM, and other systems working as one setup
• Data and decision-making – product, customer, and performance data usable across teams and markets, translated and accessible in the right context.

When these layers are connected into one working system, it enables consistent brand perception, faster expansion into new markets, scalable operations without increasing complexity, and continuous, data-based improvement. 

Let us demonstrate through long-term scandiweb partnerships with global omnichannel retailers.

Byggmax x scandiweb: one platform for 6 stores, 3 markets, and 200+ locations

Byggmax is one of the largest DIY retailers in the Nordics, operating more than 200 physical stores across Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark alongside a fast-growing eCommerce channel. With a catalog of 55,000+ SKUs with country-specific pricing and stock, the business serves DIY customers arriving with project ideas and professional builders managing material logistics. 

Seasonality is their defining feature: roughly 70% of revenue is generated in a specific period, during which the workforce grows by x10, with extra seasonal workers hired to support store operations. 

Previous setup

Byggmax’s eCommerce setup had become complex as the business expanded, due to a mix of shared components, country-specific logic, and custom infrastructure that became unpredictable during peak traffic. Performance varied among markets, releases carried high risk, UX and performance improvements kept getting deprioritized by stability work, and the roadmap had shifted toward firefighting rather than growth.

The 200+ physical store network needed to integrate cleanly with the digital Magento ecosystem for BOPIS, local stock and pricing, and customer service. 

Omnichannel setup we built

We consolidated Byggmax onto a single Adobe Commerce platform for six store views and built customer-facing flows that connect the online and in-store experiences.

The PIM integration was preserved and stabilized through the migration, so that customers see accurate stock and pricing for their selected store at every point in the journey. 

BOPIS is built around real-time inventory checks and automatic store selection: when an online customer taps the store selector, the nearest location is pre-filled based on their geographic position, with operating hours and contact details surfaced in the same view. Customers can verify product availability at their local store and choose in-store pickup at checkout.

The in-store app extends the same connection in the other direction. Customers in a physical store can use the app to navigate the layout via an interactive map, scan items as they shop, see real-time product availability and pricing, add items to a cart for home delivery, and book a trailer to transport materials. The app makes the store itself a touchpoint that feeds into the same commerce base as the website.

A more recent phase of our work introduced an AI-based ShopBot running both on the website and in-store kiosks, trained on common DIY projects and the full Byggmax catalog. Customers describe the project they want to build, and the ShopBot walks them through the steps, recommends specific SKUs, sizes, and quantities, and can process images of the project area to suggest appropriate materials. The same assistant runs 24/7 across both channels.

How it connects

Adobe Commerce serves all six store views from a single platform → 

Inriver PIM is the source of truth for real-time product data visibility, feeding accurate information into the website, the in-store app, and the BOPIS flow →

The in-store app and the web storefront are connected – a cart built in the store behaves like a cart built on the website, and goes into the same checkout → 

The ShopBot runs across web and in-store kiosks against the same product catalog and project knowledge base, so the experience of asking “what do I need to build a fence?” is consistent whether the customer asks online from home or at a kiosk.

Outcome

• 5x longer engagement time compared to standard project blog pages
• 68% higher conversion rate for customers using the ShopBot
• 95% higher average order value for ShopBot-assisted purchases
• Maintained stock and pricing accuracy
• Stabilized release process, with the platform now supporting the planned roadmap.

Läderach x scandiweb: from fragmented systems to a scalable omnichannel model

Läderach is a family-owned Swiss chocolatier founded in 1962, now operating in its third generation. The brand has distribution in more than 50 countries and 134 branded retail stores across 10+ countries, alongside its direct-to-consumer eCommerce presence, and a growing franchise network, all of which require consistent product data and system coordination. 

The business is part of the premium segment, where the experience across every touchpoint, from the boutique in Zurich to a checkout page at 11 pm, has to reflect the same craftsmanship the product does.

Previous setup

When we started working with Läderach, their ecosystem was highly fragmented. They were running multiple Magento stores alongside several WordPress websites, with content in different places depending on how the relevant page had been built. The underlying infrastructure had been set up and managed by a third party that was being wound down, meaning the foundation the business was running on had a time limit.

The experience did not reflect the brand. Websites and stores were poorly built, and the value of the product was not clearly communicated. For a premium product, this was a critical gap, as customers did not understand the price, and the brand was not strongly positioned as a gifting option.

Additionally, the digital experience did not reflect the in-store reality. While Läderach operates a global network of premium retail stores, this was not clearly communicated online, creating a disconnect in how the brand was perceived. The web presence and the physical retail footprint were running in parallel rather than reinforcing each other.

Data flow between the ERP and Adobe Commerce needed attention. It was structured for manufacturing, not for customer-facing use, which made it difficult to present products consistently in different channels and regions. At the same time, launching new markets or supporting franchise partners required significant manual effort.

Omnichannel setup we built

The first step was system consolidation. We brought all digital experiences under unified Adobe Commerce instance, upgraded to the latest version, simplifying the architecture and making it easier to manage and scale. The infrastructure was rebuilt on AWS with auto-scaling, replacing the third-party setup that was being abandoned. 

From there, we focused on experience and positioning. Based on on-site workshops and customer journey analysis, we defined a redesign approach centered on communicating product value, craftsmanship, and gifting use cases. This led to a full UX overhaul and frontend transformation using Hyvä, alongside a broader rebranding initiative. We rebuilt Läderach’s digital experience to reflect the same level of quality and storytelling found in their physical stores, bringing both channels into alignment.

The store finder was rebuilt as a full-featured store locator covering the boutique network, making the 134 physical locations a navigable part of the digital experience.

To address product data challenges, we introduced a PIM layer using Pimcore. Product information from the ERP was transformed into structured, consumer-facing content, standardized across markets, and translated where needed.

To support growth, we also worked on enabling:

• Localized eCommerce setups for new markets (localized eCommerce stores launch alongside physical retail locations, supported by consistent product data and brand presentation)
• B2B platform for franchise partners
• Centralized portal for accessing product data and assets
• Template-based eCommerce model for franchisees.

How it connects

Adobe Commerce hosts all content (consolidated from the previous WordPress/Magento split) and serves the storefront across every country Läderach operates in. The store switcher handles market-specific presentation on top of that single instance → 

Product information flows from the ERP into Pimcore, where it is structured and adapted for customer-facing use. From there, it is distributed across all digital touchpoints and markets in a consistent format →  

Laderach.com is the central layer for the customer experience; it reflects the brand’s premium positioning and communicates the same value that customers encounter in physical stores →

As Läderach expands into new markets, this structure allows localized eCommerce stores and physical retail locations to be introduced on a consistent foundation, with product data, content, and brand presentation remaining aligned →

For franchise markets, partners can access structured product data and assets through a centralized portal and operate on a predefined eCommerce setup.

Outcome

Most notable results after the Hyvä migration and continued optimization:

• +47.8% conversions
• +52.9% total users
• +25.5% average engagement time
• +40.4% eCR
• +95.4% purchase revenue
• +77% transactions
• +55.2% sessions with add to cart
• +61.1% sessions with checkouts
• -20.8% bounce rate
• The Läderach website received the Design Curve Award at the 2023 Meet Magento NYC event.

After launch, Läderach onboarded to scandiweb’s Service Cloud model with a dedicated eCommerce Manager running continuous improvements: user research across session recordings, heatmaps, and voice-of-customer data; seasonal campaign management; and ongoing CX work, including a trigger-based pop-up system for shipping cut-off dates that nudges customers toward purchase at the right moment. 

Sportland x scandiweb: unifying data, channels, and stores across 5 markets

Sportland International Group is the leading sportswear retailer in the Baltics, officially representing 19 of the world’s leading sports brands across the region. They run 120+ physical stores with an award-winning in-store experience and serve five markets with distinct customer databases.

Previous setup

At the beginning of our partnership, Sportland had the retail footprint and the brand position to support a serious eCommerce channel, and a strong foundation of customer data across the physical store network, but what was missing was the platform and the marketing activation layer that could treat 120+ stores and five markets as one operation.

The ERP and POS systems running the physical store network were not connected to the eCommerce platform. Customer data was fragmented across markets, with distinct store views, different languages and product assortments, and siloed databases that made unified segmentation and personalization hard to operate. Reporting on 120+ stores across five markets required a data infrastructure the business didn’t yet have, and marketing activation was running on tools that limited what the team could actually do with the data they were collecting. 

Store pickup, real-time inventory, and the kind of multi-channel customer experience a top regional retailer needs were all on the roadmap without the infrastructure to deliver them.

Omnichannel setup we built

Sportland’s eCommerce platform for 5 markets was launched on Adobe Commerce with a ScandiPWA frontend and ReadyMage hosting. We built a custom ERP integration to synchronize inventory, customer, and order data between the physical store network and the new platform.

A full BOPIS flow was built directly into the product journey: customers select their pickup store from the PDP itself, with stock availability visible per store alongside opening hours and addresses, and orders are ready for collection within 30 minutes at no additional delivery cost.

Data warehouse and reporting

We built the data layer to merge information from 120+ physical stores, the ERP, POS, and the five eCommerce stores. A BigQuery setup consolidates multi-source data with per-market differentiation, feeding reporting views that cover overall performance, store-level comparison, eCommerce-specific KPIs, and error monitoring in one consolidated report. We’ve also executed a successful first-party data strategy, built on 500,000+ loyal customer records that Sportland now owns.

Weekly performance dashboards are displayed in Sportland’s main office, making the business’s status visible to decision-makers.

CDP & marketing unification

The marketing activation layer was then rebuilt on Bloomreach – rather than consolidating five markets into one project, we implemented a market-specific structure, preserving data integrity while keeping the marketing operation unified.

We implemented audience sync into Google Ads and Meta, including predictive segments. Email automation flows, each tailored per market for local behavior and store-specific logic, are expanded well beyond what the previous setup supported:

• Browse abandonment
• Post-purchase product recommendations
• Multi-step cart abandonment
• Welcome series variations

How it connects

Adobe Commerce runs as the platform across all five markets → 

ERP and POS are integrated so that inventory, customer, and order data flow between the 120+ physical stores and the eCommerce channel, making real-time stock visibility in the BOPIS flow work → 

The BigQuery data warehouse merges data from the physical stores, ERP, POS, and the five eCommerce stores into one structure with per-market differentiation → 

Segments built on that unified data activate into email, SMS, Google Ads, and Meta →

Looker Studio and Bloomreach reporting views read from the same data layer, so marketing performance, store performance, and eCommerce KPIs are all drawing from a consistent source.

Outcome

• +30% online sales
• +20% repeat customers
• 120+ physical stores, ERP, POS, and 5 eCommerce stores merged into one data structure.
• 500,000+ first-party customer records consolidated under Sportland’s ownership.
• +20.6% orders after email personalization
• +80% conversions with AI-powered product recommendations.

JYSK x scandiweb: connecting 50+ stores and 5 channels into one system

JYSK is an international home furnishings and décor retailer with more than 3,000 stores across over 50 countries. Our client, JYSK Canada, operates 50+ physical stores alongside an eCommerce presence, a call center, print catalogs, and a customer-facing mobile app. Our partnership began back in 2014 and has evolved through multiple phases of the business.

Previous setup

JYSK Canada had the components of a modern retail operation already in place – an online store on Magento, a physical store network serving customers across the country, a call center taking orders, catalogs driving traffic, and Microsoft Dynamics Navision running the back office. The remaining work was to get those components to behave as a single system rather than five parallel ones.

• Customer journeys frequently began in one channel and finished in another
• Inventory visibility across the store network and warehouses was limited on the customer-facing side
• Other device performance lagged well behind desktop, which mattered as traffic increasingly shifted to mobile
• Store assignment for pickup relied on manual selection. 

Omnichannel setup we built

Our collaboration at this stage centered on integrating Adobe Commerce (Magento 2) with Navision as the backbone, then extending that integration outward to every customer touchpoint JYSK Canada operated.

Adobe Commerce was connected to Navision for synchronized stock, pricing, and product data, with real-time multi-warehouse stock status available for every product in the 50-store network. That single source of inventory truth became the foundation for everything built on top of it.

On the customer-facing side, we implemented a full BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store) flow, including an automated store locator that assigns the nearest JYSK store to the customer based on their location. The in-store experience was extended through the JYSK app, which lets customers navigate store layouts, locate specific products on the shelf, verify stock in real time, and add items to a cart for home delivery if they’d rather not carry them out.

The call center was integrated into the same order and inventory backbone, so an agent-assisted order draws from the same stock data and customer record as a self-service web order.

At a later phase, we introduced the Hyvä frontend on top of the Adobe Commerce platform, rebuilding the storefront for speed and mobile usability while preserving the integrations underneath. Google Analytics and heatmap data informed the redesign, which was structured around conversion-driven patterns. Content was woven into commerce through the #discoverJYSK blog, cross-linked with product pages to connect inspiration with purchasing.

How it connects

Omnichannel solution for 50 stores featuring in-store pickup, catalogs, call center, and desktop/tablet/mobile.

Navision serves as the system of record for inventory, pricing, and product data → 

Adobe Commerce integrates with Navision for real-time synchronization, meaning stock levels on the website, in the app, and at the call center reflect the same warehouse and store data → 

The store locator and BOPIS flow sit on top of this same inventory layer, so a customer selecting a pickup store sees availability grounded in the same numbers the store associate will see when the order arrives → 

The JYSK app reads from the same stock service, letting in-store customers trust what the phone tells them about what’s on the shelf.

Outcome

• 50+ stores connected into a single system spanning inventory, pickup, and customer records
• +600% mobile conversion rate following the mobile-optimized rebuild and the later Hyvä implementation
• +20.1% checkout conversion rate
• +43.8% transactions
• +58% unique purchases

After the main launch, our partnership transitioned into a dedicated eCommerce Growth team model, with ongoing work on loyalty cards, gift cards, and additional payment methods.

Lafayette 148 x scandiweb: unified customer data for stylists in boutiques and digital

Lafayette 148 is a New York-based women’s luxury fashion house, specializing in apparel, footwear, and accessories, sold in flagship boutiques, outlet locations, international stores, a wholesale and retail partner network covering 500+ locations, and a direct eCommerce channel. A central part of the brand experience is a high-touch clienteling model – stylists and store associates work 1:1 with customers, offering personalized recommendations rooted in their shopping history and preferences. 

The digital channel needs to carry the same weight as the boutique, and the data underneath both needs to work as one. Our partnership began as a platform rescue and has continued for more than 10 years.

Previous setup

Lafayette 148’s customer data was scattered across many systems – boutique POS, outlet and international stores, clienteling tools used by stylists, an eCommerce store on Magento, loyalty accounts, purchase history – and the same customer could be represented by multiple identifiers. 

Forming a unified view was difficult, and the business was working with a prior CDP that the team couldn’t fully control: 

• Identity resolution rules couldn’t be modified without vendor support
• Reporting required extensive manual work
• The platform couldn’t link online behavior to individual profiles.

Omnichannel setup we built

At the beginning of this partnership, scandiweb took full ownership of Lafayette 148 replatforming, consolidating responsibility over migration, data, integrations, and frontend delivery into a single point of accountability. We rebuilt the platform on Adobe Commerce Cloud, and a comprehensive data migration moved years of customer and product history to the new platform.

We built the store locator extension to maintain the 500+ retail partner network, making physical retail a navigable part of the digital experience. 

A custom Shop the Look module brought something closer to the stylist-assisted boutique experience online, letting customers assemble complete outfits, select colors and sizes, and preview the result instantly. Adobe Page Builder, with advanced content types and animations, supports the brand’s seasonal storytelling. 

Unified customer data

With the platform stable and the eCommerce channel growing, scandiweb migrated Lafayette 148 to Salesforce Data Cloud, integrating the new CDP with Magento, the clienteling tools stylists use in the boutiques, and the rest of the technology stack. Identity resolution was configured to match and unify customer records across the boutiques, outlets, international stores, stylists, eCommerce, and loyalty accounts.

They can now capture customer lifetime order count and revenue, purchase frequency, engagement, preferences, and preferred stylist or store, and other data to run segmentation strategies. In-store, the clienteling experience is rebuilt on top of the unified data layer. Stylists access detailed customer profiles ahead of appointments. 

How it connects

Customer interactions from the boutiques, outlets, international stores, stylist clienteling tools, Magento storefront, and loyalty program feed into Salesforce Data Cloud →

Identity resolution merges them into single profiles keyed across email, phone, loyalty account, purchase history, and in-store interaction →

Calculated traits run on top of those profiles, feeding segmentation that powers email and SMS marketing, paid media, and the in-store clienteling experience →

The AWS data infrastructure handles ingestion and transformation at a scale that exceeds the CDP’s native capabilities →

Adobe Commerce Cloud continues as the transactional platform, with the data layer built during the replatform feeding customer and behavioral signals back into the unified profile.

Outcome

The replatforming was delivered within the six-month window after years of previous unsuccessful attempts, with a clean transition, no downtime, and no data loss across years of accumulated customer and product history.

• Revenue doubled during the partnership
• 85% of revenue generated from re-engaging existing customers
• Over 40% of online sales come through email and SMS
• Automated hundreds of hours of manual reporting
• ROAS improvements through unified audience activation
• Internal ownership of clienteling dashboards

Our collaboration has continued for more than 10 years, spanning platform, frontend, data infrastructure, customer data, clienteling, BI, and marketing, enabling and refining a deliberate end-to-end omnichannel retail solution.

What this means for omnichannel retailers

The diagnostic questions worth asking inside your own operation are the following and alike: 

”can a store associate trust the stock number the system shows them?”
”can a customer earn loyalty value in any channel and spend it in any other?”
”does my ERP, CRM, PIM, and commerce platform agree on who a customer is and what they’ve bought?”
”can my marketing team activate a segment built from unified behavior data directly into the channels that reach the customer?”
”does my store network appear inside the digital experience, or alongside it?”

The investment sequence matters, cause platform work that precedes data unification often has to be revisited once the data layer catches up. In-store tools built without a unified customer profile cannot deliver the outcomes they promise, and so on. A partner who can see the whole sequence is meaningfully different from a partner who is strong on one layer.

Every project showcased in this article involved decisions in which the tech, data, integrations, marketing, and CX teams needed to agree on a trade-off in real time. Consolidating those decisions into one partner with a single accountable delivery model is what enables omnichannel programs to succeed.

scandiweb has spent more than a decade helping retailers design and implement end-to-end omnichannel experiences. Reach out today, and we’ll walk through your current systems and channels, identify the connection points, and share the next strategic steps.

The post Delivering End-to-End Omnichannel Experience: Case Studies of Leading Retailers appeared first on scandiweb.

2026 is a good year to be on Shopify. The platform processed $378.4 billion in GMV last year, and enterprise brands like Estée Lauder and General Motors are already migrating to it. If you’re reading this, you’re likely already past the platform decision – you’re looking for the right team to handle it.

This guide cuts to it. Ten Shopify development agencies across the US and EU, already narrowed down from a much longer field, each good at something specific. Match your situation to the right profile and you’ll have a shortlist of two or three worth calling.

One note on this list: yes, scandiweb is included. We applied the same questions to ourselves that we applied to everyone else: what’s verifiable, what’s the track record, what’s the specific use case. You can check every claim we make against the Shopify Partner Directory, our linked case studies, and publicly available results.

What’s changed in 2026, and why it matters for your agency choice

Shopify’s platform looks different now than it did two years ago, and those changes affect what you need from the agency you hire.

The checkout has changed. Checkout.liquid – Shopify’s previous system for customizing the checkout experience – was deprecated for Plus merchants in August 2025. Auto-upgrades started in January 2026, which means any custom checkout code built on the old system is now gone. Ask every agency on your shortlist whether they’ve already handled this migration for existing clients.

Shopify Scripts are being retired. The deadline for editing Shopify Scripts passed April 15, 2026. The hard retirement date is June 30, 2026. If your store uses Scripts for discounts, shipping logic, or payment rules, those need to be migrated to Shopify Functions before that date. Any agency unfamiliar with this isn’t current.

AI search is a real channel now. In March 2026, Shopify turned on Agentic Storefronts by default for around 5.6 million US merchants. That means your product catalog is now potentially visible inside ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity – provided your store’s data is structured correctly. This isn’t hypothetical: early data shows AI-referred eCommerce traffic up 7x since January 2025. Most agencies haven’t built this capability yet. The ones on this list that have are noted.

Any agency worth shortlisting in 2026 should be up to date on all of these changes.

Shopify agencies compared at a glance

The 10 best Shopify agencies in the US and EU: 2026 picks

1. scandiweb

scandiweb operates in the US out of a New York office, with headquarters in Riga and Tbilisi, and additional teams in London, Montreal, Stockholm, and Dubai. The agency has been in eCommerce since 2003, running large-scale Magento builds well before Shopify was a serious enterprise option.

That history matters because the agency has watched eCommerce evolve across platforms – Magento, Commercetools, BigCommerce, and others – which means when a client is deciding whether to migrate to Shopify, the recommendation is based on what actually fits the business, not what the agency happens to specialize in.

The team runs 600+ specialists across all locations. Services cover the full stack: Shopify Plus builds, migrations, complex integration services, CRO, SEO and AI search optimization, PPC, and email – all under one team tied to the same revenue metrics.

Three proprietary tools are worth knowing. Satoshi is a premium storefront theme built natively for both Shopify and Hyvä – the only one of its kind, useful for enterprise builds that need strong Core Web Vitals and advanced filtering without the cost of a fully custom front-end. ReadyMage is scandiweb’s own eCommerce hosting infrastructure. AnswerRank is a tool built specifically for AI search visibility, making brands discoverable in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI results. The Kouboo partnership is the most public proof point: after migrating to Shopify from Magento 2, Kouboo holds the #1 position across all brands tracked in ChatGPT and Perplexity for high-intent prompts.

Among the 700+ brands served, their US clients include The New York Times, Adobe, Acer, Boy Scouts of America, University of Michigan, and more. EU and UK clients include JYSK, Sportland by SportsDirect, FELCO, Läderach, and Byggmax, and others. scandiweb also serves global brands across Canada, Latin America, the Middle East, South Africa, Japan, and Australia.

Best for: Brands with complex migrations from legacy platforms, enterprise Shopify builds, and multi-market rollouts that need one integrated team covering development, optimization, and marketing.

Less suited for: Simple theme-layer builds or early-stage brands. scandiweb typically works with businesses in the $50 million – $2 billion revenue range.

Shopify case studies worth checking out

Migration work

The New York Times – replatformed from Adobe Commerce to Shopify in 60 days, ahead of Black Friday, with a 170-year-old brand and 50,000+ catalog items.

• Organic traffic up 40% at launch
• Black Friday 10–15x traffic spikes handled without manual intervention

Read more:
Reinventing a 170-year-old brand’s online sales process

Hope – Commercetools to Shopify Plus for Sweden’s leading contemporary fashion label, needing multi-country storefronts, currency localization, and ERP integration.

• Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Klaviyo integrated
• The client now manages all product and content updates without developer involvement

J.R. Dunn – US luxury jeweler migrated from Magento 1 with 150,000+ diamond SKUs, 72,000+ historical orders, and a custom Ring Builder.

• SEO score of 100 on launch day
• Custom storefront built on the Satoshi theme, maintaining a high-end look across every product page

Read more:
Case Study: Magento 1 to Shopify Migration for a Luxury Jewelry Brand

Kouboo – Los Angeles home décor brand migrated from Magento 2 with SEO preservation as the primary constraint.

• Revenue up 107% over the following year
• Organic traffic up 72%, top-3 rankings up 138%

Read more:
Case study: SEO program secures migration and drives 107% organic growth for Kouboo.com

Custom builds

Sweet – the world’s first peer-to-peer NFT marketplace, built on Shopify in 120 days for digital collectible drops.

• Ran drops for the Chicago Blackhawks and New York Knicks
• First auction after launch: bids over $5,500 on a single NFT

doors. – custom multi-vendor Shopify marketplace for independent fashion designers reaching global markets.

• Delivered in 3.5 months
• SEO and analytics wired in from day one

Optimization and SEO

Mrs Wordsmith – educational brand with three country subdomains (US, UK, AU) cannibalizing each other, consolidated into one global domain.

• Conversion rate up 150%, organic revenue up 200%
• Organic traffic up 65%, top-3 ranking keywords up 80%

Read more:
SEO Case Study: URL Restructure Leads to +150% in Conversion Rate

Kouboo – after the migration, continued into AI search optimization to capture purchase intent on AI platforms.

• 53% visibility in ChatGPT and Perplexity on high-intent prompts
• Ranks #1 across all brands tracked, appearing alongside Amazon, Wayfair, and IKEA

Read more:
AI Search Optimization Helps Kouboo Break Into the Top 3 AI Answers

Marketing and retention

FELCO – Swiss premium tools brand with fragmented email activity, needed a full lifecycle program across five markets and three languages.

• Built and launched in 30 days
• Now generating €150,000 in lifecycle revenue per month

Read more:
Building a €150K/Month Lifecycle Revenue Engine in 5 Markets

2. Anatta

Anatta has been around since 2008 and earned Shopify Platinum status in 2025. The agency works on a retainer model with a dedicated team per client. Its client list includes Rothy’s, Molekule, and SmartyPants Vitamins – all of which were acquired after their Shopify builds – alongside Grove Collaborative and Vuori. Based in Chicago, Anatta works primarily with US DTC brands.

Best for: DTC brands in the $10 million – $100 million revenue range looking for a long-term agency partner.

Less suited for: Brands under $5 million that don’t need a full retainer model.

3. CQL

CQL is one of only 12 Shopify Platinum agencies in the US, with 100+ people following its acquisition of Riess Group in 2025. Its focus is unified commerce – helping retailers run their physical stores and online channels together on Shopify. Named clients include Warner Brothers Discovery, Stüssy, Perry Ellis, and Fashionphile.

Best for: Mid-market and enterprise retailers that sell both in-store and online and want both channels managed on Shopify.

Less suited for: Online-only brands with no physical retail.

4. Fostr

Fostr’s founder set up one of the first 50 Shopify stores globally. The Newcastle-based agency, part of the IDHL Group, has built its reputation in luxury and celebrity DTC. Clients include Gymshark, Victoria Beckham Beauty, Emilio Pucci (LVMH), Fabergé, Dermalogica, GXVE Beauty (Gwen Stefani), Moon (Kendall Jenner), Florence by Mills, Pattern Beauty (Tracee Ellis Ross), and Beis (Shay Mitchell).

Best for: Luxury and celebrity-backed brands where design quality and brand presentation are non-negotiable.

Less suited for: Mid-market DTC brands outside the luxury space.

5. Barrel

Barrel is an 82-person New York agency with a client list that reads like a supermarket shelf: McCormick, KIND Snacks, L’Oréal Paris, Bobo’s, Once Upon a Farm, Sweet Loren’s, Sakara, SmartyPants Vitamins, and Cabot Creamery. That focus means they understand the specific needs of consumable brands – subscription flows, bundle builders, and repeat-purchase mechanics.

Best for: CPG, food and beverage, and consumer health brands that want an agency with real experience in the category.

Less suited for: Luxury fashion, B2B, or brands that need a multi-platform partner.

6. Swanky

Swanky has been Shopify-exclusive since 2012 and holds Platinum tier. The team of around 70 covers design, development, subscription builds, migrations, CRO, and loyalty programs. Most of its clients run subscription models, and the agency has hands-on experience with tools like Recharge, Skio, and Bold. Active clients include daysoft, bond-eye swim, and Inverawe.

Best for: DTC brands where subscription is the main revenue model.

Less suited for: Brands selling one-time purchases where subscriptions aren’t part of the plan.

7. Underwaterpistol

Founded in 2001, Underwaterpistol is one of the oldest Shopify agencies in the UK. The 22-person London and Glasgow team is a Shopify Plus Partner and a Recharge Premier Agency Partner. Named clients include Ooni, BrewDog, Omaze, and Reach PLC. The agency won Yotpo’s “Best Shopify Plus Agency EMEA” award.

Best for: UK DTC brands that need subscription or headless builds on Shopify Plus without large-agency overhead.

Less suited for: US-only brands, or those that need paid media and SEO alongside the Shopify build.

8. Tante-E

Tante-E is a Hamburg-based agency that has completed 400+ projects and built its practice specifically around brands moving from Shopware to Shopify – a migration path common across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Named clients include fritz-kola, LFDY, reisenthel, LeGer by Lena Gercke, and 1. FC Union Berlin. Kloster Kitchen saw a 30% conversion rate increase after migrating with Tante-E.

Best for: German, Austrian, and Swiss brands on Shopware considering a move to Shopify Plus.

Less suited for: Brands outside Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, or migrating from other platforms.

9. Domaine

Domaine was formed in 2023 through the merger of Tomorrow and Half Helix, with Code joining later. The agency works only on Shopify. With around 250 people and backing from BV Investment Partners, the combined team has launched 300+ Shopify storefronts. Named clients include Arhaus, Laura Mercier, Creed, bareMinerals, Harry’s, Khaite, and Timex.

Best for: Premium brands in beauty, fashion, and home where the platform is already decided and design is the main focus.

Less suited for: Brands still deciding on a platform, or those that need development and marketing handled together.

10. Fuel Made

Fuel Made is 17 people, all senior-level, fully remote from Washington State. The agency has focused on Shopify since 2010. Its Klaviyo Master Elite status places it in the top 20 of more than 10,000 Klaviyo agencies globally. Named clients include Beardbrand, Supply, Bella Notte, cocokind, and Home Reserve.

Best for: Mid-market DTC brands that want Shopify and Klaviyo handled by experienced people, with no junior staff on the account.

Less suited for: Brands that need a full team covering development, SEO, and paid media. Fuel Made’s scope is narrow by design.

How to match the right agency to your brief

Four scenarios to help you locate yourself on the list.

The project involves a migration from a legacy platform. scandiweb is the most relevant starting point. The migration track record spans Adobe Commerce, Magento 1 and 2, and Commercetools, and the team will tell you honestly if Shopify isn’t the right destination – something most agencies won’t do. For German, Austrian, and Swiss brands specifically moving off Shopware, Tante-E is the more focused option.

The project needs a vertical specialist. Domaine for premium beauty, fashion, and home where design is the priority. Fostr for luxury and celebrity-backed DTC where brand presentation is everything. Barrel for CPG, food and beverage, and consumer health. Swanky or Underwaterpistol for subscription-first DTC. CQL when physical retail and eCommerce need to run together on the same platform.

The project is at scale and needs a long-term partner. For brands that need development, SEO, CRO, paid media, and retention running under one team with one point of contact, scandiweb is built for exactly that – with the infrastructure to absorb the full scope without bringing in subcontractors. For DTC brands that want a more focused retainer model Anatta is worth a look.

The project is focused on growth after launch, not just the build. Fuel Made handles Shopify and Klaviyo at a senior level without the overhead of a large agency. For AI search visibility – getting products to show up in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI results – scandiweb offers dedicated AI search optimization services, backed by their proprietary AnswerRank tool.

Six things to check before you sign

Agencies tend to look similar until you ask the right questions. These six are the ones that separate a well-matched agency from a well-presented one.

Which platforms have you migrated FROM in the last 24 months? Ask for named clients who migrated from the same platform you’re on, with traffic data for the 90 days after launch. Real numbers tell you more than a services page.

Are your current Plus clients’ checkout.liquid and Shopify Scripts migrations done? Checkout.liquid was deprecated in August 2025. Scripts retire June 30, 2026. An agency that hasn’t handled this for existing clients isn’t current.

Who is accountable for my project – by name? Get a name and ask how many other accounts that person runs simultaneously. Then ask to speak with a client who has been with the agency for two years, not six months.

Is the delivery team in-house? Subcontracting isn’t inherently a problem – undisclosed subcontracting is. Ask directly, and ask for names.

How do sprints get prioritized? The answer should involve revenue impact. “We work through the backlog” is the wrong answer.

What’s in the handoff documentation? You own the code. Ask what the handoff includes: theme documentation, app configuration, and Shopify admin access. A clean handoff means the agency is confident in what it built.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between a Shopify Platinum, Premier, and Plus partner?

Shopify has different partner tiers, but a higher tier doesn’t automatically mean better work. As of March 2026, there are 33 Platinum agencies, 45 Premier, and 255 Plus-level agencies in the US. Tier tells you how active an agency is on the platform, but it doesn’t tell you whether they’ll deliver results for your specific project. Always ask for case studies with real numbers.

What should I look for in a Shopify agency’s case studies?

Named clients, specific numbers, and a timeframe. “Increased revenue for a leading brand” tells you nothing. If an agency’s case studies don’t include measurable outcomes, ask why.

How do I know if my store is ready for Shopify Plus?

Most brands move to Plus when they hit around $1 million in annual revenue, need to customize the checkout, want to run multiple storefronts from one place, or need more flexibility for integrations. Below that, standard Shopify plans handle most of what a growing brand needs.

What happens to my store’s data during a platform migration?

A well-run migration moves your products, customer records, order history, and page URLs across without data loss or search ranking damage. The risks come from rushing: missed redirects, incomplete metadata, or skipping post-launch checks. Ask any agency to walk you through their migration process and show traffic data from a recent one they’ve completed.

Can a Shopify agency help after the store is live, or just with the build?

The better ones do both. Ask what month four of an engagement looks like – after the launch is done. That answer tells you whether the agency is set up for long-term improvement or just delivery.

Where can I find and verify Shopify agencies?

Start with the Shopify Partner Directory at shopify.com/partners/directory. Cross-reference with Clutch for client reviews – focus on reviews that mention communication and post-launch support. Then open a few of the agency’s live stores on your phone and see how they actually perform.

Final thoughts

By now you should have a clear enough picture to narrow things down. Pick two or three agencies that match your situation, then do three things before you commit:

1. Open their live stores on your phone. Check load speed, mobile navigation, and checkout. The live store shows you what the agency actually ships.
2. Meet the people who’ll work on your account, not the ones pitching you. If the agency won’t arrange this before you sign, that tells you something.
3. Call a client who has been with the agency for two years, not two months. Ask them one question: if you were choosing again today, would you choose the same agency?

The right agency will be accountable for the build and what happens after it goes live. That’s the standard worth holding.

Planning a Shopify build or migration? scandiweb helps you get the architecture, integrations, and SEO right before development starts. Get in touch to discuss your setup. Get in touch to discuss your setup.

The post Best Shopify Agencies in the US & EU: Top Picks in 2026 appeared first on scandiweb.

Point of sale (POS) has long been a challenge in Magento setups. Online, Magento gives merchants full control over catalog, pricing, promotions, and customer data. In-store, however, most retailers end up running a separate POS system, often connected through middleware or third-party integrations. 

Instead of one system supporting both channels, retailers are maintaining two, with added complexity in between. That complexity gap is what Hyvä POS is designed to close. 

What is Hyvä POS?

Hyvä POS is a point-of-sale system built specifically for Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce.

It’s a native iOS app that runs on iPhone and iPad, turning Apple devices into fully functional retail terminals. Instead of relying on a separate system, it connects directly to your Magento instance, giving in-store staff access to the same catalog, customers, inventory, and orders that power your online store.

There’s no middleware layer and no additional database to maintain. Magento remains the single source of truth, with Hyvä POS acting as the interface at the retail counter.

The app is designed with an offline-first approach so that sales can continue even without connectivity. Once the connection is restored, data syncs back automatically. At the same time, when online, stock levels, customer activity, and everything else update in real time.

What makes it different from existing POS solutions

Native, not browser-based

Hyvä POS runs as a native app, not in a browser, allowing it to work offline and integrate properly with retail hardware like barcode scanners, receipt printers, and cash drawers.

No middleware or sync layer

Most Magento POS setups rely on connectors between systems, but Hyvä POS removes that layer entirely; there’s no delay in syncing data and fewer points where things can break.

Built around Magento logic

The system understands Magento natively, including complex product types, customer group pricing, and promotions, without the need to replicate or adapt this logic on another platform.

Designed for real store workflows

Features like cart holding and recall, split payments, refunds, and multi-store configurations are built in from the start, based on how Magento merchants actually run their stores.

How it works

Hyvä POS is designed to be quick to set up and straightforward to run in-store, without introducing new systems into your stack.

1. Connect your Magento store

The app connects directly to your Magento instance via API. Once authenticated, it pulls in your catalog, customers, pricing, and configuration. There’s no separate database or syncing tool involved.

2. Configure your register

From there, you set up how each terminal should operate (payment methods, receipt printing, customer display, and staff access). Cashiers can be assigned roles and permissions, with PIN-based login managed through Magento.

3. Start selling in-store

Once configured, the POS is ready to use. Staff can browse products, scan barcodes, apply discounts, and complete transactions directly from the device. Orders are created in Magento as they happen, following the same structure as online orders.

Two things make a difference in day-to-day use:

• Real-time sync when connected – stock levels, customer data, and orders update instantly throughout channels
• Offline continuity when needed – orders are queued locally and synced back to Magento once the connection is restored.

What you can do with Hyvä POS

Hyvä POS covers the full set of tasks store staff deal with daily, without switching between systems or workarounds.

At the counter

Staff can access the full Magento catalog directly from the device, using category navigation, search, or barcode scanning. All standard product types are supported, including configurable and bundled products. Receipts can be printed on supported thermal printers or sent digitally, with branding configured per store.

Checkout is flexible and applies to common scenarios:

• Cash payments with denomination handling
• Card payments via Mollie terminals
• Store credit and split payments within the same order
• Discounts applied at line or cart level, including Magento sales rules and coupons.

Customer handling

Customers can be looked up or created during checkout, with full access to their order history. At the same time, Hyvä POS supports a customer-facing display, where shoppers can view their cart and totals in real time, follow the payment process, and enter their email to receive a digital receipt, keeping the in-store experience aligned with what customers expect online.

Store and staff management

Hyvä POS supports multi-store setups, allowing different configurations per location while still running on the same Magento instance.

Store teams can:

• Manage inventory by source using MSI
• Open and close registers with cash reconciliation
• Assign staff roles and permissions with tracked activity
• Hold and recall carts, either on the same device or terminals, depending on setup.

Orders, returns, and reporting

Orders created in-store follow Magento’s structure, including invoices, shipments, and credit memos, which allows staff to process full or partial refunds, handle returns directly in the system, and keep order history consistent on all channels.

For reporting, Hyvä POS provides:

• Daily and monthly sales summaries
• Payment breakdowns
• Stock movement tracking.

All data can be exported, making it easier to reconcile and analyze store performance without additional tools.

Is Hyvä POS for you?

Hyvä POS is built for Magento omnichannel retailers who don’t want to manage separate systems for online and in-store sales. It’s definitely a strong fit if your business relies on both channels and you’re starting to feel the limitations of keeping them disconnected.

You’ll likely benefit from Hyvä POS if you:

• Run physical stores alongside your Magento eCommerce setup
• Rely on accurate, real-time inventory
• Want consistent pricing, promotions, and customer data everywhere
• Are currently using a third-party POS with middleware or manual sync workarounds
• Have multiple locations, larger catalogs, or more complex customer handling.

Instead of adapting Magento to fit around a POS, Hyvä POS brings it into Magento itself, resulting in simpler architecture and reduced day-to-day friction in stores. 

Rollout, pricing, and current status

Hyvä POS is currently in its early rollout phase. A pilot program is underway, with early access available through a waitlist. The initial rollout is focused on the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom – availability in other regions will follow, with some markets requiring additional certification.

The system runs on Apple devices (iPhone and iPad) that serve as POS terminals.

In terms of pricing:

• A free tier is available for single-register setups with core functionality
• The Pro version is included with Hyvä Commerce and adds features like offline mode, customer display, and advanced staff management.

Early adopters also have the opportunity to influence the product’s direction through feedback during the pilot phase.

Implement Hyvä POS with scandiweb, Hyvä’s Platinum Partner

As a Hyvä Platinum Partner, scandiweb is closely involved in the Hyvä ecosystem. We’ve completed a wide range of high-performing, customer-centric Hyvä projects across industries and contributed to the community with our own solutions and frameworks.

Hyvä POS connects directly to Magento, so its success depends on how well your Magento setup (catalog, inventory, customer data, pricing logic, and integrations with ERP or PIM systems) is structured. We integrate Hyvä POS into your existing setup, configure how your stores operate, and test real checkout flows before go-live.

We support omnichannel retailers exploring Hyvä POS by:

1. Evaluating fit
2. Assessing whether it aligns with your retail model, store setup, and existing systems
3. Preparing Magento for POS
4. Ensuring your catalog, inventory structure, and customer data are ready to support in-store workflows
5. Configuring and integrating
6. Setting up registers, payments, hardware, and connecting POS flows with ERP, PIM, or other systems where needed
7. Rolling out across stores
8. Planning and executing multi-location rollouts, including staff setup, permissions, and process alignment
9. Adapting to real workflows
10. Aligning the system with how your teams actually sell in-store, not just how the default setup works.

Getting started

Hyvä POS is still in its early phase, but it already signals a shift in how Magento merchants can approach in-store retail. If you have a large or growing retail presence, this changes how decisions are made. POS is no longer something to work around but part of the core Magento setup. Join the waitlist at hyva.io/pos to get early access and see how it works in practice.

If you want to understand how it would work with your current setup, scandiweb can help you assess, prepare, and implement it in a way that fits your business.

The post Hyvä POS Explained: What It Means for Magento Omnichannel Retailers appeared first on scandiweb.

In B2B, the eCommerce platform sits at the center of how companies buy, reorder, and manage suppliers, becoming part of the workflow itself. Research shows that most B2B buyers now prefer to complete tasks independently, without relying on sales teams, and they are willing to switch suppliers when digital channels fall short. As high as 90% of B2B customers will turn to a competitor that offers a smoother, more reliable experience, and 87% would pay more for a supplier with an excellent eCommerce portal.

The difficulty is that B2B purchasing does not follow the same logic as B2C. Orders are tied to specific business needs, often defined in advance, and involve multiple people with different roles in the decision. Buyers spend more time evaluating options and verifying details before placing an order. The process is structured, repeatable, and driven by requirements rather than exploration.

This directly affects what users expect from a platform. They need to:

• Locate exact products quickly
• Access detailed specifications without searching across multiple sources
• See pricing, stock availability, and account-specific terms accurately
• Place large or complex orders without introducing errors
• Easily reorder, and more.

When these conditions are not met, the impact is immediate and creates friction on both sides – for the customer trying to place orders, and for the B2B company trying to scale.

What breaks in most B2B platforms

The same issues appear again and again in B2B eCommerce, even when the industries are completely different. The friction tends to come from disconnected systems, weak self-service, hard-to-navigate product information, and ordering flows that take more effort than they should. These problems usually mean the platform was never shaped around how B2B customers actually buy.

Fragmented experiences

Many B2B companies grow through multiple brands, markets, catalogs, or business units. Over time, that often leads to separate sites and disconnected customer journeys. Users end up dealing with different:

• Navigation patterns
• Content structures
• Levels of product detail
• Rules depending on the brand or market.

That kind of fragmentation creates work for the customer. In our project with Ionto, the challenge was exactly this: three separate websites had to be brought into one unified platform that combined catalog and eCommerce functionality while keeping the experience consistent across brands.

Partial self-service

Not fully delivering self-service means that customers can browse, search, and maybe add products to cart, but the more important parts of the journey still sit outside the platform. Typical gaps include needing sales support for quotes, limited access to account-specific pricing, no efficient way to reorder, or too much manual handling for standard purchasing tasks.

Most B2B customers prefer self-service tools, and many will switch suppliers when the digital channel cannot support their needs.

Incomplete product information

B2B product pages have to help users verify whether something is right for a specific use case, team, order type, or requirement. When that information is too thin, too scattered, or too hard to compare, buyers need to leave the site to check documents, contact support, or confirm details internally before they can move forward.

Here’s how we’ve helped our clients enhance product information:

• Create advanced customization and quote-ready product flows for teamwear and bulk orders for Macron
• Prepare clearer product details, eco-property information, and usage tagging to support confident purchases for Enviropack 
• Improved search, product clarity, and list-view detail for users to find exact products efficiently on Cook Medical’s eCommerce portal.

Simplified ordering flows

A standard eCommerce cart is often too limited for B2B needs, as business customers deal with bulk quantities, repeat purchases, configurable items, approval logic, and account-specific conditions. Routine ordering may begin to feel slow.

B2B cart and checkout should have:

• Bulk order tables
• Quote-request options for customizable products
• Quick order functionality
• Dashboards and account tools
• Stock visibility tied to real buying decisions.

What breaks in most B2B platforms is the mismatch between the system and the workflow. When the platform mirrors how customers research, compare, configure, reorder, and manage purchasing, it starts reducing effort on both sides. When it does not, teams fall back on email, spreadsheets, and sales support to complete tasks the platform should already handle. If we look at it from this angle, the digital experience directly affects conversion and revenue.

Top B2B redesigns by scandiweb

In different industries, similar changes reflecting how B2B customers actually buy lead to measurable improvements.

1) Macron: innovative B2B experience

Macron is a global supplier of athletic apparel and teamwear, known for highly customizable products and large, structured orders.

Our goal was to design a flexible B2B platform that supports advanced product customization, bulk ordering, and personalized user journeys tailored to different business needs.

Our approach followed a user-centered process:

• Requirement gathering with stakeholders to define user journeys and key features
• UX wireframes, mapping complete user journeys for three distinct B2B user types
• Final UI aligned with the existing B2C experience to maintain visual consistency.

Design highlights

As a result, Macron’s customers can manage bulk purchases with diverse sizes and variations, access real-time stock information, and request a quote or place an order directly within the same flow. An intuitive dashboard gives quick access to key account information, while structured ordering tables reduce friction in high-volume purchasing.

• +132.5% conversion rate from direct traffic
• +14.1% transactions
• +29.8% year-over-year revenue
• +32.8% returning visitors
• Macron became a finalist for the B2B Trailblazer Award at the 2024 Meet Magento New York Ecommerce Excellence Awards.

Also read:
Macron’s B2B Platform Evolution with Adobe Commerce

2) Ionto: consolidated B2B digital experience

IONTO-COMED is a German manufacturer of professional cosmetic equipment, operating across multiple brands with distinct identities. 

Our goal was to build a unified platform from three separate websites that combines an informational catalog with full eCommerce functionality while maintaining a consistent, structured user experience.

Our approach was driven by data:

• CRO audit to assess user navigation, identify usability gaps, review the site against best UX practices, and define a new site concept
• UX wireframes outlining clear user journeys for guest and logged-in users to strengthen brand awareness and drive higher conversions
• A unified design system applied to all three brands.

Design highlights

As a result, Ionto has a fully redesigned and strategically unified multi-store platform that supports three distinct brands – IONTO, Süda, and Caremore – within a single, cohesive digital experience with consistent navigation, shared functionality, and a clear structure for product discovery and purchasing. Product pages provide detailed context for specialized items, and CMS and content pages support product discovery through educational content.

• +90.2% online revenue
• +33.4% sessions
• +100.3% add-to-cart rate
• +93.3% transactions
• +44.9% conversion rate

Also read:
Proactive eCommerce Support Secures a 90.2% Revenue Increase for Ionto

3) Enviropack: improved usability for B2B customers

Enviropack supplies eco-friendly food packaging and already had strong traffic driven by its SEO program, but lacked usability and alignment with how customers evaluate and purchase products.

Our goal was to deliver a conversion-focused website redesign to position the company as an industry leader and design new entry points that enable user journeys throughout all services.

Our approach to the user-focused redesign:

• UX audit to identify gaps and benchmark against eCommerce best practices and cross-industry references
• Wireframes defining page structure, messaging, content hierarchy, and key interactions
• Final UI aligned with brand guidelines and conversion-focused design to strengthen brand recognition, build trust, and position the company as an innovative market trendsetter.

Design highlights

As a result, Enviropack’s updated platform makes product information easier to understand and compare. Product detail pages highlight specifications, usage scenarios, and pricing logic, while visual indicators help users quickly identify relevant products. The overall structure supports smoother navigation and clearer entry points across the site, empowering customers to make confident and informed purchases.

• +22.3% average purchase revenue per user
• +20.1% average session duration
• +10.4% session conversion rate

Also read:
How AEO Helped Enviropack Become a Top AI Pick for Sustainable Packaging

4) BK Group: unified B2B security platform

BK Group distributes security systems and equipment across the Baltics, working with a wide range of products and suppliers. 

Our goal was to create a unified eCommerce platform that enables B2B functionality, keeping the experience simple and aligned with the brand. The implementation was built on the Hyvä theme, with a focus on gradual improvements.

Our approach included:

• Requirement gathering to define the scope and technical setup
• UX wireframes focused on introducing B2B-specific functionality through new extensions
• UI aligned with the existing brand identity, but refreshed to reflect a more contemporary and refined look

Design highlights

As a result, the platform introduces features designed for business users, including real-time stock visibility, structured product listing views, and navigation systems that support faster access to categories and products. Additional elements, such as user-specific watermarking, help protect sensitive pricing information.

Also read:
Merging Two Markets on Magento+Hyvä for a Multinational B2B Supplier BK Group

5) Cook Medical: B2B customer portal

Cook Medical develops minimally invasive medical devices for healthcare providers and serves customers who rely on accuracy and clarity when accessing product information. Their customer portal differs from traditional eCommerce sites by focusing on providing a catalog experience rather than driving additional purchases. It is designed to help B2B customers browse and search for specific products, catering to their unique needs and priorities.

Our goal was to design a clean, minimalist customer portal with a primary focus on search – the most business-critical and frequently used feature for their users.

Our approach combined expert review and collaborative workshops:

• UX audit to identify usability gaps and improvement opportunities
• Wireframes based on customer workshops and real usage patterns
• Final UI aligned with the brand’s style guide for a clean, minimalistic design that evokes the feeling of a laboratory or hospital environment – tidy, sterile, and highly functional, with a focus on clarity and simplicity in every interaction.

Design highlights

As a result, Cook Medical’s product listings are presented in detailed list views, exposing key information such as availability, specifications, and ordering details at a glance. Navigation supports multiple ways of finding products, whether by category, specialty, or known identifiers, creating a system that supports efficient, task-focused usage, allowing customers to find and order what they need with minimal friction.

Also read:
Dated Magento 1 Migration to a Modern Magento 2 Experience for B2B Buyers
Top 10 B2B eCommerce Websites with Great UX and Smart Features

What this means for your B2B store

B2B eCommerce improvements come from aligning the platform with how your customers search, browse, compare, configure, select, buy, and reorder. When your store supports all those actions, ordering takes less time, decisions require less back-and-forth, and customers rely less on manual support. And over time, you see higher conversions and retention, and more predictable growth.

If you are evaluating where your current platform falls short, or planning the next step in your B2B eCommerce setup or design, we can help you map out what that should look like in practice. Let’s talk about ways your B2B store can improve.

The post How Design-Led B2B Platforms Drive Revenue Growth – Top Case Studies appeared first on scandiweb.

For a long time, building custom software was easy to rule out. Not because the need wasn’t there (it usually was), but because the cost, timelines, and effort were hard to justify. Even when systems didn’t quite fit, it still felt more reasonable to work around them than to build something.

That’s starting to change. We break down why and how the economics of software have shifted in detail in our article Why Custom Software Is Becoming Cheaper than SaaS.

Retail teams are now building internal systems 2–10x faster and with far less overhead than what used to be expected. Work that would have been planned as a long, multi-month project is now being delivered in weeks. Budgets that once pushed decisions off the table are no longer the main blocker and are cut by up to 90%.

Companies can now build the kinds of systems that sit close to how the business actually runs and are usually spread across platforms and manual steps, including pricing, product data, inventory logic, forecasting, and supplier workflows.

The examples below show what that looks like in practice.

The shift in numbers

The easiest way to understand what changed is to look at how these systems used to be delivered and how they are being delivered now.

Instead of large, layered delivery structures, many retailers are moving toward smaller, more focused teams using AI-assisted development. These teams can move from business need to working software much faster, with fewer handoffs and less overhead.

At scandiweb, we’ve introduced AI-agile teams – small, senior engineering teams working with AI-assisted development tools to deliver production-ready systems in weeks instead of months at a fraction of the cost.

The same pattern appears through different systems. Projects that were previously scoped as long, resource-heavy initiatives are now being delivered faster, with fewer people involved, and with significantly lower budgets. 

What AI-agile teams have built for retailers

Example 1: Core business system

A 40-year-old UK retailer was running on decades-old legacy systems. Their key workflows, like orders, approvals, reporting, and client data, were spread across multiple tools and processes. Our goal was to consolidate everything into a single system that accurately reflected how the business operated. 

Instead of a multi-year transformation program, an AI-agile team delivered the system in a single focused build without the overhead of a large-scale project.

Example 2: Catalog management system

Seasonal catalog updates for this retailer required 12 category managers and a full month of manual work – product data changes, pricing adjustments, and approvals were handled in spreadsheets and disconnected tools. 

We built a reliable system that reduced a month of manual work to 3 days. Instead of constant team and file coordination, updates are now managed through a single, structured workflow.

Example 3: Pricing, margin & forecasting system

A €200M company was running pricing, margins, and forecasting in Excel, so all the major decisions depended on manually maintained models, with limited visibility and slow iteration. The new system brought that logic into one place – instead of fragmented spreadsheets, decisions are now based on a unified system that reflects real business inputs.

Example 4: Inventory automation

Inventory for 150 stores required constant manual work, with adjustments, rebalancing, and exceptions handled manually in multiple systems. AI-agile teams built a system that automatically handles inventory logic. What previously required continuous manual intervention is now managed through a centralized workflow.

Example 5: Task & project management

This approach is also great in internal tools where SaaS is heavily used but only partially fits. For companies working around limitations, using only part of the tool, adapting processes, or compensating with manual work, custom systems replace those fragmented workflows with systems that match how the business operates.

For example, an engineering firm replaced Jira where they only used basic task tracking which is about 15% of the product features. Now they run a system built exactly for their workflow. It was done in only 5 weeks and deployed on their server.

• $74,000/year before → now paying $0/year
• $32,000 one-time cost (pays for itself in 6 months)

Example 6: Loyalty & engagement

Outerwear brand relied on Braze for loyalty but couldn’t experiment freely. We built a custom loyalty engine connected directly to their CRM, so they can optimize for repeat revenue. 

• $120,000/year before → now paying $0/year
• $90,000 one-time cost
• +27% repeat purchases

What this means

Catalog workflows, pricing logic, inventory management, internal tools, and similar systems are all standard parts of running a business. Most companies already have some version of them in place. And now, they can be built directly for the business, in weeks, with smaller teams and significantly lower budgets.

Look for areas where:

• Spreadsheets carry critical logic
• Teams spend time reconciling data
• Processes depend on manual steps
• Systems do not reflect how the business actually works.

These are often the systems where the impact is highest and the opportunity is most visible. Starting with one focused build is enough to understand how this model works in practice. 

Tell us what you need to replace or build! We scope your system in a free 60-minute session. Bring the process you want to digitize and improve, and we will show you what a custom build looks like for your stack.

The post How Retailers Are Building Software 10x Faster, 90% Cheaper appeared first on scandiweb.

Define a promotion, select multiple products, write the copy, and send it to your whole customer database – that’s building email campaigns the old way. Different customers receive the same message, even when their behavior, preferences, and intent are completely different, often within the same segment. 

What if, instead of sending the same version of a campaign to everyone, each customer received a version tailored to what they’ve browsed, bought, and are likely to do next?

Let us show you what’s possible when you change the approach with the help of AI.

Step 1: the campaign

In our example, let’s look at a global activewear brand with a strong eCommerce presence and a CRM system already in place. They run regular promotional email campaigns and have a solid setup:

• Customer data from online and in-store purchases
• Lifecycle-based segmentation
• Automated flows and campaigns.

However, most campaigns are still built using rules like segments based on past purchases or activity, predefined product selections, and fixed messaging per audience group, which creates a big personalization gap. 

Customers shopping for activewear (or any other product) can behave very differently and be looking for different things, yet they receive the same email. The data about their purchase history, preferences, engagement, and browsing and shopping behavior is there, but it isn’t being used to decide what each customer should see. 

Step 2: specific use case

The impact of personalizing emails is highest at specific moments in the customer lifecycle.

Here’s a common scenario:

A customer has signed up, browsed products, maybe even made an initial purchase, but hasn’t come back in a while. Purchase intent is uncertain, and churn risk is increasing.

Also read:
Case Study: Conversational Commerce Brings 31% of Churned Customers Back

Most CRM setups already account for this with a predefined flow: Identify inactive users (e.g., no purchase in the last 30 days) → Place them into a re-engagement segment → Send a reminder or offer.

What you need to take into account is that within this “at-risk” group, customers are very different. They are grouped by inactivity, but instead of treating them as a single audience, it becomes a starting point for understanding what each individual customer is missing and what would motivate them to return.

Step 3: customer behavior becomes a clear profile

To personalize email at an individual level, you first need to move beyond segments and look at actual behavior. For each customer, the goal is to build a simple, usable profile based on what they’ve already done.

The best part is, this doesn’t require new data. It uses what most brands already have – purchase history, browsing activity, product categories viewed or bought, engagement with past emails or campaigns, etc. 

From this, you can start to understand patterns, for example:

• A customer consistently browsing the studio and low-impact categories
• A customer buying matching sets and newer collections
• A customer focused on discounted or everyday items
• A customer who browses often but hasn’t purchased yet.

These patterns help answer a practical and significant question – what is this customer actually interested in right now? At this stage, you want to create a clear enough picture to guide the next decision, even if you don’t predict everything perfectly.

Instead of assigning someone to a broad segment, you’re defining what they prefer, how they shop, and where they are in their journey. This profile becomes the input for personalization and as the foundation for deciding what each customer should see next.

Step 4: making it actionable with AI

Once you have a clear view of customer behavior, the next step is to decide what makes the most sense for that specific customer to see. Here’s where AI becomes the most useful. 

Instead of relying on predefined rules (e.g., “if customer bought X, show Y”), AI can evaluate multiple signals at once and determine which product is most relevant, what type of message fits best, and how to position the offer.

For example:

• A customer focused on studio workouts → show soft, flexible leggings → message around comfort and movement
• A customer interested in styling and trends → show a matching set → message around versatility and looks
• A customer buying casual pieces → show a jacket or layer → message around everyday wear
• A customer who hasn’t purchased yet → show an entry product → message focused on ease and value.

You’re no longer selecting products and writing one message for a segment. You’re letting the system decide, per customer, what to highlight, why it matters, how to present it, and maximize engagement. Each customer gets a direction that reflects their own behavior, and raw data becomes something actionable.

Step 5: email generation for each customer

Once the decision is made (product + angle + message), the email itself becomes straightforward. The system generates a version of the email for each customer using the selected product, the chosen message angle, a subject line that matches the intent, and a customized CTA. The structure of the email remains consistent, but the product, tone, and reasons to buy are tailored to each individual.

• The studio-focused customer receives: 
  • soft leggings
  • subject line around comfort or movement
  • copy that reflects low-impact workouts

• The trend-driven customer receives:
  • a matching set
  • subject line focused on style
  • copy that leans into versatility and looks

• The casual shopper receives:
  • a jacket
  • subject line around everyday wear
  • copy positioned around ease and layering

At this point, the campaign functions as a system that automatically produces many variations:

Step 6: strategy implementation within CRM

To make this happen, you don’t need to replace your current tools. The CRM still triggers the campaign, defines the audience (e.g., at-risk users), builds emails, and handles delivery.

What changes is what happens before the email is sent. Instead of pulling fixed templates and predefined product blocks, the system generates personalized content with tailored recommendations.

So the setup becomes:

• CRM → defines when and to whom
• AI layer → decides what each person sees.

The data is already there, and the campaigns already exist. What changes are the decisions before the email is sent. When each customer sees products and messaging that match how they actually shop, you will notice the difference immediately in higher engagement, clicks, conversions, and revenue.

Curious how this would work for your business? Contact our AI & email marketing strategists today, and we’ll show you concrete examples based on your products and customer purchase patterns, and show what your campaigns could look like with AI-driven personalization.

The post How to Personalize Email Campaign Communication with AI appeared first on scandiweb.