When creating a new ecommerce home for SmallPetSelect, ShopCreatify blended its more advanced development skills with Out of the Sandbox’s popular Turbo Shopify theme to create a custom look without having to create from the ground up.
SmallPetSelect, which focuses on pet supplies and toys for rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, hamsters, gerbils, ferrets and rats — and of course their “hoomans” — came to ShopCreatify looking to increase conversions along with an enhanced mobile experience.
The store had gone through several iterations of looks for its Shopify store — some more successful than others — before turning to ShopCreatify and Turbo.
"Ecommerce web sites are difficult enough at the best of times, but an overhaul of an existing site is especially difficult,” said SmallPetSelect’s Nina Wolf.
Working with Wolf and her team, ShopCreatify opted to use Out of the Sandbox’s Turbo Shopify theme as a base — but delivering a highly custom look that matched SmallPetSelect’s existing brand.
To create this look, the ShopCreatify team closely collaborated with SmallPetSelect, which is also a Shopify Plus user, to finalize the design. After the highly collaborative design process was complete, it was time for ShopCreatify to create the custom graphics, CSS and Liquid code needed to meld Turbo with SmallPetSelect’s design.
Most notably are a custom header with prominent search bar and bold green navigation bar to match SmallPetSelect’s logo. Product pages were also given a series of layout changes to meet the store’s unique needs.
Although other Out of the Sandbox Shopify themes were considered, ShopCreatify ultimately settled on Turbo for both its design aesthetic and robust functionality.
Having a wide variety of features baked into the theme from the beginning was a key factor in deciding to use Turbo — since it saved time on both the graphical and development parts of the project.
“It's certainly a custom store on the surface, but at its heart, it's Turbo,” said Ross Allchorn, ShopCreatify’s founder.
“One of the main challenges was achieving the visual and functional parity required to represent the merchant in the exact light that they require to be viewed in. They have a unique business that operates in an unconventional manner,” Allchorn explained.
Overall, the approach is paying off. SmallPetSelect has seen a 53 percent boost in conversions compared to the same period the previous year. Sales are also up 27 percent.
SmallPetSelect’s new look also helped it surpass the industry average conversion rate.
Layering a custom look over an existing Shopify theme is just one of ShopCreatify’s approaches to its slate of Shopify services, which can range from small tweaks to customizing existing Out of the Sandbox themes — either with light or heavy changes.
ShopCreatify’s knowledge of ecommerce extends beyond just technical know-how — it also has the experience and knowledge to help merchants build a solid ecommerce strategy around their Shopify stores.
“ShopCreatify has done a fabulous job of keeping us grounded, while letting us ascend to a whole new level with our site,” said Wolf.
The project, which spanned five months and launched just after Black Friday in 2017 also included detail-oriented integration with third party apps to expand the functionality, such as including subscription options.
Allchorn’s team invested a significant amount of time to not only install and test all third party apps, but also refine the look and feel of the apps to blend seamlessly with both the Turbo framework and the custom design the two companies created.
ShopCreatify also offers completely custom Shopify stores through its sister company, Ficus.
Meanwhile, ShopCreatify and SmallPetSelect continue to collaborate on the ever-evolving needs of an ecommerce business, including refining the site design to boost performance even more.
“From the initial task of store analysis, they've gone through to being one of our best performing and most prolific clients in terms of improvements, optimizations and feature additions,” said Allchorn.
