Marketplaces
Meet 9 of the Biggest British Ecommerce Businesses Using Shopify Plus
- Written by Clare Dyckhoff
With business tools spanning inventory management software to cheaper, efficient shipping labels, there are a lot of platforms to choose from when it comes to maximising business growth.
With Shopify Plus designed to give hyper growth businesses customisable solutions and scalability without the pricing to match, It's not just US businesses maximizing the benefits of Shopify Plus. Many UK businesses have been integrating with Shopify Plus to boost their ecommerce success, too.
In this guide we'll be looking at the success stories of the following UK businesses who integrated with Shopify Plus:
Emma Bridgewater
Cambridge Satchel Company
Gymshark
Huel
Lola’s Cupcakes
Pineapple
Hunter
Jigsaw
Missoma
Emma Bridgewater
Being instantly recognisable in the British home is a key staple of British pottery, Emma Bridgewater.
The notable designs have been adding joy and pops of colours to kitchens all over the country for nearly forty years. In that time, a lot has changed when it comes to ecommerce and where shoppers venture to purchase.
With a website that needed a little bit of a refresh, Emma Bridgewater focused on a cleaner website and user experience, multi-currency ecommerce and targeted mobile experience.
A redesign, website migration, and proper mobile user experience plan later, the business saw a 13% increase in mobile revenue, 32% boost in new users, and £190,000 worth of sales the day immediately after migrating.
Emma Bridgewater's Ecommerce Manager, Samantha Marsh, told Shopify: “We were on quite an old platform that was quite clunky. Shopify Plus is much more simple to use. It just seems like we can solve anything with the new website.”
Related reading: Inventory Management Software: How to Choose
Cambridge Satchel Company
From the kitchen table in 2008 to the arms of A-list celebrities, Cambridge Satchel Company has come a long way from its starting point with £600.
But beyond the bags, the businesses’ ecommerce platform was restricting its success - hitting £3m in annual losses.
With extensive costs of getting onto larger platforms and the scale of development teams required to maintain, the company knew something needed to drastically change.
Implementing Shopify Plus in 2017 drastically reduced costs, lowering the need for external development support by being easier to manage internally, and even provided AR experience where customers could see what their bags could look like in their own homes.
The results saw a streamlined tech stack return The Cambridge Satchel Company to profitability, selling in a variety of currencies and shop fronts in the U.K., U.S., and Europe and finally a move from £30,000 custom integrations to seamless plug ins, meaning the company could focus on what they do best - making high-quality and highly desired bags.
“My business doesn’t revolve around tech. It revolves around bags. Now we have our focus back on the business, not on the technology.” Julie Deane, Founder and CEO of Cambridge Satchel Company, explained to the Shopify team.
Gymshark
Founded in a UK garage by Ben Francis when he was just 19-years-old, Gymshark has quickly become a trailblazer in the UK’s fitness and athleisure market.
In 2015 Gymshark needed a website that could grow with it. Opting for Magento, they soon ran into issues when one Black Friday the site crashed and was down for 8 hours - causing an estimated £100,000 loss in sales.
Further reading: Migrating from Magento to Shopify Plus
By moving to Shopify Plus, the brand was comfortable the site was better suited to remain stable under heavy traffic spikes and even used POS systems to organise world tours and allow customers to make in-person purchases at events.
Switching to Shopify Plus helped the brand generate £41 million in sales in 2017, hit 5.1million social media followers across 131 countries, and be one of the fastest growing global fitness and athleisure brands.
Further reading: Building a Smarter Future with IoT in Warehousing - Veeqo
Huel
A known name in the UK for time-lacking adults looking for nutritious meals, Huel is well known for its range of powdered foods, hot and savoury meals, ready made drinks and energy bars.
Growing from 2015 to 120 employees and 9 stores worldwide, Huel was hitting £10 million in March 2020 alone and needed to streamline its onboarding process so the brand could continue to focus on business growth.
Looking to reduce admin time and streamline their ops, Huel partnered with Shopify Plus to speed up staff onboarding and enable a smoother process for their global workforce.
Using Shopify Plus Admin, dashboards could spot trends in sales and order patterns and significantly reduce the amount of time onboarding staff - moving from a typical 30 minute process to mere minutes.
Related reading: Shopify Shipping: How Does It Work? And Is It Right For You?
Lola’s Cupcakes
Back in 2006 when baking became business for friends Victoria Jossel and Romy Lewis, little did they know their creations would later be found in train stations, shopping centres, and superstores across 30 locations across the UK.
But with a variety of locations came clunky reporting challenges, and the brand started to look for solutions to help centralise reporting across their online and retail transactions, as well as launching their loyalty programme, Lola’s Love Club.
Onboarding Shopify Plus from 2023 and POS from 2024, the brand has since seen over 10,000 new customers in their loyalty programme, more than 1 million purchases via Shopify POS in less than a year, and full integration with 3rd party tools to automate reporting into one clear, easier-to-view, and manage place.
“Shopify opens up opportunities to do things that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to think of or do before. For me, that’s its key speciality.” said Lola's Cupcakes Managing Director, Asher Budwig.
Pineapple
Launched in 1979, Pineapple’s Dance Studios in London has since attracted the likes of Hugh Jackman, The Spice Girls, Madonna, and One Direction to name a few.
With fashion apparel being a hit with consumers and relying on DTC transactions via the online store, the brand recognised their need to match changing consumer behaviour and the website was the first place to start.
The website was slow, hard to manage, required a lot of manual maintenance and work was often outsourced to external developers.
Working with Underwaterpistol and Shopify Plus, a new store was created with conversion focus in mind, making it more adaptable and in line with what consumers expect. A new app replaced the timetable to make it clearer and easier to keep tabs on classes, all while SEO metrics were maintained and stayed stable during the replatforming.
“As an agency, we choose Shopify Plus because it works so well. It frees us to focus on the tasks that move the needle and help the brand grow audience and revenue, rather than spending empty developer hours making simple changes or fixing errors.” said Underwaterpistol's Head of Commerical Development, Sophie Seaton.
As a result, sales increased by 207% 2 months after the migration, the page load speed decreased from 5s to 3s, and work was no longer outsourced to external teams - saving time and money.
Further reading: Why Global Unrest Drives Local Supply Chain
Hunter
From launching as North British Rubbish Company in 1856 to accompanying the British public on muddy walks ever since, Hunter is one of the quintessential British brands still going strong today.
But with legacy comes a need for adaptability and the brand needed to modernise how they were reaching customers.
Keeping customer experience front of mind and looking to move away from a platform that required too much manual handling, Hunter was on a mission to streamline sales across wider regions and locations.
Looking to Shopify Plus, the integrated marketing tools and marketing automation was a big plus point. Along with the no-code requirements, efficiency, and speed of execution, the platform was a good fit for a brand looking for functionality to change product descriptions, banners, and pricing quickly without any technical fuss.
Related reading: Ecommerce Retail Calendar 2024: Dates to Boost Sales
As a result of moving to Shopify Plus, Hunter saw 923% increase in sales 1 month after the launch, 1000% increase in orders 3 months after the launch, and 19% uplift in conversion rate.
Jigsaw
For timeless British clothing brands like Jigsaw, being well established (since 1970) does not always protect a brand from being hit by unforeseen circumstances such as many did during Covid-19.
At a time where digital flexibility became crucial, Jigsaw needed to find a cost-effective solution to help them scale up their digital efforts for customers and their revenue alike.
Looking at options, it became clear Shopify Flow and Matrixing was the most cost-efficient solution, where Jigsaw could scale without scaling technical admin or logistics too.
Bringing customer experience to the forefront and building custom built apps to allow Click & Collect meant operational time was reduced and new products could be added to the market faster.
Jigsaw's Digital Director, Raine Peake, told Shopify: “Shopify Plus has enabled us to be agile, accurate, and fast. Optimizing the site and being able to innovate and trade in real time.”
Results wise, working with Shopify helped generate £2 million increase in revenue in 5 months, 10% increased conversion rate thanks to back in stock automation and launched 40 new features.
Missoma
With the rise of fashion sustainability and capsule wardrobes, jewellery is no exception. With designs to complement the everyday wardrobe, Missoma’s range of earrings, necklaces and pendants are some of the most notable and iconic on the market today, even making it into the collections of A listers and British Royalty.
With only a small team to hand and sights set on international expansion, Missoma needed solutions to help complement the growth seen in 2015 and move with it as it continued to grow.
With Black Friday traffic surges pushing the platform to the limit, the chaos ahead of the festive period prompted the team at Missoma to make some changes.
Moving to Shopify Plus, in 8 days Missoma migrated its £25million business with almost zero loss in site functionality during the process. Other success came with a zero-low code back end system, perfect for leaner teams and could save significant time and money by no longer requiring 2rd party support thanks to being able to handle it all internally.
Further reading: Building a Smarter Future with IoT in Warehousing
How Veeqo integrates with Shopify Plus
From weighing up omnichannel vs multichannel to choosing the best shipping software for your business, looking into integrations with other channels and marketplaces is key to business efficiency.
Veeqo integrates with Shopify Plus where you can track inventory alongside all your other channels. We integrate with Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and more - so you can manage and track all your inventory in one place.
As well as inventory management tools, you're also able to buy your shipping labels in the dashboard and choose your preferred shipping carrier based on the order's size, weight, and delivery location. In the US we integrate with USPS, UPS, Amazon Shipping, FedEx, and DHL, and you can print up to 100 labels in bulk to save time on printing and make your process more efficient.
But the best part? You can choose between connecting your own carrier rates for free, or choose to use our pre-negotiated rates which mean you'll gain access to the lowest commercially available rates based on our pre-negotiated pricing from UPS, USPS, FedEx, and DHL with up to 5% back in Veeqo Credits.
So what are you waiting for? Sign-up to Veeqo today, for free, and start making your inventory management and shipping more efficient and cost-effective.
