From an Outdated Themeto +64% Conversion,in 60 Days.
A £2.4M DTC brand was running on the Shopify theme it launched with — slow, hard to edit without a developer, and converting well below benchmark on the 68% of traffic arriving on mobile. We rebuilt the theme from a clean base, moved the team onto fully section-based templates, and rebuilt mobile checkout end to end. Conversion rate was up 64% within 60 days of launch.
Free, no obligation — we reply within 48 hours.
Client DTC ecommerce · £2.4M annual revenue · 68% of traffic on mobile
Most of the Traffic, Less Than Half the Revenue
The brand is a DTC ecommerce business generating £2.4M in annual revenue, running on the Shopify theme it launched with and had never rebuilt. Years of app installs had layered unused scripts and stylesheets on top of it, and the store was converting well below category benchmarks.
The gap was sharpest on mobile, which made up 68% of total traffic but only 41% of revenue — the channel bringing in most of the visitors was also the one converting the worst, and every layout change to fix it meant pulling in a developer.
Three Issues Limiting Revenue, Concentrated on Mobile
The audit looked at speed, editability and checkout together, because a slow, rigid theme was the root cause behind all three.
Bloated, unoptimized theme
Years of app installs had left the theme carrying unused scripts and stylesheets, pushing mobile load times past 5.5 seconds and driving high bounce rates on product pages.
Rigid, non-editable layout
The theme was hard-coded, so the marketing team could not update homepage sections, launch landing pages, or run promotions without pulling in a developer for every change.
Broken mobile checkout flow
Cart and checkout steps were not properly optimized for mobile, causing a significant drop-off between add-to-cart and completed purchase on the device driving most of the traffic.
Rebuilt in Three Phases Over Six Weeks
A clean rebuild rather than a patch, made editable without code, then pointed straight at the checkout step losing the most mobile buyers.
- Weeks 1–2
Technical foundation
We rebuilt the theme from a clean, lightweight base rather than patching the existing one — stripping unused apps and scripts, optimizing image delivery, and restructuring the codebase so future changes would not require a full developer cycle. This alone cut mobile load time from 5.5s to 3.4s.
rebuilt clean, not patched - Weeks 3–4
Custom storefront and section building
We built fully custom, section-based templates for the homepage, collection pages and product pages using Shopify's native customizer, so the team could rearrange, edit and launch new layouts without touching code. Product pages were redesigned around clearer social proof, sizing and spec information, and stronger calls-to-action based on session recordings of drop-off points.
editable without a developer - Weeks 5–6
Mobile checkout and conversion optimization
We rebuilt the mobile cart drawer, streamlined the checkout steps, removed redundant form fields, and added express payment options — Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay — above the fold. Structured data and on-page SEO fixes were carried over from the old theme so organic rankings were not disrupted by the rebuild.
checkout friction removed
Sixty Days Post-Launch, Measured Against the Old Theme
| Metric | Before | After (60 days post-launch) |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile page load time | 5.5s | 3.4s |
| Site-wide conversion rate | 1.42% | 2.33% |
| Mobile revenue share | 41% | 57% |
| Cart-to-checkout completion | 48% | 71% |
Conversion rate improved 64% within 60 days of launch, and cart-to-checkout completion rose from 48% to 71%, converting more of the traffic mobile was already driving rather than requiring any of it to be replaced. Mobile's share of total revenue grew from 41% to 57% over the same period — the channel bringing in most of the visitors became the channel bringing in most of the revenue too.
Speed, Editability and Mobile Checkout Were One Problem, Not Three
The rebuild's impact came from treating speed, editability and mobile checkout as one connected problem rather than three separate fixes. A faster site kept more visitors on the page, a flexible section-based build let the marketing team test and iterate without developer bottlenecks, and a streamlined mobile checkout converted the traffic the site was already getting.
Is Your Theme Still the One You Launched With?
A theme that has not been rebuilt since launch rarely fails all at once — it loses a little conversion to load speed, a little to a checkout step nobody has touched, and a little to a marketing team that cannot ship a landing page without a developer. A free store audit is enough to tell you where yours is losing the most.