10 successful Shopify stores that you can learn from

When Patta and Tommy Hilfiger get together for a collaboration, it’s like the whole world takes notice. The capsules don’t come around too often, but when they do they’re always special.

With that in mind, their latest drop was orchestrated from a store built with Shopify Hydrogen. The first Shopify Hydrogen store in EMEA, in fact. 

Shopify Hydrogen is the platform’s new react-based Framework that’s bringing headless capabilities right into the core of the Shopify model. With Hydrogen it’s possible to build a headless store without using external frameworks and hosting platforms.

For the Patta and Tommy collaboration this brought a number of very key advantages.

The most important is that it speeds up the development process massively. The Patta x Tommy project had an extremely short deadline and a ‘traditional’ headless approach would have been impossible.

However, Shopify Hydrogen provides all of the required ecommerce functionality right out of the box. These functions must otherwise be built from scratch, and this always takes a lot of time. With the Shopify Hydrogen ‘plug-and-play’ approach to building headless ecommerce stores, builds can happen much faster.

Elevar is the industry-leading tracking and analytics tool, purpose built for D2C brands to make the most of their customer data. We recommend it for nearly every client, and with the best of the best using it in their tech stack, it’s easy to see why.

With Elevar in place, you’ll never miss a conversion. 100% of your customer activity is tracked and delivered directly to your marketing channels. And that’s even despite Apple’s iOS14 update.

The industry’s entire understanding of data tracking shifted dramatically when iOS14 came in, and in many cases it left a gaping hole in brands' spreadsheets. Elevar combats this with server-side tracking that circumnavigates Apple’s blanket ban.

Giving real time visibility into tracking performance, it’s the elite data tracking tool and a perfect integration for Shopify. SKIMS & Glossier are D2C superpowers that need little introduction, and aspiring ecommerce brands should take note of their tech stack. There’s no secrets in there. They’re using the same tools, apps and plug-ins that you can use, and making the most of each and every one of them.

MR MARVIS is a menswear brand recognised in multiple countries. Selling in 7 languages and numerous currencies, they need a store with the flexibility to serve different customers and different expectations.

They’ve taken full advantage of a headless tech stack on Shopify Plus to build a global digital flagship store that’s not only flexible, but high performance and primed for conversion. Built with the CMS Sanity, they have a custom backend structure that’s tied to a unified frontend for easy content adjustment that keeps the store feeling fresh. They can display different content per country and manage all of their frontend customisation without relying on developer assistance

Another headless Shopify Plus solution, Veloretti’s has provided a key function that would have otherwise been impossible.

Their custom bike-builder is a customer- favourite feature that gives customers the power to design their own Veloretti bike. The feature assembles hundreds of different product variations, with smooth frontend animation to visualise the entire process.

Shopify is inherently limited on product variations, however workarounds are possible via headless architecture. Veloretti make full use of this with a digital flagship store that gives their customers an exceptional online experience.

Shopify caters to all types of business model - from D2C to B2B, it’s possible to make the platform work for you no matter what type of business you run.

Nike and Corteiz collaborated on one of streetwear’s most anticipated high-volume drops, and they successfully navigated the treacherous terrain with a Shopify store and Shopify’s in-house systems.

Shopify’s bot protection is the central pillar to a successful drop like theirs, preventing automated fake buyers from scooping up the trainers and reselling them on 3rd party websites at inflated prices.

Alongside this, the brands also made use of Shopify Flow, Shopify Scripts & Shopify Emails to seamlessly run their particular sales flows. They orchestrated early access for friends & family, and for loyal customers, and they made use of Shopify’s in-built analytics reports to watch the wave of customers arrive in store at the time of the drop.

Infamously taken public by Wall Street’s most notorious wolf, Steve Madden is the most successful footwear brand in the U.S.A. Since expanding the business beyond shoes to a more general fashion label, it’s become a 21st century icon and is without doubt one of the biggest names using Shopify worldwide.

And the Steve Madden ecommerce team are at the top of their game with a Yotpo integration. Specifically, they’re using Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals and Yotpo Reviews. The all-in-one ecommerce marketing platform, Yotpo helps businesses convert one-time shoppers into lifetime followers and repeat sales.

Covering everything from SMS marketing to customer reviews, loyalty & referral options and subscription-based services, Yotpo has everything you need for successful ecommerce marketing, all under one roof.

We advise all of our clients to use Yotpo for at least one of its services, and with world-beating names like Steve Madden also using the tool, what more convincing do you need?