Shopify Case Study: Luxury Watch Brand
July 31, 2014

Shopify Case Study: Luxury Watch Brand

Alex Southern | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Professional

Overall Satisfaction with Shopify

Recently utilized Shopify to establish the online storefront of a niche, premium luxury brand of watches. We needed a solution that could be rapidly deployed within a 30 day window and would handle user management, secure e-commerce, and streamline order fulfillment. Shopify is the GO TO for the modern eCommerce startup. I would have zero hesitation recommending Shopify to a company looking to establish an online store.

My only comment about the service is that for a company with many products (growing beyond 5+ products), Shopify's pricing makes it completely prohibitive for use. The pricing model is not built out to support this and it's just not practical, especially for any startup company that is working with limited funds.
  • Sale of niche product
  • Deployment of ecommerce solution by someone with limited technical expertise
  • Ability for a developer to hand off stable ecommerce solution to another party in organization with limited technical know-how
  • Reasonable pricing for a company with a couple products in their line makes it an attractive option for a company with limited funding that is just getting going
  • To reiterate a previous point, my only comment about the limitations of Shopify's service is that for a company with many products (growing beyond 5+ products), Shopify's pricing makes it completely prohibitive for use. The pricing model is not built out to support this and it's just not practical, especially for any startup company that is working with limited funds.
  • Incredible lead conversion
  • Ability to spend less time managing a site and more time enhancing the product(s)!
  • Wealth of current theme frameworks available in the marketplace
WordPress isn't as strong on the fulfillment side of the product process. We looked at integration via WooCommerce, which I am a fan of but ease of integration helped Shopify win out in this scenario. Again -- important to note, it was of benefit for us because in selling watches we only had four major product variations to choose from. If there were dozens of products and dozens of configurations, Shopify would get really pricey -- but again, this probably was not was Shopify was intended for.
It's working great and processed over 60 sales from us within the first 90 days. LOVE the service!
1. How many product offerings do you need to support? This is crucial.
2. Will you need affiliate or reseller support? Fortunately there are some ways to reap the benefits of customer referrals, such as Shopify's integration with third party provider, Ambassador. These add-ons can help promote sharing of your product and can be hugely beneficial while starting out and intially growing your awareness/customer base.