An illustrated, theatrical storefront on top of Dawn, with a plain ordering path kept alive underneath it for anyone the theatre gets in the way of.
Dawn
Theme base
customised well past recognition
2
Ordering paths
illustrated flow plus a classic fallback
Samples
Acquisition funnel
free samples as the entry point
The problem
Toothpaste and floss are commodity purchases with strong incumbents. Competing on specification is a losing game, so the brand competes on personality: a hand-illustrated world with a theatre, characters and a tone that has nothing in common with the rest of the category.
That is a lot of art direction to hang on a storefront, and art direction is exactly the thing that usually breaks conversion.
What we did
The storefront is built on Shopify's Dawn theme, customised far past its origins: illustrated full-bleed scenes, a large single call to action, and a free samples offer positioned as the low-commitment entry point rather than buried in a menu.
The detail we would point at is the fallback. Sitting under the illustrated experience is a link to a classic shopping experience for anyone having trouble ordering. That is an unglamorous decision and a correct one: an expressive storefront will always fail somebody, whether through an older browser, assistive tech or a slow connection, and losing that order is worse than admitting the possibility.
Building on Dawn rather than a premium theme keeps the store close to Shopify's own defaults, which is what makes it cheap to keep current when Shopify moves.
The outcome
The store carries the brand's illustrated world without giving up a conventional path to purchase, and the samples offer gives first-time visitors something to say yes to before they commit to a subscription.
Platform
Conversion
What we learned
In a commodity category the brand is the differentiator, and the storefront has to carry it rather than apologise for it.
Always keep a plain path to purchase under an expressive one. Some customers will need it, and they are still customers.
Thirty minutes with the engineer who would lead the project. You will leave with an opinion on what to build, what to skip, and roughly what it costs, whether or not you hire us.
2 build slots open · Next start: early next month
What happens next