The Challenge
A multi-brand fashion retailer in Dubai was losing customers to slow load times (4.2s), poor search, and a checkout flow that didn't support multi-currency. They needed a complete Shopify Plus rebuild that could handle Black Friday traffic spikes.
Our Solution
Shopify Plus with a fully custom Liquid theme. Algolia for AI-powered instant search with typo tolerance. React components for dynamic product filtering. Node.js middleware for 3-warehouse inventory sync. Multi-currency support via Shopify Markets.
Architecture Highlights
Performance-first. Critical CSS inlined, images served via Shopify CDN with automatic WebP conversion, JavaScript deferred and code-split. Achieved 1.1s load time (down from 4.2s).
Smart search. Algolia indexes 8,000+ products with faceted filtering, personalised recommendations, and "shop the look" bundles powered by product relationship data.
Results
28% conversion rate increase in the first 30 days. 1.1s page load (down from 4.2s). $14M+ annual GMV. Zero downtime during Black Friday with 12x normal traffic. The client expanded to 3 additional markets.