Redefine×Merlette · Luxury ecommerce transformation
A luxury store that finally converts like one.
Merlette is a luxury fashion brand selling direct to consumers, with garments built on restraint and texture, and a store that didn't yet match them. Redefine delivered a complete transformation with one senior team: a research-backed UX redesign, a Shopify storefront with a custom editorial Lookbook app, secure Stripe and PayPal payments, and a Klaviyo program that grew email into about half of total revenue and an additional $20,000 a month.
Luxury experience designShopify & Lookbook appStripe & PayPalKlaviyo emailBaymard research
≈50%
▲ of revenue from email
Documented in the brief
+$20K
▲ monthly from email
Documented in the brief
Shopify
▲ + custom Lookbook app
Fast, editorial storefront
Secured
▲ Stripe & PayPal
Encryption & tokenization
The email figures above are documented in the project brief. Conversion, performance and other figures later on this page are illustrative samples pending verification.
Industry
Luxury fashion · direct-to-consumer
Engagement
Experience redesign, Shopify, ERP integration, payments, email
Platform
Shopify · Apparel ERP · Klaviyo · Stripe, PayPal & Afterpay
Email share
≈ 50% of total revenue
Email lift
+$20,000 monthly
Model
Fixed-price sprints · one senior pod
Disciplines & tools
- Baymard-backed UX
- Shopify optimization
- Custom Lookbook app
- Stripe, PayPal & Afterpay
- Klaviyo email
- Split testing
- Apparel ERP integration
- Zonos cross-border
- AMP & PWA
Summary
Merlette is a luxury fashion brand selling direct to consumers at merlettenyc.com. Redefine Innovations delivered a comprehensive luxury ecommerce transformation with one senior team: a full UX/UI redesign informed by Baymard Institute methodologies and split testing; Shopify optimization including a custom Lookbook app for editorial discovery; secure payments through Stripe and PayPal with encryption and tokenization; and a Klaviyo program with segmentation, personalization, audits and automations. Under the hood, an apparel ERP integration keeps inventory and pricing in sync with Shopify, Zonos and country-wise pricing handle cross-border checkout, AMP and PWA plus speed work keep the store fast, and Google, Facebook and Pinterest integrations bring qualified traffic. The transformation delivered a significant increase in online sales, with email contributing an additional $20,000 in monthly revenue and consistently driving approximately 50% of total revenue.
ClientMerlette · luxury fashion, DTC ecommerce
PartnerRedefine Innovations · one senior pod, fixed-price, full ownership
ExperienceBaymard-backed redesign, proven by split testing
Custom buildEditorial Lookbook app for shoppable discovery
PaymentsStripe & PayPal, encryption & tokenization
EmailKlaviyo segmentation, personalization & automation
DocumentedEmail ≈ 50% of revenue · +$20K monthly
IntegrationsApparel ERP sync, Zonos, Afterpay, Google / Facebook / Pinterest
OutcomeA luxury brand performing like one
Note: the email outcomes (≈ 50% of revenue, +$20K monthly) and the significant sales increase are documented from the project brief. All other figures, screens and the testimonial on this page are illustrative samples, replace each with verified data before publishing.
The challenge
Merlette's customers expect the considered restraint of the garments in every interaction. The store had to feel like the brand and convert like a machine, and it was doing neither fully.
Luxury aesthetics and conversion performance kept pulling against each other. Usability and accessibility gaps interrupted browsing. Product discovery didn't match how customers explore a collection. Checkout asked for more effort than a luxury purchase should ever require. Underneath, customer data and transactions needed stronger protection, performance trailed the brand's standards, and the journey was one-size-fits-all.
The brief was to resolve the tension, not split the difference: protect the brand, remove the friction, and turn an earned audience into repeat revenue.
Friction
Navigation, discovery and checkout interrupted the calm a luxury purchase deserves.
Performance
Image-heavy pages loaded in 3.4 seconds, dulling the mobile experience. (sample)
Payments
Customer data and transactions needed stronger protection and enterprise-grade trust.
Generic
Every visitor saw the same store and emails, leaving loyalty to chance.
Standing still has a price
At the legacy conversion rate, every month at the old experience left roughly $80,000 of winnable revenue on the table. The real cost of waiting wasn't the program fee, it was another season of traffic the brand earned but the store didn't convert. (Illustrative figure pending verification.)
The approach
Design the calm, engineer the conversion.
A design and experience track protected the brand while removing friction. A platform and growth track made the store fast, secure and personal. Every change was proven, not assumed.
Track 01 · Design & experience
Luxury restraint, conversion clarity
Extensive research, including Baymard Institute methodologies, before a pixel moved, then a full redesign that holds aesthetics and conversion in one system, proven through testing.
- Baymard-backed ecommerce research
- Full UX/UI redesign, refined by split testing
- Usability, accessibility & a personalized journey
Delivered: full redesign · research library · tested patterns
Track 02 · Platform & growth
Fast, secure, personal
A Shopify storefront optimized for speed, a custom Lookbook app, hardened payments, and a Klaviyo engine, all engineered to carry the brand and grow revenue.
- Shopify optimization & custom Lookbook app
- Stripe & PayPal with encryption & tokenization
- Klaviyo segmentation, personalization & automation
Delivered: optimized storefront · Lookbook · payments · email engine
Design & UX · the storefront
A storefront built on restraint.
The redesign turned a template look into an editorial brand system — whitespace, type and texture — that’s unmistakably Merlette, and lets the garment be the loudest thing on the page. (Brand colours and type follow Merlette’s guidelines; supporting tones are derived. Representative — illustrative pending sign-off.)
Design direction · brand identity
MERLETTE.
Cotton, considered. · NYC
M
N
Palette (brand guidelines · supporting tones derived)
Black#000000
White#FFFFFF
Soft Cream#F7F3F0
Stone · derived#D8D2CA
Ash · derived#8A8580
Type & hierarchy
Cotton,
considered.
considered.
AaAaAaTiempos / Futura PT
An editorial type system in Tiempos Headline and Futura PT, all black, white and soft cream — whitespace and restraint — so the garment is always the loudest thing on the page.
merlettenyc.com
MERLETTE.
Considered cotton, designed and made in New York.
Shop the CollectionDresses
from $290
Tops
from $180
Lookbook
Explore
Restraint as a feature
Whitespace, type and texture do the work, so the collection is never crowded out by the interface.
Editorial, not template
Every page reads like a lookbook — unmistakably Merlette rather than off-the-shelf.
Considered, end to end
From discovery to a sub-second checkout, the experience matches the care in the cotton.
The transformation
One store, two eras.
The legacy experience diluted a brand built on restraint. The redesign turned it into an editorial system that's unmistakably Merlette, and faster. (Storefronts are representative; metrics marked with * are illustrative, the ≈50% email share is documented.)
Experience design
Luxury design, proven by research.
Every pattern in the redesign traces back to evidence: Baymard Institute methodologies, user feedback and split testing. Taste set the direction; data confirmed it.
Navigation that stages the collection
Customers move by collection, occasion and silhouette. The information architecture now mirrors that, the path to any garment never more than two considered steps.
Product pages that sell texture
Generous imagery, fabric and fit detail and styling context answer the questions a fitting room would, while tested calls to action keep the next step quietly obvious.
Checkout without ceremony
Fewer fields, clearer progress, express payment options and reassurance at the moment of payment, refined through split testing until abandonment fell.
Custom build · Lookbook app
A Lookbook that shops like an editorial.
Luxury customers browse the way they read a magazine, by mood, season and styling, not by grid filters. Our custom-built Lookbook app for Shopify lets Merlette publish editorial stories where every look is shoppable in place. (Layout is illustrative of the design intent.)
The Spring Edit
Look 03
1
2
Look 03 · two pieces, both shoppable
Tiered cotton dress, styled three ways for the season.
1Tiered cotton dress · Skyview
2Woven leather beltview
- Editorial layouts composed in the Shopify admin, no developer needed per story.
- Shoppable hotspots link every garment in a look straight to its product page.
- Designed mobile-first, where most luxury browsing actually happens.
The platform
A storefront hardened for luxury.
Speed, security and data flow engineered as one system. (Architecture is an inferred reconstruction for the delivery team to confirm.)
Speed & reliability
- Speed as brand expression, image optimization and code streamlining took loads from 3.4s to 1.1s.* On a luxury store, speed reads as quality.
- Audited & compliant, recurring security audits harden the platform release after release, dependable through peak drops.
Payments without exposure
SStripe
PPayPal
AAfterpay
Raw card data never touches the storefront, fraud risk fell while checkout stayed effortless.
ERP & cross-border
An apparel ERP, synced to Shopify in real time.
Merlette’s apparel ERP is the system of record for inventory, pricing and product data. We built the integration and automation that keep it and the Shopify store in lock-step, then layered on cross-border pricing and duties so global checkout just works. (Integration detail is an inferred reconstruction for the delivery team to confirm.)
Apparel ERP integration
A two-way integration connects the apparel ERP to Shopify, with styles, SKUs, sizes and colourways mastered in the ERP and published to the storefront.
Zonos integration
Zonos calculates duties, taxes and landed cost at checkout, so international shoppers see the true all-in price with no surprises on delivery.
Country-wise price detection
Visitor country is detected automatically and the right currency and market pricing are applied, with the correct price and order flow per region.
What syncs
ERP ↔ Shopify automation
Direction · frequency
Inventory levels
Stock is decremented on each sale and restocks push to the storefront, preventing overselling across the catalogue.
ERP → Shopify · near real-time
Pricing
Price changes and market pricing flow from the ERP so the store is never showing an out-of-date price.
ERP → Shopify · on change
Products & variants
New styles, sizes and colourways created in the ERP publish to Shopify automatically.
ERP → Shopify · on change
Orders
Placed orders post back to the ERP for fulfilment, invoicing and reconciliation.
Shopify → ERP · on order
Entities, directions and frequencies are representative of the integration; confirm against the live ERP mapping before publishing.
Discovery, speed & growth
Built to be found, fast, and to sell more.
Beyond the brand, the store is engineered for discovery and speed: faceted browsing, attribute-based recommendations, app-grade performance, and the marketing integrations that bring qualified traffic in.
Faceted filter menu
A facet menu lets shoppers filter by size, colour, fabric and price, so the right pieces surface in a couple of taps.
Similar products by colour
A “similar products” list driven by the colour attribute surfaces matching pieces from the catalogue on every product page.
“Wear with” cross-sell
Complementary “wear with” cross-sell, Afterpay-friendly, styles the full look and lifts average order value.
AMP pages
Accelerated Mobile Pages serve near-instant, lightweight pages to mobile shoppers and search.
PWA app
A Progressive Web App adds app-like speed, offline resilience and add-to-home-screen on mobile.
Website speed optimization
Image optimization and code streamlining keep pages fast, reinforcing speed as a signal of quality.
Marketing integrations
Search & Shopping
Google
feed + conversion tracking
Product feed and Google Shopping / Ads wired up for paid and organic reach.
Social retargeting
Facebook
pixel + catalog
Meta pixel and catalog power Facebook and Instagram dynamic product ads.
Visual discovery
Pinterest
tag + catalog
Pinterest tag and catalog feed put shoppable Pins in front of a style-led audience.
Feature and channel set is representative of the build; confirm specifics before publishing.
Lifecycle email · Klaviyo
Email marketing that became half the business.
Segmented, personalized campaigns and lifecycle automations, sharpened by regular audits, grew email into a channel contributing an additional $20,000 in monthly revenue and approximately 50% of total revenue. Both figures come from the project brief.
Sample flow · abandoned cart, luxury pacing
Trigger
Cart abandoned
Garments and sizes captured to the customer profile.
Wait 4 hours
No rush
Luxury does not chase. Space before the first touch.
Email
Your pieces, held
The garments, beautifully shot, with fit notes.
Split
Order placed?
Yes → post-purchase care · No → continue.
Day 2
Styling email
How the piece wears, three ways.
Day 5
Complimentary shipping note
A quiet final reason to complete the order.
The full program · six flows plus campaigns
Welcome series
The brand story, the fabrics, the first piece.
Abandoned cart
The flow shown here, paced for luxury.
Post-purchase care
Garment care guides that earn the second order.
Back in stock
Size-level alerts on the pieces that sell out.
Collector & loyalty
Early access to drops for the best customers.
Win-back
A new-season note to customers gone quiet.
A few of the emails
Designed on the Merlette brand system in Klaviyo: welcome, abandoned-cart and post-purchase care. (Illustrative CSS mock-ups — representative, not exported sends.)
Merlette
Welcome to Merlette
Welcome to Merlette
Merlette
Your pieces, held
Your pieces, held
Merlette
Caring for your cotton
Caring for your cotton
Analytics & conversion
Where the revenue actually comes from.
Email is the documented headline, about half of revenue, while conversion, performance and the funnel illustrate the rest of the picture. (Email share is documented; funnel, conversion and performance figures are illustrative samples to verify.)
Revenue by channel (email documented)
≈50%
from email
Email (Klaviyo)≈50%
All other channels≈50%
+$20,000
additional monthly revenue from email (documented)
Conversion funnel (illustrative)
↓ 46% view a product
↓ add to cart
↓ reach checkout
↓ complete
Before → after performance (illustrative *)
Page load time3.4s → 1.1s
3.4s before1.1s after
Conversion rate1.3% → 1.8%
1.3% before1.8% after
Email share of revenue18%* → ≈50% documented
18% before≈50% after
Email share of revenue over the program (illustrative shape)
Funnel, conversion and performance figures are illustrative placeholders; the ≈50% email share and +$20K monthly are documented. Replace the rest with the store's real analytics before publishing.
The results
A luxury brand performing like one.
Online sales and overall revenue climbed significantly, email became a major growth channel, and secure payments and faster pages sharpened the experience. The two email outcomes are documented; the rest are illustrative and for the team to confirm.
How these numbers are measured
The two email outcomes, approximately 50% of total revenue and an additional $20,000 in monthly revenue, come directly from the project brief. Performance is otherwise read from store analytics and Klaviyo reporting, and the figures shown are reasoned placeholders. Replace each illustrative figure with the real number before this case study is published.
≈50%
of revenue from email
Consistently (documented)
+$20K
monthly from email
Additional revenue (documented)
Sales up
significantly
Online revenue (documented)
1.3 → 1.8%
▲ conversion
Sitewide (sample)
3.4 → 1.1s
▼ page load
Speed as quality (sample)
Lower
▼ chargebacks
After payment hardening (sample)
Relative direction · before → after (mix of documented & illustrative)
Email share of revenue
≈50% documented
Conversion rate
1.8% sample
Page load
1.1s sample
Repeat purchase rate
up sample
Revenue trajectory through the transformation (shape illustrative; email outcomes documented)
A brand that deserves a better store?
One senior team to redesign the experience and build the email engine behind it, scoped fixed-price before a pixel moves.
How we work
Structured so the risk sits with us, not you.
Fixed-price sprints
Every sprint scoped and priced line by line before work starts. No hourly meters in the background.
Senior team only
The people who scope your program design and build it. No bait-and-switch to a junior bench.
You own everything
Theme code, designs, the Lookbook app and the Klaviyo account live in your name from day one.
Weekly working demos
Real designs, real pages and real email performance every week, not status decks.
Month-to-month optimization
The ongoing program renews on results, not lock-in. Every quarter earns the next one.
Phased rollout
Redesigns ship template by template behind the live store. Revenue never waits on a big-bang launch.
“The store finally feels like the clothes. And the numbers followed the feeling: email alone now carries half the business.”
KD
Kendra Dennis
“Every change was tested, not guessed. We kept the restraint the brand is built on and still watched conversion climb, that's the part most agencies can't do.”
MB
Morgan Bilodeau
The timeline
From research to email at half of revenue (phasing representative · verify).
Weeks 1-3
Research & audit
Baymard-backed research, analytics & feedback
Months 1-4
Redesign & testing
Full UX/UI redesign, shipped through split tests
Months 4-7
Shopify, Lookbook & payments
Speed, the Lookbook app, Stripe & PayPal
Months 6-9
Klaviyo build
Segmentation, campaigns & automations
Ongoing
Optimize
Email at ≈ 50% of revenue, conversion climbing
Start here
Get this playbook working on your store.
That's exactly the work we're built for: one senior team designing the calm and engineering the conversion, then building the email engine behind it. Submit a brief and get a line-by-line proposal in 3 days, Sprint 1 within a week of sign-off.
No commitment. A line-by-line proposal in 3 business days, and we'll tell you straight if we're not the right fit.
★★★★★4.9 on Clutch500+ projects shipped21 yearsLuxury ecommerce & email
Work under NDA? Verified client references available to serious prospects under mutual NDA.