How UMZU boosted CVR and consolidated 30+ apps with its Pack + Hydrogen storefront

About

UMZU is a rapidly growing health and wellness brand committed to research-backed, natural solutions that help men and women reclaim their hormonal balance — without side effects.

The Challenge

UMZU needed a storefront that could keep up with its rapid growth

Like many brands making their ecommerce debut, UMZU launched its v1 storefront on a Shopify theme and was an early adopter of Shopify Plus. Thanks to brilliant marketing tactics and winning product lines, its site traffic quickly scaled well into the tens of thousands. However, UMZU’s rapid success created a few challenges:

• App overload – UMZU's extensive use of third-party apps made troubleshooting problems, modifying Liquid code, and maintaining site speeds difficult.

• Customization roadblocks – The customizations on UMZU's storefront required extensive maintenance and workarounds, which impacted its team's bandwidth and slowed development. 

• An overly complex codebase – Because most of UMZU's site functionality relied on third-party apps (each injecting lines of Liquid code), its codebase became difficult for developers to work with.

As site performance dwindled and conversion rates stagnated, UMZU knew it was time to upgrade from its theme-based storefront. However, the team also knew launching a custom storefront was no easy task. So, they began searching for a platform that would unlock performance and flexibility without requiring a large technical team to manage it.

Goals

Launch a blazing-fast and flexible storefront within the Shopify ecosystem

After partnering with Spacebox Digital to help bring its custom storefront to life, UMZU began to lay the foundation for its renewed site experience. The team had several key goals in mind, including:

• A blazing-fast and dynamic shopping experience — UMZU wanted a site experience that would immediately captivate customers and minimize buying friction. Not only did it need pages to load instantly, but UMZU also wanted its content to be dynamic based on a shopper’s geographic location—so it could satisfy state-based compliance requirements.

• Improved developer efficiency – With all of UMZU’s customizations on its Shopify theme, its code base was increasingly time-consuming to iterate on and maintain. UMZU wanted a way to tackle tech debt head-on, get new site features built more quickly, and reap the benefits of a modern framework and open-source libraries.

• Easy site management and testing — UMZU’s marketing and ecommerce stakeholders needed to be able to launch and test campaigns and content without adding to a developer’s backlog.

• Staying within the Shopify ecosystem – UMZU wanted a clean slate on its frontend, while retaining the robust Shopify backend and vital integrations.

• Laying a foundation for the brand to scale – With plans for significant domestic and international expansion, UMZU needed a highly performant and dynamic storefront that could handle its rapidly scaling traffic.

To tick all these boxes, Spacebox Digital's Co-Founder and CEO, Jon Iler, recommended Pack's Digital Experience Platform. After a brief rundown on the platform, the UMZU team was hooked.

Solution

Pack + Hydrogen helps UMZU deliver content-rich experiences at scale

UMZU worked with Spacebox Digital to graduate from its Shopify theme and launch a Pack + Hydrogen-powered storefront. Using Pack's open-source Hydrogen theme and pre-built integrations, Spacebox had UMZU's new storefront live in four months — using a solo developer. 

Pack's emphasis on seamless content management plus Hydrogen's modern frameworks and flexibility have already driven immense value for UMZU's team, including:

• Improved site performance with minimal overhead – As a Shopify-backed headless toolset, Hydrogen helped UMZU boost site speeds and flexibility without the cost and maintenance of a traditional site architecture. 

• Developer productivity boost – With Pack’s Hydrogen theme, UMZU was able to spin up a performant custom storefront in record time. Plus, since Hydrogen is a React-based framework, UMZU's developers now have access to open-source libraries that speed up development. Today, UMZU's developers spend far less time on workarounds and site speed optimization and more time creating experiences that captivate and convert. 

• Streamlined marketer experience – UMZU's marketers can use Pack to create, launch, and alter content with a visual drag-and-drop UI that's nearly identical to Shopify. 

• Marketer-friendly split testing – Using Pack's built-in split testing feature (that’s built on Hydrogen’s server-side rendering technology), UMZU can determine which site elements resonate with users and make high-impact optimizations without looping in a developer.

• Purpose-built for Shopify – Instead of tailoring a generic CMS to fit its Shopify storefront, UMZU was able to reduce risk and speed up implementation with Pack’s deep Shopify integrations. From a product catalog integration to metaobjects, support for Shopify 3rd party apps, and a team of experts who are building specifically for the needs of merchants, UMZU has access to every resource it needs to scale within the Shopify ecosystem.

Results

UMZU's Pack + Hydrogen-powered storefront increased overall growth by 62%

Launching its Pack + Hydrogen storefront helped UMZU boost site performance, grow its business, and reduce reliance on expensive apps while giving its team the control and flexibility they needed to succeed.

And the results speak for themselves:

• $3k/ month net savings on third-party apps

• 38% more new customers

• 10% more repeat customers

• 62% overall growth

• 6% increase in AOV

Moving forward, UMZU is eager to pursue greater personalization at scale to complement its domestic and international expansions. With Pack's team of experts at its side, UMZU is confident its new storefront will continue to drive value for years to come.