Kosso Nutrition's Shopify Plus online store: 10,500 orders on one sale day

Kosso Nutrition sells sports nutrition online and runs big promotional days. Those were exactly the moments when Kosso Nutrition's old online store went down. We built a new Shopify Plus online store, with a custom design and a full migration from WooCommerce. The first big sale day afterwards was the immediate test.

I like telling this story, because it shows that a platform switch isn't always about features. Sometimes the problem is simply that the shop closes at the moment everyone wants to get in. Below you'll read what we built and what it delivered.

What was wrong with Kosso Nutrition's old online store?

The old online store went down at peak times, on exactly the days the big promotions were running. On top of that, WooCommerce in that setup left too little room to develop the checkout and the back office further. So the problem was the infrastructure, not a lack of features.

That distinction matters to me. When an online store is slow or crashes, many business owners first think of a new theme or an extra plug-in. But if the server can't cope on the busiest day, a nicer design won't help. Customers are still standing in front of a closed door, it's just been given a better coat of paint.

Why did we choose Shopify Plus?

Because Shopify Plus scales the infrastructure with demand. So Kosso doesn't have to buy capacity for a peak in advance. Shopify Plus also gives access to a customisable checkout, which wasn't possible on WooCommerce in this setup. Those two reasons together tipped the balance.

I'm no Shopify evangelist. For some shops WooCommerce is fine, and sometimes a headless setup is smarter. I wrote about that earlier in when a headless online store makes sense. But for a brand that runs its big promotions on a few fixed days, hosting that scales with demand isn't a luxury.

How did we build the Shopify Plus online store?

On Shopify Plus, with custom work on the theme and the checkout. We migrated the entire shop: products, customer data and blog articles. On top of that we built a product advice tool, sections showing athletes alongside the products and upsells in the checkout. The existing URL structure was kept.

Migration without losing search visibility

A migration is only successful if Google barely notices it. That's why the products, customer data and blog articles moved across while keeping the existing URL structure. More than 100 blog articles alone moved from WooCommerce to Shopify. That way, rankings built up over time aren't lost. You don't want to find out the day after go-live that your best-performing blog returns an error page.

A product advice tool

Choosing sports nutrition is hard if you don't know exactly what you need. So we built a calculator that shows customers which products suit their goal. That lowers the barrier to choosing and shortens the buying process.

Athletes alongside the products

We built components that show which athletes use which products. As a result, a visitor chooses based on recognition. That often works better than yet another paragraph about protein.

Upsells in the checkout

Shopify Plus allows changes to the checkout. We added upsells there, so complementary products are visible at the point of payment. In the basket, customers also see how far they are from free delivery.

What does the design look like?

Custom-made and aligned with Kosso Nutrition's brand identity. The calls to action sit where visitors make a choice. The order flow is short: a basket showing progress towards free delivery, followed by a payment step with iDEAL, Klarna and the other payment methods.

I think an online store for sports nutrition should feel a bit like the brand itself: energetic, but not cluttered. On a sale day especially, you don't want a visitor having to hunt for the checkout button.

What did Kosso Nutrition's new online store deliver?

The first big sale day after go-live was the immediate test. In a single day there were 100,000 visitors, with 10,500 orders and a conversion rate of 11.9 per cent. There was no downtime. For a shop that used to go down on exactly those days, that's the difference between revenue and apologies.

The team also manages the online store itself now. New products, pages and promotions go live without a developer. And the online store stays available on the days that count.

It didn't stop at that one day either. Since the launch, Kosso has run big promotions without problems, and according to the founder the conversion rate is much higher than before. He'd rather say that himself:

You'll find a similar story in the case about RUMAG's ecommerce, also a move from WooCommerce to Shopify because of peaks. To find out what a project like this costs, see the cost of an online store.