High Fashion Demands High Speed: Cultnaked’s Technical Reboot

Cultnaked is a premium sustainable fashion brand creating unique clothing for a global audience. Before we started working together, the client already had a stylish online store, but under the hood, the system couldn’t handle the load. 

Manual inventory management, a lack of marketing automation, and no tools for customer retention severely limited the brand’s ability to scale internationally. They needed a faster, more flexible setup built on Shopify 2.0.

The Stellar Soft team carried out a comprehensive overhaul, migrating the Cultnaked store to Shopify 2.0 architecture, giving the system the flexibility and speed it needed. To simplify the buying process, we completely redesigned the UX and implemented one-click checkout.

Since the company previously lacked customer retention tools, we integrated a smart triggered email system using the Klaviyo API, with targeted sequences for personalized marketing and retargeting to bring shoppers back for new orders.

To streamline operations, we implemented automations through Zapier, eliminating routine manual tasks. We also integrated Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, giving the brand's team precise data to build effective marketing strategies.

Custom backend layer: standard Shopify functionality works well for typical stores, but has limits when it comes to complex, real-time inventory syncing — especially for a brand with an international audience, where simultaneous orders from different regions raise the risk of overselling. To solve this, we built a robust custom backend layer on the NestJS framework, acting as a middle layer between the store and the Shopify Products API to ensure stable, reliable stock-data syncing without delays.

Speed optimization: page slowdowns typically build up gradually — through legacy code, heavy media files, and third-party scripts that block the main loading thread. We refactored legacy code, migrated to optimized Shopify 2.0 components, reduced the size of JavaScript bundles, and configured lazy loading for heavy media assets and third-party scripts. Together, this delivered a stable load time of under 2 seconds.

Marketing automation (Klaviyo API): manual email campaigns can’t respond to shopper behavior in real time — which is exactly what’s needed to win back customers who abandoned a cart or viewed a product without buying. To close this gap, we set up a deep Klaviyo integration: custom events from Shopify (such as “abandoned cart,” viewing specific products, or completed purchases) automatically trigger personalized email sequences without requiring manual work from marketers for every individual case.

Back-office optimization (Zapier): before automation, the team had to manually transfer order data, shipping updates, and payment statuses between Shopify and internal accounting systems — this was the exact source of busywork that needed to be eliminated. We wrote custom multi-step scenarios (Zaps) that automatically route this data between systems, freeing the team from repetitive manual operations.

End-to-end analytics: without precise data on shopper behavior, it’s hard to pinpoint where conversions are being lost in the funnel. The Google Analytics API and Tag Manager integration gave the team detailed visibility into this journey — and this data directly informed the decisions that helped drive the 25% conversion increase.

End users (Shoppers): pages now load in under 2 seconds, and international customers can easily complete orders with one-click checkout.

Business processes (Team): thanks to the Shopify Products API integration, the brand’s team cut manual product-related work by 40%. At the same time, automating repetitive tasks via Zapier saves the team over 10 valuable hours every week. The risk of selling out-of-stock items has been reduced to zero.

Sales & Marketing: rolling out targeted campaigns through the Klaviyo API transformed the brand’s email marketing — we achieved a +35% increase in open rates, tied to a 32% boost in customer retention and a 20% increase in overall sales. Improved analytics through the Google Analytics API gave the team precise insights that helped drive the 25% conversion lift.