Proof · Case studies · Study
Is Shopify right for you?
One merchant’s replatform, anonymized, with numbers we can verify and blanks where we can’t. Including the part where the failure was ours.
Study · a B2B/B2C merchant, anonymized
The site was slow. We fixed it. They replatformed anyway.
Context
A B2B/B2C merchant on Magento: three storefronts, two separate themes, a real catalog, years of customization. The engagement began as a rescue: in 2023 we took on a site with major issues and fixed them. And the site was slow. Not “slow” as a feeling. Legitimately slow. In August 2023 it was failing Core Web Vitals outright: LCP 4.8s, CLS 0.33, TTFB 2.8s.
Constraint
In July 2023 the client wrote: “Increasing site speed is our top priority”, attached to a proposal for a caching-and-images extension somebody had recommended. We didn’t install it. We ran an audit and split the findings into a ticket workstream instead. Less satisfying than a one-click purchase, and a merchant who asks for a fast answer and gets a workstream has to take it on faith until the graph moves. But we aim for real fixes, not bandaids.
What happened
The audit work shipped through fall 2023: dead and “optimizer” modules removed, layout-shift fixes, product carousels moved to AJAX, configuration corrections, cache improvements, patch rounds. By December 2023, field data showed the trajectory turning: p75 LCP down 800ms, good-LCP share up 19 points, still on Magento, with the same legacy theme stacks, still improving.
In the following years we suggested Hyvä as the best path forward, but the high-five-figure cost to retheme all three brands and customizations was more than the client wanted to invest.
Two years later, in 2025, with the site stable and the 2023 numbers long since improved, the client decided to move to Shopify instead. A third party took that migration on without understanding everything involved, and ran substantially past the planned timeline. We ended stepped in to rescue the stalled build, finished it out, helped with quality assurance, data cleanup, and launch. They cut over in 2026. We rescued their Magento site in 2023, and their Shopify migration in 2026.
What a replatform actually resets is accumulated cruft, which feels like a cure and is closer to a factory reset: it also deletes the integrations, the B2B logic, and the customization you paid for, and you buy those back as app subscriptions. Over time and testing, there ended up being many instances where the client assumed features would be there or easily accomplished because Magento did it all. On Shopify, each one was another app (times 4, for their brands and test sites).
Shopify seemed like a good idea: It 'just works', changes are easy, modern and high investment platform, lower cost of ownership, in theory. In actuality the platform was great for what it did, but didn't do everything needed. Total cost of ownership ended up comparable over time (and substantially higher for the migration than a retheme) due to platform fees and addons. The shiny wore off.
But really
Shopify is a good product. For the right fit. If your catalog is straightforward, your integrations are shallow, and nobody on staff wants to think about hosting, it is very likely the right answer and we will say so. We keep a whole page on when to leave. The caution is narrower: replatforming for performance and marketing is replatforming for the wrong reason. Problems have causes, and the causes don’t care what platform they’re on.
What we’d do differently
We fixed the code and did not sell the trajectory. We didn't have buy-in for our vision from all of the decision makers involved. We were right about the diagnosis but lost the platform argument anyway, though not the client, who brought the stalled migration back to us to finish.
Engagement type: 2023 rescue, then ongoing retainer, then the 2026 migration rescue.