Matthew Collins, the 4th of December 2025
Retailers with busy shops often have a website that feels like an afterthought. The product is right, the customers are loyal, and the staff know their stuff. Online, none of that comes through. The site converts poorly, so marketing spend feels wasted, so the site gets less attention.
That was the starting point for Forty Clothing in Glasgow. With three shops in the city, their online store was behind the rest of the business. Within 12 months of working with us, online accounted for half of their retail sales. Conversion moved from 0.8% to 4.6%. The rest of this post is how that sequence worked, and what another Glasgow retailer can take from it.
A turnaround, not a migration
Forty's challenge wasn't a platform move with a clear start and end. It was an underperforming online operation that needed diagnosing while day to day trading carried on.
The case study puts it plainly. Commerce was underperforming relative to the stores, not for lack of product or audience. The platform, the strategy and the execution hadn't had the right attention.
That distinction matters. A store that underperforms for those reasons won't be fixed by a new theme alone, or by more ad spend alone. It needs someone to decide what to fix first, then keep going.
Step one: make the store convert
We started with a full redesign and redevelopment focused on conversion. The aim was simple. When someone arrives, they should find what they want and buy it without friction.
We also added a reviews platform. Customers who'd never visited one of the shops need reasons to trust the product, and reviews give them one.
The redesign and the strategy had to work together, not separately. A better looking site that nobody measures doesn't tell you what to do next.
Step two: build a direct relationship
A better site converts more of the traffic you already have. The next job is making sure a good month isn't only paid traffic.
We layered a loyalty programme and email marketing on top of the stronger store, then ran both on an ongoing basis. When customers arrived and bought, there was a system to bring them back.
That programme has grown to over 50,000 subscribers. It gives Forty a direct channel they didn't have before, and it drives consistent repeat sales.
For a retailer with shops, this step has an extra advantage. Your in store customers already know you. Giving them a reason to join your list connects the two halves of the business. Checkout can join them up as well, as our guide to shipping and store pickup in one Shopify order explains.
Step three: keep a senior person on it
The last part of the sequence is the one most businesses skip. After launch, somebody has to keep reading the numbers and deciding the next change.
With Forty, we stayed on as fractional commerce direction. That covered product launches, sales and Black Friday planning, plus reporting improvements to sharpen where growth effort went. Our Black Friday code freeze checklist comes from that kind of seasonal planning.
This is where results compound. Each month builds on the last, instead of the store slowly drifting after a big launch. We've written about what ongoing Shopify support should include if you're weighing up how that should work for you.
What this means for another Glasgow retailer
The useful lesson isn't about streetwear. It's the order of work.
- Fix the store so it converts, before you spend more to send people to it.
- Build the direct relationship through email and loyalty, so growth doesn't depend on ads.
- Keep a senior person on it, instead of handing the keys back after launch.
How do you know the website is behind the shops? A few signs come up often.
- Staff talk about the shops with more pride than the site.
- Customers say they didn't know a product was online.
- Marketing sends traffic, but sales don't follow.
- Nobody can say what changed on the site last month, or why.
If two or more sound familiar, the store is the place to start.
We don't have a Glasgow office. We work from Belgium, on calls, with the same people from the first workshop to the latest release. Our Glasgow page sets out the work we've done in the city, and the Forty Clothing case study has the full story.
Forty are now expanding across the UK and Europe, with online leading the way. That's what the sequence is for. Once the store carries its weight, it becomes the part of the business that can grow fastest.
Where parallel helps
We design and build Shopify stores for retailers whose website should be doing more. Then we stay on to keep improving it. See how we approach Shopify design and build.
If you've got shops in Glasgow and a website that doesn't pull its weight, book a call and tell us where it's falling short.