--- title: Forty Clothing on Shopify description: A Glasgow streetwear retailer took online conversion from 0.8% to 4.6%, and commerce to half of retail sales within 12 months. slug: forty-clothing client: Forty Clothing sector: Streetwear retail headline: Streetwear brand paving the way. summary: Conversion moved from 0.8% to 4.6%. Within 12 months, online was half of the retail business. platform: Shopify fromPlatform: Existing Shopify store toPlatform: Shopify integrations: - Reviews - Loyalty - Email metrics: - label: Conversion before: 0.8% after: 4.6% service: shopify-builds location: glasgow order: 2 featured: true heroImage: /images/work/forty-clothing/hero.jpg heroAlt: Forty Clothing product photography from the Shopify store stats: - label: Conversion value: 0.8% to 4.6% - label: Share of retail value: 50% online - label: Loyalty and email value: 50,000 subscribers deliverables: - A redesign of the existing Shopify store, aimed at conversion - Product pages with photography, fit guidance and clear variants - Reviews, so a page can answer what the shop floor used to answer - A loyalty programme for repeat buyers - Email for first-time, repeat and lapsed customers - A shorter checkout, with clearer trust signals - Launches, sales and Black Friday planned in the same engagement - Reporting the team could use for the next decision gallery: - src: /images/work/forty-clothing/gallery-1.jpg alt: Forty Clothing Shopify storefront on a laptop mockup - src: /images/work/forty-clothing/gallery-2.jpg alt: Forty Clothing mobile shopping experience - src: /images/work/forty-clothing/gallery-3.jpg alt: Forty Clothing product browsing on tablet --- Forty Clothing had three shops in Glasgow and a loyal high street following. The website was already on Shopify. Conversion was 0.8%. Within 12 months it was 4.6%, and online was half of retail sales. Streetwear retail. Shopify redesign. Loyalty and email. ## The problem The shops worked. The website did not keep up. This was not a new store. It was an existing Shopify shop that visitors left. At 0.8% conversion, almost everyone who arrived did not buy. The product was not the problem. People already knew Forty from the shop floor. Traffic was not the problem either. The page was. Product pages did not carry the confidence of the shop. There was no one to ask, no reviews, and no sign that other people had bought the same piece. Checkout felt like a risk when the shop was nearby. Nothing brought a visitor back. No email worth opening. No loyalty. No recognition of a repeat customer. A browse that did not convert was gone. A purchase that did convert had no next step. Online was treated as a side business, separate from what the shops already knew how to do. Shops have a limit. A website does not. That only matters if the website stops losing the visit. ## What we did - A redesign of the existing store, aimed at conversion, finding the product, and trusting the page. - Product pages with photography, fit and fabric, and variants for colour and style that are easy to scan. - Reviews, so a new buyer can read what someone else thought. - A loyalty programme that recognises repeat orders and gives a reason to buy again. - Email for first-time buyers, regulars and people who had gone quiet, including launches and sales. - A shorter checkout, with clearer trust signals and more than one way to pay. - Launches, sales and Black Friday planned with stock, email and the numbers afterwards. - Ongoing commerce direction, so the decisions kept being made after the redesign. ## The detail This was not a migration. The platform stayed. The job was to find what was failing, then fix it in an order that could move the number. The shops had to keep trading while that happened. ### The page A streetwear customer in Glasgow will not gamble on a product they cannot judge. In the shop, someone can answer. Online, they are on their own. We rebuilt the product page to do that job. Photography that shows fit and scale. Copy on material and make. A size guide that says how this brand fits. Colour that matches what you see in the shop. Reviews, so the question is answered by a buyer, not only by the merchant. The design had to feel like Forty. The customer already knew the brand from the street. A generic theme would have thrown that away. The three shops stayed open through the work. Online was not a stand-in for them. The redesign had to suit a customer who already knew the brand from the shop floor. It also had to suit a team that was serving that floor while the site changed. Checkout was shortened. Trust sits where the card details sit. There is more than one way to pay. A buyer who already trusts the shop should not have to re-learn the payment step. ### Coming back A single purchase is not a channel. We added loyalty so a repeat order is recognised. Early purchases earn their place. Later ones earn more. The tenth order is not treated like the first. Email sat on top of that, as a channel rather than a blast. New products close to what someone had already bought. Sales on pieces they had viewed. Early access to limited drops. First-time buyers, regulars and lapsed customers do not get the same message. Someone who had gone quiet got a reason to return, not the same launch note as everyone else. Together, loyalty and email turned a till into a relationship. Over 12 months the programme passed 50,000 subscribers. That is a direct channel Forty did not have when online was a side business. ### Staying on the work The shop team know streetwear and they know their customers. Running a website asks for a different set of decisions. What the last email did. When a launch should go. Which product should lead. We did not hand over a theme and leave. Launches, sales and Black Friday were planned in the same engagement. The reporting was tightened so the next one could be chosen from what had just happened, not from the date on a calendar. A pattern in what people bought last quarter can shape the next email. The same people who changed the site stayed to help run it. That is fractional commerce direction. Forty did not have to hire a department to keep the number moving. The numbers answer plain questions. Which email brought the order. Which product should lead the next launch. When people actually buy. Those answers sit with the team, so the next Black Friday is chosen from the last one. Reviews, loyalty and email are the jobs. We have not named a vendor for them here. The published size of that channel is the subscriber count, past 50,000. ## The results Conversion moved from 0.8% to 4.6% within 12 months. The visit started paying its way. In that same year, online grew to half of Forty's retail sales. The shops stayed strong. The website caught up with them. It did not replace them. Loyalty and email passed 50,000 subscribers. Repeat orders climbed because there was a reason to come back, and a list Forty can write to without buying the visit again. The team can run a launch from the numbers, not only from habit. With the store working, expansion across the UK and Europe is a real plan. They are not copying a broken website into a new country. Online leads that expansion. The shops stay open. A customer can buy in either place, and both feel like Forty. ## The stack Platform: Shopify, redesigned rather than replaced. Theme: a custom redevelopment of the existing store. Reviews: on the product, in place of the question from the shop floor. Loyalty: a programme that recognises repeat orders. Email: split by first-time, repeat and lapsed customers. Analytics: Shopify reporting, tightened so the next decision is visible. ## From a side shop to half the business The brand was already proven on the high street. The website had not caught up. More traffic would have wasted the same visit. The page had to answer fit, fabric and trust. Then reviews, loyalty and email had to give the purchase a second life. A customer who knows Forty from a friend lands on a page that looks like the shop. They read a review. They check the size. They buy. The loyalty email follows. The next drop is closer to what they already own. They buy again. That is the 4.6%, and it is why online could become half of retail without closing a shop. If the shops and the website do not match, start with [design and build](/services/shopify-builds). See how we work in [Glasgow](/locations/glasgow). A written look at the store is a [store review](/store-review).