--- title: Star Action Figures on Shopify Plus description: Four thousand products, pre-order complexity, and a Comic Con deadline. We built the collector store Star Action Figures needed on Shopify Plus. slug: star-action-figures client: Star Action Figures sector: Collectibles retailer headline: Building the collector experience summary: Four thousand products, pre-order complexity, and a Comic Con deadline. We built the store collectors actually want to shop in. platform: Shopify Plus toPlatform: Shopify Plus integrations: - PreProduct, with basket validation - Payments and shipping set up around how the business already operated engagement: Shopify Plus ยท Six-week build tags: - Collectibles retailer - Shopify Plus - Pre-Orders service: shopify-builds order: 1 featured: true heroImage: /images/work/star-action-figures/hero.jpg heroAlt: Doctor Doom collectible figure from Marvel's Avengers Doomsday, featuring a dark green hooded robe, metallic silver armour, and green energy gauges in both hands, set against a dark green background with franchise branding stats: - label: Catalogue value: 4,000+ products - label: Franchises value: 114 - label: Market value: UK based collectibles deliverables: - Brand foundation from zero, covering colour, type, hierarchy and accessibility - Navigation by franchise, series, brand and scale, with breadcrumbs - Pre-order ship dates, badges, and checkout that blocks mixed delivery dates - Display cases matched on the product page - New In for arrivals and restocks - Mobile menus and filters, with the pre-order badge still visible - Pricing that shows RRP and the price you pay - Search and combined filters by franchise and series gallery: - src: /images/work/star-action-figures/gallery-1.jpg alt: Star Action Figures Shopify Plus storefront on laptop - src: /images/work/star-action-figures/gallery-2.jpg alt: Star Action Figures product browsing on laptop - src: /images/work/star-action-figures/gallery-3.jpg alt: Star Action Figures store in use on a MacBook testimonial: rating: "5.00" quote: | We worked with parallel on the move of our website over to Shopify Plus and couldn't be happier with the service we've received. From the outset, parallel took the time to understand our business, how we operate and, importantly, what we actually needed from the new site rather than simply trying to force us into a standard Shopify setup. The move was a major project for us, with a lot of fairly complicated requirements around pre-orders, payments, shipping and the general way our business operates. parallel has been incredibly helpful throughout, both during the build and since the site went live. Any snags we've needed have been dealt with quickly, and he's always been available to talk through ideas and suggest better ways of doing things. We've been impressed enough that we've continued working with parallel after the launch to help us develop the site further. name: Wayne Collins role: Director --- Four thousand products, 114 franchises, and a Comic Con date six weeks out. We built the store collectors actually shop in. Collectibles retailer. Shopify Plus. Six-week build. ## The problem Star Action Figures had the catalogue and not the store. More than 4,000 products sat across 114 franchises. Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Transformers, NECA, Super7, and many more. There was no brand system and no navigation a collector could trust. Someone looking for Black Series figures could browse for a long time and still not know if they had seen the range. Someone who wanted a display case could not tell which case fitted which figure. RRP and the selling price did not sit in a consistent way on the page. Pre-order dates were missing. People ordered a figure expecting it in weeks, then found it shipped in months. The support queue filled with questions the product page should have answered. Comic Con was six weeks away. Miss that date and you miss the collector event of the year. They needed a store built from scratch, arranged the way collectors browse, and live on that date. ## What we did - A brand foundation from zero. Colour, type, hierarchy and accessibility, so the store looked considered rather than assembled. - Navigation by franchise, then series, then brand, then scale. Breadcrumbs on every product, so a collector can move sideways without starting again. - Pre-order clarity. A ship date on the product, a purple badge, and checkout that blocks a mix of dates that would arrive as two deliveries. - Display cases on the product page, with the compatible options one click away. - A New In area for arrivals and restocks, with its own browse pages. - A mobile layout. Menus that work with a thumb, filters that work on a small screen, and the pre-order badge still visible. - Pricing that shows the RRP and the price you pay, with the discount obvious. - Search and filters that can be combined. Franchise, then series, and both at once. ## The detail Three decisions carried the build. The first was the brand. Most stores have guidelines they have outgrown. Star Action Figures had none. We did not restyle an old identity. We wrote the system they could use on the store, in marketing, and in the day-to-day work. Colour, type and hierarchy came first. You cannot design a collector store until you have decided what it should feel like. The second was how collectors shop. They do not browse a category called action figures. They start with a franchise, then a series, then a brand. Star Wars before Black Series. Black Series before Hasbro. Marvel, DC and Transformers work the same way, and so do Legends, Multiverse, McFarlane and Super7. That path had to be short. Three clicks to the product, not ten. Breadcrumbs stay on the page so a collector can jump to a related line without losing the place they started from. The third was pre-order. A pre-order is a promise, not a button. If one figure ships in six weeks and another ships in two, the customer is angry when the parcels arrive apart. Checkout now stops that mix. The ship date is on the product. The badge shows it is not in stock yet. The surprise moves off the support queue and onto the page, where it can be read before anyone pays. The catalogue is too large for a generic menu. Smart collections hold franchise, series, brand and scale. Search returns the line a collector typed, and the filters can be stacked. Filter by franchise and you see Star Wars. Filter by series and you see Black Series. Use both and you see the overlap, not a second dead end. New In is its own place on the homepage, with browse pages behind it. A restock and a first arrival are not the same event for this audience. Collectors watch a line. They need to see what just landed without hunting the whole franchise again. Display cases sit on the figure, not in a separate aisle that nobody opens. The question on the page is which case fits this figure. The compatible options are one click away. That is also where a second item joins the basket. We have not published an attach rate. The lift in order value came from that match. Pricing had to be dull in the best way. RRP is there for reference. The selling price is the one you see. The discount is obvious. Collectors lose trust when a markdown is hidden, or when two prices disagree. The phone had to carry the same structure. A mega menu you can use with a thumb. Faceted filters that still filter. The badge visible without a precise tap. If the desktop store is clear and the phone store is a puzzle, people buy on the wrong device, or they do not buy. The theme is a custom design on Dawn. Pre-orders run through PreProduct, with validation so the basket stays honest. Payments and shipping were set up around how the business already worked, not around a default Shopify flow. Those were not small settings. The way orders are taken, paid for and sent is the business. A standard checkout would have looked finished and still been wrong. Wayne Collins, Director, wrote about that. His review is on this page. He describes a build that started by learning how the company operates, then stayed available after launch. The engagement did not stop when the Comic Con date passed. Snags were dealt with, and the next ideas were talked through rather than parked. Six weeks is a short time for a catalogue this size. The work had a fixed order because of that. Brand and navigation first, so the 4,000 products had somewhere to sit. Pre-order rules next, so the promise on the product matched the basket. Cases, New In, pricing and the phone layout in the same build, not as a later phase. There was no spare week to discover that mixed pre-orders were still reaching checkout. ## The results The store went live for Comic Con. Conversion beat the target they had set. Average order value rose with the display cases attached to figures. Mobile conversion improved with the redesign. Pre-order support tickets fell, because the ship date is visible before checkout. Returning collectors come back when they can find a franchise without starting the menu again. We have not published a percentage for order value or for the ticket drop. The direction is what the project recorded. ## The stack Platform: Shopify Plus. Theme: a custom design on Dawn. Pre-orders: PreProduct, with validation on the basket. Catalogue: smart collections by franchise, series, brand and scale. Navigation: mega menus, faceted filters and breadcrumbs. ## Six weeks, and a date that did not move This was not a theme swap. It was a brand system where none existed, a catalogue of 4,000 products arranged the way collectors search, and a rule that stops the most common pre-order complaint. The date was Comic Con. The store was live for it. If you sell pre-orders, or a collector catalogue, start with [design and build](/services/shopify-builds). The note on [variants and separate listings](/insights/variants-or-individual-listings-how-to-organise-your-products-on-shopify) covers the catalogue question. Collectors are one of the [industries](/industries/collectibles) we publish.