Omnichannel Retail · Custom Framing

Framebridge Shopify case study

How SDG took Framebridge off a homegrown platform and onto Shopify Plus and Shopify POS, with a single cart that follows the customer from the web to the app to the floor of every studio.

Industry

Custom Framing & Home Décor

Platform

Shopify Plus · POS · Checkout

Footprint

30+ retail studios

Engagement

Replatform & omnichannel build

Now that we've proven out the direct-to-consumer business and successfully tested retail, our plan is to scale both sides of the business in a very omnichannel way. We call it 'Framebridge 3.0,' and we think of Shopify as a critical foundation for us to achieve that scale.

— Brian Bergman, Senior Director of Product, Framebridge

Overview

Framebridge set out to make custom framing simple, fast, and affordable, replacing a slow and intimidating process with a modern brand people genuinely enjoy using. Since 2014 it has grown from an online-first disruptor into a national omnichannel retailer, with custom-framing studios across the country and a loyal following that frames everything from wedding photos to original art.

That growth outpaced the technology underneath it. Framebridge engaged SDG to re-platform the entire business onto Shopify Plus and Shopify POS, and to rebuild its signature framing experience natively on Shopify Plus, without losing an ounce of the craft that made the brand.

The challenge

Framebridge had run since day one on a homegrown, open-source platform. It was purpose-built for the original online business, but it could not keep pace with a retailer now operating across the web, a mobile app, and a fast-growing fleet of physical studios.

Online, mobile, and in-store ran as separate systems, with no shared customer record or cart.
The custom-framing workflow, the heart of the business, was tightly coupled to legacy infrastructure that was slow and costly to change.
Each new studio added operational complexity instead of leverage.
The migration had to land ahead of the peak holiday season, with zero interruption to live trade.

The solution

SDG re-platformed Framebridge onto Shopify Plus and deployed Shopify POS across every studio, unifying the entire business on a single commerce foundation. The objective went beyond migration: we set out to make omnichannel feel like one continuous brand experience, whether a customer starts online, in the app, or face-to-face with a studio associate.

A persistent cart that carries a customer's project across web, mobile app, and the studio floor, so an order started in one channel can be finished in another.
Buy online, pick up in store, plus in-store drop-off for pieces entering the framing process.
A custom framing tool built on the Shopify POS iPad, letting an associate design and render a frame with the customer present and save it directly to their account.
Shopify POS in every studio, with online and in-store inventory operating as a single source of truth.

Architecturally this was a hybrid build. Rather than rebuild Framebridge's signature Vue.js frame configurator, we extended it across the Shopify storefront through a proxy-path application, so the brand kept its made-to-order experience while gaining the platform underneath it. A custom Checkout Extensibility app handled the realities of custom framing, split shipments, partial payments, and bundles, and a business-defining homegrown workflow was rebuilt as a native Shopify experience with none of its craft lost in translation.

Results & impact

Framebridge replatformed on a roughly ten-month timeline, on budget and on schedule, and launched ahead of the holiday peak with zero interruption to live trade, on a noticeably faster storefront.

A 15.3% increase in add-to-cart rate.
An 8.1% increase in checkout-started rate.
A 7.5% increase in overall conversion rate.
30+ retail studios and 250+ retail staff unified on a single platform.

Shopify published the partnership as a featured case study and partner story. The figures above are from Shopify's own reporting on the build.

Explore SDG's Shopify CRO practice for the analytics, UX, performance, experimentation, and engineering discipline behind measurable conversion work.