The Client: Cheerful Buddha
Cheerful Buddha is a superfoods and CBD retailer. Founded in 2019, they offer a carefully curated selection of food and beverages, all developed to have mind- and body-boosting properties. Their products, made from the very best of all-natural ingredients, range from naturally-flavoured CBD drops, to a lion’s mane mushroom coffee with the power to boost your focus and mental well-being.
The Challenge: Shop 2.0 Upgrade with an International Launch
Cheerful Buddha was an existing client of Inspira – and they have been happy using Shopify for some years now. However, their business had grown. Their old site was looking dated, and it was hard to manage owing to poorly implemented theme settings (the work of an external dev team). Besides, this site just didn't cater very well to the increasing international demand for Cheerful Buddha’s products.
A key requirement though was that the platform had to launch internationally.
Cheerful Buddha didn’t want to limit their audience to only one region, so it was important that we created a new international store that could have them seamlessly set up to do business right across the UK, Europe and the US.
The Solution: Shop 2.0, Shopify Markets, Plus Some Bonus Features
As always, we began the project by workshopping needs and solutions with the client. Between us we established that Cheerful Buddha:
- Was a small and agile team, looking to be more self-sufficient,
- Had limited budgets to work with and needed a cost-effective way to experiment and test for demand in international markets.
With those points in mind, we were able to craft the perfect upgrade strategy for Cheerful Buddha – taking full advantage of the powerful features in Shop 2.0, while implementing Shopify Markets as our vehicle for international sales. On top of that, we were able to treat them to a number of bonus, upgraded features too. Let’s look at each of those points in turn.
Shop 2.0
The powerful suite of tools and functions included in Shop 2.0 makes it an attractive option for any companies looking to seriously grow their business on the Shopify platform. In the case of Cheerful Buddha, upgrading to Shop 2.0 would allow us to build in the following features:
Seamless integration with Shopify Apps
Shop 2.0 allows apps to be added to your store from the theme editor, without the need for any custom code. Apps also uninstall cleanly, without leaving behind stray code that can slow down your site.
Improved customisation options in the theme editor
Shopify Themes have had ‘sections’ for a long time, which allow merchants to quickly add new content areas, change their display order, or to easily turn content blocks on or off. Traditionally this was limited to the Home page, but with Shopify 2.0, these powerful customisation tools become available across all pages.
Rich product data
Using Shop 2.0, merchants can add custom data fields (meta fields) into their product descriptions, or other content blocks. What does this mean? Well for example, on a product page you might want to add additional details showing “Ingredients,” “Warnings,” or “Instructions for Use.” With a legacy theme, you would have needed the help of a developer to implement these extra content types – but with Shop 2.0 it becomes incredibly straightforward to add and customise rich data directly in the theme editor.
Internationalisation
We recently shared our thoughts on two different approaches to going international on Shopify – by using either the built-in multi-currency options of Shopify Markets, or for larger businesses or those with dedicated regional offices, the strategy of creating semi-autonomous expansion stores. In the case of Cheerful Buddha we found that their needs were best answered by the Shopify Markets solution.
This will keep their business streamlined and efficient, while opening them up to a larger audience than ever before.
Bonus Features
As we developed our plan for Cheerful Buddha’s upgrade, we found there were a number of additional benefits we were able to deliver too. These included:
- Adding a recipe blog on the site.
- A “Refer a Friend” programme, with rewards that would help drive growth.
- The option for customers to sign up to “Back in Stock” alerts.
- Integration with TrustPilot, adding social proof to help boost conversion rates.
The Result: Seamless Integration and Easy Customisation, in a Powerful International Platform
By the end of the project, Cheerful Buddha was up and running with a fantastic modern store. It’s the perfect platform for their product range, launched and ready to open them up to international customers. We said that the benefits of using a Shop 2.0 theme would include:
- Seamless integration with Shopify Apps to expand the functionality of the store.
- Improved customisation options without relaying on customer development.
- Easy ability to manage rich product data & content.
We are happy to report that all these benefits were delivered, and more. Shopify Markets proved the perfect way to take Cheerful Buddha international, opening up their business and massively multiplying their potential audience.
Get in touch to talk about your future Shopify project.
Thanks for reading, we’re Inspira Digital.
We launched the 123rd store on Shopify, today we are one of the most experienced Shopify Experts in the world, delivering industry-leading Shopify services for fast-growing ambitious brands. We have helped build 100s of successful stores and have delivered 1000s of individual projects for Shopify and Shopify Plus clients globally.
Clients that work with us know we work passionately, to make sense of your commerce business, so if you want to talk to a team of experts about how best to take advantage of the Shopify platform, then let's talk.
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