Role: Project Manager
Client: (Client name changed for privacy.)
Headquarters: Houston, USA
Industry: E-Commerce / Hair Care
Team Size: 2-10
Tools: Shopify, Klaviyo, ClickUp, Hotjar, Google Analytics, Canva
Year: 2024
Areas Impacted: E-Commerce, Marketing, Customer Retention, Operations
The founder created a trusted brand with products that served her community. Her physical store had loyal customers who were mainly Black women who cared about their natural hair and wanted reliable products. She understood her customers well and built something they returned to again and again.
But her online operation didn’t match the success of her store. That was clear when she reached out in August 2023. She was open about what wasn’t going well and ready to address the gaps.
The online store was the biggest issue. When you opened the website, a large empty header pushed all the important content out of view. There was no immediate sense of the products, nothing to catch your eye, and no reason to stay. Scrolling down, the navigation was confusing and made it difficult to find what you needed. On a mobile device, which was how most customers shopped, the experience was even worse.
Most customers browsed on their phones, often coming from Instagram or a friend’s recommendation. But when they landed on the site and had a poor experience, they quietly left. This happened a lot.
Email was managed through Mailchimp, but there was some frustration. Certain indispensable features for e-commerce, such as cart abandonment triggers, deep Shopify integration, and segmentation for new versus repeat customers, were either missing or only available at higher price tiers that didn’t make sense for the business yet.
The first step was to audit the Shopify store. We reviewed all pages, every flow, and every spot where a visitor might get confused or leave before buying.
Three clear problems stood out.
The first impression fell short. Visitors saw unnecessary space before anything interesting. For a product brand, those first seconds are essential; people quickly decide if a site is worth their time, and this one wasn’t convincing them.
The mobile experience was broken and needed more than quick fixes. The site was built for desktop and only loosely adjusted for smaller screens, which was obvious. It deserved a complete rebuild, with mobile as the main focus.
Finding products was harder than it should have been. The navigation wasn’t easily understood, and the product pages lacked lifestyle photos showing the products on natural hair. There was no visual context to help customers feel confident about buying.
The redesign addressed all three issues. Oversized headers were removed and replaced with a design that put products front and center from the start. Lifestyle images showed results on natural hair, categories were clear, and the visual layout guided people to what they wanted. The new setup moved visitors smoothly from the landing page to the product page to checkout, with no extra friction at any step.
We used Hotjar to capture heat maps and user session recordings, showing how people moved through the site, where they stopped, and where they gave up. For the first time, we could see what the online customer experience really looked like and where it was working or losing visitors.
While the redesign was happening, we also planned the Mailchimp migration.
Moving customer contacts from one platform to another sounds simple, but mistakes can have some consequences. Customer data is the foundation of all marketing. We handled the migration carefully, auditing the data before the move and checking afterward to make sure every contact made it to Klaviyo intact and properly tagged.
Next, we built a customer lifecycle that matched how people interacted with the business over time.
The welcome series was set up first. When someone subscribed, be it through the website, a campaign, or later through the ebook launch, they received a series of emails introducing the brand, which didn’t consist of only a single automated message. The series introduced the products, told the brand story, and gave new subscribers a reason to return and shop.
Next came the cart abandonment sequences. When a customer added something to their cart but left without buying, we didn’t consider it a lost sale but an unfinished conversation. The sequence automatically identified these customers through the Shopify-Klaviyo integration and followed up at the right time.
Thereafter, we set up post-purchase flows. Every purchase triggered an automated sequence that confirmed the order, set delivery expectations, and encouraged the next purchase. A customer who just bought is the easiest to sell to again, but only if the relationship continues after the sale. The flow handled this automatically and asked for product reviews after a certain period of time, which we determined the customer would have received the product and used it.
Re-engagement campaigns completed the setup. Customers who hadn’t purchased in a set time were automatically identified and added to targeted campaigns to bring them back.
The technical foundation for all of this was the Shopify-Klaviyo integration. Customer behavior on the website, what they viewed, added to cart, bought, and how often they returned, fed directly into Klaviyo and powered every automation. The system tracked each customer’s actions and responded accordingly.
Everything came together the first time the full system ran. A customer visited the new store, browsed a product, added it to her cart, and left without buying. Hours later, she received a personalized cart abandonment email. She returned and completed her purchase. The post-purchase sequence started automatically. No one had to do anything since the system handled it all.
Once the foundation was solid, the project moved into new areas.
The founder wanted to launch an ebook, a financial management guide for hair professionals, focused on tracking income and managing money responsibly. This was a meaningful extension of the brand beyond hair care and needed a different setup than a physical product launch. We built a dedicated landing page designed to convert visitors into buyers or email subscribers. The ebook worked as a standalone product with a lead magnet, so people not ready to buy could still claim the free resource.
We set up a new email sequence for the launch announcement, follow-ups for people who didn’t open, and a post-download sequence for those who claimed the free lead magnet. Everything was coordinated through ClickUp, so the landing page, content creation, and email campaigns went live together without missing a single detail.
This was the brand’s first fully digital product. It indicated that the systems built for physical product sales were flexible enough to support a different kind of offer without having to start over each time.
ClickUp kept everything organized in the background throughout the two-year project, making sure all the work stayed coordinated as things evolved.
By March 2025, the business’s online operation was completely transformed from where it was in August 2023.
The website became a fully functional, mobile-friendly storefront that showcased products confidently and converted visitors. The customer database was on a platform built for the business’s needs. Automated email workflows ran continuously, welcoming, recovering, following up, and re-engaging customers without anyone having to trigger them. A new digital product was live, generating both revenue and new leads.
