teapigs & Shopify Plus: Still A Dream Team One Year After Launch?

When we launched teapigs, one of our favourite clients, onto Shopify Plus back in autumn 2019, the client feedback was outstanding and the results impressive.

Now, over a year after launch, we caught up with Reece Downey, eCommerce Manager at teapigs, for an update!

teapigs on Shopify Plus: great tea made accessible!

teapigs: about the brand

Known as purveyors of top teas, teapigs are on a mission to make great tea accessible and a bit more fun! They offer hand-picked, quality tea that is sustainably sourced and packaged in environmentally friendly materials.

teapigs & Shopify Plus: the project background

With blubolt’s expertise, teapigs migrated to Shopify Plus in late 2019. The project brief was for a Shopify Plus site that communicated their friendly and approachable attitude to the world of tea without overwhelming their customers. Specifically, they wanted to:

• encourage automated repeat purchasing via a customisable subscription service,
• allow customers to create their own personalised tea selection box,
• give customers a more intuitive and fun way to browse their extensive range, and
• have more in-house control over their website and ensure it was capable of growing with them.

Read more on the project here. If you’re keen to learn more about blubolt projects, check out our other client case studies here.

The teapigs & Shopify Plus experience: straight from the horse’s mouth!

Following their first anniversary on the Shopify Plus platform, we spoke with Reece Downey (eCommerce Manager at teapigs) to get an update on how the website was performing. We also quizzed him for insights on the migration process, post-launch experience and things he’d do differently in a rerun. Here’s what he said…

1. What has surprised you about your new website?

The wealth of Shopify compatible apps we now have access to. There’s no more waiting for weeks (or months) of development time.

Often we find that with a bit of minor design work, we can have a new feature or functionality up and running within days, or even hours! That’s been a real bonus over the last year; the retail landscape has changed so much but, thankfully with the new site, we’ve been able to change with it.

2. Implementing an effective subscriptions solution was a key requirement for your Shopify Plus site. How’s that working out?

Our subscriptions service, called ‘Sub & Save’, saw the biggest front-end overhaul. However, it’s behind the scenes where the biggest changes occurred. Switching to Shopify Plus has removed a heap of administrative processes from our day-to-day workload. As a result, we’ve been able to focus on constant, incremental improvements to the site.

And, it’s paid off! We’ve seen a 233% increase in the number of subscribers. This is a direct result of the improvements we made to the presentation of ‘Sub & Save’ when moving to Shopify Plus.

Note from the blubolt team. With demand for product subscriptions taking off during pandemic, teapigs’ hard work was very timely. This good work has also been recognised in The Independent newspapers list of the 11 best tea subscription boxes.

Runaway success: teapigs ‘sub & save’

3. What can you do now that you couldn’t before?

Scaling at pace in every imaginable way. We’re far more self-reliant now, which is very handy and cost-effective with a small team!

I can also say with absolute confidence that what we’ve achieved throughout the pandemic, with the extras internal control we’ve had over the website, would’ve been impossible if we hadn’t have migrated over to Shopify Plus when we did.

4. What was the biggest challenge in migrating?

The biggest challenge was definitely data migration; not surprising for any website project really! It’s definitely worth prioritising time and resources for this.

5. With hindsight, is there anything you’d do differently? Any regrets?

In hindsight, I’d spend more time researching the apps we settled on using. Most apps have been great but some could be better suited to our specific needs so it’s worth investing extra time looking at this during the project.

In terms of regrets, it’s probably not making the move to Shopify Plus sooner! Honestly, don’t waste your time looking at anything else. It’s a game-changer.

teapigs & Shopify Plus: keeping the dream alive.

One year after launch, it’s clear that the teapigs and Shopify Plus partnership is a winner! Success has come not only from choosing the right platform and eCommerce agency for the project, but also the post-launch approach. Teapigs have demonstrated a willingness to use the Shopify Plus platform to adapt and evolve, supported by their eCommerce agency of course!

Have your own project?

If you’ve got a Shopify Plus project and need assistance, do get in touch with blubolt here. To see how we can help you grow your Shopify Plus store, read more on our bluprint for success programme here. We would love to help!