Michael McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
Michael McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
A new brand only gets one first impression with a retailer like Chewy. Our job was to make DogNip look and feel like an established, premium brand from the moment it launched, so the trade took it seriously. The design and build did exactly that, and the Chewy placement followed almost immediately.
A new brand only gets one first impression with a retailer like Chewy. Our job was to make DogNip look and feel like an established, premium brand from the moment it launched, so the trade took it seriously. The design and build did exactly that, and the Chewy placement followed almost immediately.
The Challenge
A brand new CPG company does not get judged on traffic first. It gets judged on whether it looks like a real, trustworthy brand. DogNip had a differentiated product and an ambitious owner, but at launch it had to clear a higher bar than a typical D2C site: it had to convince a national retailer.
No brand presence to build on. DogNip was new. There was no existing storefront, no brand experience, and no proof points. Everything had to be designed and built from scratch. A B2B first goal. The owner's objective was wholesale and retail distribution, not a direct to consumer revenue race. That means the site's most important audience included buyers, partners, and the trade, who judge credibility in seconds. A premium, differentiated product that had to be sold as such. Novel proteins like goose, camel, and goat are a real point of difference, but only if the experience communicates quality, safety, and trust clearly and immediately. A high bar for retail readiness. To be taken seriously by a retailer like Chewy, the brand needed packaging worthy storytelling, a clean and confident experience, and the polish of an established company, on day one. The brief: design and build an elevated, experiential, conversion minded storefront that makes a brand new CPG company look category ready and helps open major retail doors.
The Challenge
A brand new CPG company does not get judged on traffic first. It gets judged on whether it looks like a real, trustworthy brand. DogNip had a differentiated product and an ambitious owner, but at launch it had to clear a higher bar than a typical D2C site: it had to convince a national retailer.
No brand presence to build on. DogNip was new. There was no existing storefront, no brand experience, and no proof points. Everything had to be designed and built from scratch. A B2B first goal. The owner's objective was wholesale and retail distribution, not a direct to consumer revenue race. That means the site's most important audience included buyers, partners, and the trade, who judge credibility in seconds. A premium, differentiated product that had to be sold as such. Novel proteins like goose, camel, and goat are a real point of difference, but only if the experience communicates quality, safety, and trust clearly and immediately. A high bar for retail readiness. To be taken seriously by a retailer like Chewy, the brand needed packaging worthy storytelling, a clean and confident experience, and the polish of an established company, on day one. The brief: design and build an elevated, experiential, conversion minded storefront that makes a brand new CPG company look category ready and helps open major retail doors.
The System
We treated DogNip as a go to market problem, not just a website project, and built the experience to earn trust fast.
A ground up brand storefront on BigCommerce. We designed and built the site from scratch on BigCommerce, using Shogun and a modern technology stack for flexible, experiential page building. The brand looked established from the first day it was live. Elevated, experiential design. Clean, premium product storytelling that sells the novel protein difference clearly: single ingredient, air dried, made in the USA, gentle on digestion, good for dental health. The experience communicates quality and trust in seconds, which is exactly what a retail buyer needs to feel. Conversion focused product experience. Even with a B2B first goal, the storefront was built to convert and to merchandise the lineup cleanly by protein, so every visitor, consumer or trade, immediately understands the range and the value. A retail ready brand foundation. The design, the storytelling, and the polish gave DogNip the credibility of an established brand, the thing that lets a brand new company get a meeting, and a placement, with a retailer like Chewy. A note on a related benefit: a strong, credible brand experience makes every future channel easier, including any paid media or lifecycle program the brand chooses to add later. We advise on those but do not run them in this engagement, so we mention this only as a downstream effect of the brand and experience work, not as a result we claim.
The System
We treated DogNip as a go to market problem, not just a website project, and built the experience to earn trust fast.
A ground up brand storefront on BigCommerce. We designed and built the site from scratch on BigCommerce, using Shogun and a modern technology stack for flexible, experiential page building. The brand looked established from the first day it was live. Elevated, experiential design. Clean, premium product storytelling that sells the novel protein difference clearly: single ingredient, air dried, made in the USA, gentle on digestion, good for dental health. The experience communicates quality and trust in seconds, which is exactly what a retail buyer needs to feel. Conversion focused product experience. Even with a B2B first goal, the storefront was built to convert and to merchandise the lineup cleanly by protein, so every visitor, consumer or trade, immediately understands the range and the value. A retail ready brand foundation. The design, the storytelling, and the polish gave DogNip the credibility of an established brand, the thing that lets a brand new company get a meeting, and a placement, with a retailer like Chewy. A note on a related benefit: a strong, credible brand experience makes every future channel easier, including any paid media or lifecycle program the brand chooses to add later. We advise on those but do not run them in this engagement, so we mention this only as a downstream effect of the brand and experience work, not as a result we claim.
Latest projects
Social Media Marketing
Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
Alicia Adams Alpaca runs organic social as top-of-funnel discovery, not bottom-funnel conversion. Nearly 90% of visitors it sends are first-timers, the brand's highest new-visitor rate of any channel, arriving curious after seeing a styled throw or editorial content, ready to look closer.
Social Media Marketing
Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
Alicia Adams Alpaca runs organic social as top-of-funnel discovery, not bottom-funnel conversion. Nearly 90% of visitors it sends are first-timers, the brand's highest new-visitor rate of any channel, arriving curious after seeing a styled throw or editorial content, ready to look closer.
Moonglow Jewelry: SEO & AEO, One Data Layer, Three Surfaces
We cleaned up a sprawling Shopify Plus catalog and enriched the product data behind it, structured for search engines and answer engines alike. The result: the blue link, the star-rating rich result, a seat in the AI Overview. Same data. Built to be found. Built to be cited.
Moonglow Jewelry: SEO & AEO, One Data Layer, Three Surfaces
We cleaned up a sprawling Shopify Plus catalog and enriched the product data behind it, structured for search engines and answer engines alike. The result: the blue link, the star-rating rich result, a seat in the AI Overview. Same data. Built to be found. Built to be cited.
Latest projects
Social Media Marketing
Alicia Adams Alpaca: Where nine in ten organic social visitors are meeting the brand for the very first time
Alicia Adams Alpaca runs organic social as top-of-funnel discovery, not bottom-funnel conversion. Nearly 90% of visitors it sends are first-timers, the brand's highest new-visitor rate of any channel, arriving curious after seeing a styled throw or editorial content, ready to look closer.
Moonglow Jewelry: SEO & AEO, One Data Layer, Three Surfaces
We cleaned up a sprawling Shopify Plus catalog and enriched the product data behind it, structured for search engines and answer engines alike. The result: the blue link, the star-rating rich result, a seat in the AI Overview. Same data. Built to be found. Built to be cited.
