Michael McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
Michael McBride
Founder & CEO, Atelier Commerce
Sticky Be already had the hardest thing to manufacture, a brand people feel something about. Our job was the storefront: make it clearer, faster, and more persuasive, so more of the people already arriving actually buy. Year over year, more of them did
Sticky Be already had the hardest thing to manufacture, a brand people feel something about. Our job was the storefront: make it clearer, faster, and more persuasive, so more of the people already arriving actually buy. Year over year, more of them did
The Challenge
Sticky Be Socks is the kind of brand customers root for. The product carries an affirmation, the community is loyal, and the catalog reads like a pep talk: Be Strong, Be Happy, Be Mindful, Be Fearless. The challenge was never the demand. It was a storefront that did not convert that demand as well as it should.
A site converting below its potential. Plenty of people were discovering Sticky Be. Too few were reaching the cart, and the checkout was leaking what would be buyers. Product pages that undersold a tactile product. Grip socks are a feel and function purchase. The pages needed to communicate fit, grip, and the affirmation story quickly, on mobile first. A path to purchase with friction. Add to cart, cart, and checkout all had room to be faster and more reassuring. Technical hygiene to protect organic. A rebuild is a chance to keep the site fast, crawlable, and well structured, so organic visibility holds up rather than slipping. The brief: rebuild the Shopify storefront and then optimize it continuously, so a higher share of the same visitors add to cart and buy.
The Challenge
Sticky Be Socks is the kind of brand customers root for. The product carries an affirmation, the community is loyal, and the catalog reads like a pep talk: Be Strong, Be Happy, Be Mindful, Be Fearless. The challenge was never the demand. It was a storefront that did not convert that demand as well as it should.
A site converting below its potential. Plenty of people were discovering Sticky Be. Too few were reaching the cart, and the checkout was leaking what would be buyers. Product pages that undersold a tactile product. Grip socks are a feel and function purchase. The pages needed to communicate fit, grip, and the affirmation story quickly, on mobile first. A path to purchase with friction. Add to cart, cart, and checkout all had room to be faster and more reassuring. Technical hygiene to protect organic. A rebuild is a chance to keep the site fast, crawlable, and well structured, so organic visibility holds up rather than slipping. The brief: rebuild the Shopify storefront and then optimize it continuously, so a higher share of the same visitors add to cart and buy.
The System
We treated the storefront as a conversion system and improved it deliberately, then measured the result in the purchase funnel.
A rebuilt Shopify storefront. A cleaner, faster, mobile first design with clearer product storytelling, sharper merchandising, and a more confident path from product page to cart. Product page and merchandising work. We sharpened how fit, grip, and the affirmation collections are presented, so the value is obvious in the first scroll. The add to cart rate rose by roughly half across the windows we compared. Checkout and cart optimization. We reduced friction in the add to cart, cart, and checkout steps. The clearest proof is the purchase conversion rate climbing every spring after launch. Continuous CRO, not a one time project. We kept testing and refining month over month, which is why the conversion gains compounded across successive years rather than fading after the initial bump. Technical SEO and AEO as a protective base. We kept the rebuilt site fast and well structured. Average organic search position improved meaningfully across the period. The rebuild lifted conversion without sacrificing organic visibility, it improved it. A note on a related benefit: a better landing page experience also makes paid search more efficient, because ad quality and landing page experience are linked. We mention that only as a downstream effect of the site work. Paid media is its own separate story.
The System
We treated the storefront as a conversion system and improved it deliberately, then measured the result in the purchase funnel.
A rebuilt Shopify storefront. A cleaner, faster, mobile first design with clearer product storytelling, sharper merchandising, and a more confident path from product page to cart. Product page and merchandising work. We sharpened how fit, grip, and the affirmation collections are presented, so the value is obvious in the first scroll. The add to cart rate rose by roughly half across the windows we compared. Checkout and cart optimization. We reduced friction in the add to cart, cart, and checkout steps. The clearest proof is the purchase conversion rate climbing every spring after launch. Continuous CRO, not a one time project. We kept testing and refining month over month, which is why the conversion gains compounded across successive years rather than fading after the initial bump. Technical SEO and AEO as a protective base. We kept the rebuilt site fast and well structured. Average organic search position improved meaningfully across the period. The rebuild lifted conversion without sacrificing organic visibility, it improved it. A note on a related benefit: a better landing page experience also makes paid search more efficient, because ad quality and landing page experience are linked. We mention that only as a downstream effect of the site work. Paid media is its own separate story.
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.
