Wild Tonic
Craft fermentation, wild ingredients — and a store that sells the story.
Wild Tonic
Case Study · 2025
About this product
A premium Shopify store for a craft fermented beverage brand — built to tell the brand story, drive direct-to-consumer sales, and support subscription ordering.
Timeline
3 weeks
Category
Web & App
Delivered
2025
Stack
Product Preview
Overview
The situation
Wild Tonic produces a unique line of craft fermented beverages — organic, health-conscious, and genuinely distinctive in a crowded market. But their digital presence was holding back their direct-to-consumer ambitions. A fragmented online experience, weak brand storytelling, and a checkout flow that created friction at every step meant that the quality of the product wasn't translating into online revenue. They needed a Shopify store that put the brand's craftsmanship front and centre and made buying — and rebuying — as effortless as possible.
Challenge
What we had to solve
Premium beverage brands have a specific conversion challenge: the product is highly sensory, and online shoppers can't taste it. Everything has to work harder — the imagery, the copy, the ingredient storytelling, the social proof — to build enough confidence and desire to complete a purchase. Beyond first-time conversion, the bigger opportunity for a consumable product like this is repeat purchasing. The store needed a robust subscription and repeat-order system built in from the ground up, not bolted on as an afterthought.
Homepage & Brand Story
Product Pages & Ingredients
Subscription & Repeat Order
Mobile Checkout Flow
Case Study
How we built it
Brand Discovery & Consumer Research
We mapped the Wild Tonic consumer — health-conscious, ingredient-literate, and willing to pay a premium for provenance and craft. The key insight was that this audience didn't just want to buy a drink; they wanted to buy into a story of fermentation, organic sourcing, and a better way to drink. Every page of the store was designed to deliver that story progressively, from the first homepage scroll through to the post-purchase confirmation email.
UI/UX Design & Figma Prototyping
Using Figma and Adobe XD, we designed a rich, earthy visual system — deep botanical tones, textured backgrounds, and full-bleed product photography that communicated the wildness and craft of the brand. The homepage was structured as a brand journey: heritage first, product second, ingredients third, community fourth. Product pages were built around transparency — fermentation process, organic certifications, tasting notes, and ingredient sourcing were all surfaced prominently. High-fidelity prototypes were reviewed and signed off before development began.
Shopify Development & Subscription Integration
The store was built on Shopify using customised Liquid templates translated precisely from the Figma designs. A third-party subscription plugin was integrated to support flexible repeat-order models — weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly delivery options — with subscriber discounts surfaced prominently at the point of decision to maximise uptake. Performance optimisation was applied throughout: compressed assets, lazy loading, and streamlined Liquid rendering to ensure fast page load times across all devices. Analytics and conversion tracking were configured from day one.
SEO, Performance & Launch
On-page SEO was structured across all product, collection, and brand story pages — targeting craft beverage, kombucha, fermented drink, and organic beverage search intent. Lighthouse performance scores were audited and optimised before go-live. The store launched on schedule — fully tested across desktop and mobile, with subscription flows, discount logic, and analytics all verified end-to-end.
Outcomes
Direct-to-consumer, finally done right.
20%+
Increase in direct-to-consumer orders
meeting the stated 6-month conversion goal
52%
Lower cart abandonment rate
streamlined checkout removed friction at every step
63%↑
Subscription sign-up rate
flexible delivery options drove repeat purchase uptake
100%
Mobile-optimised experience
designed and tested mobile-first throughout
35$
Average order value
subscription discounts increased basket commitment
3wks
Full delivery timeline
from discovery to live Shopify store
We make a product people love once they try it — the problem was always getting them to that first purchase online. The new store tells our story properly, and the subscription model has completely changed how we think about customer lifetime value.
Wild Tonic
Client, Craft Beverage Brand
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