BrainGain operates in a category where the bar keeps rising: fitness equipment is competitive, carts are high-value, and customers expect clarity across product, fulfilment, checkout, and support. The brand started as a COVID side hustle, with adjustable dumbbells stored in parents’ garages and delivered by hand around London, before becoming a multi-market merchant serving 100,000+ customers across 30+ countries.
As BrainGain scaled, the question was no longer whether demand existed. It was whether the commerce stack could keep up with higher volume, heavier carts, cross-border complexity, and the need for a checkout experience built around trust and buyer confidence.
Shopify Plus became the next step when European expansion and operational complexity made “later” feel too risky. After upgrading to Plus, BrainGain continued to grow while adding the infrastructure to support multiple storefronts, cross-border operations, and a more scalable buying journey.
After upgrading, BrainGain saw:
- Online Store GMV up 45% in the 12 months after Plus vs the prior 12 months
- Online Store orders up 35% over the same period
- Online Store AOV up 7.7% over the same period
- €11,575+ in additional revenue from AfterSell upsells
The challenge
BrainGain’s growth created the kind of pressure that ambitious physical-product brands know well: more demand, more markets, more fulfilment expectations, and more moments where buyers need reassurance before completing a high-value purchase.
A crowded category made differentiation harder
Home gym and strength equipment is a noisy category. Merchants are not only competing on product; they are competing on trust, delivery clarity, brand credibility, and the quality of the full buying journey. For BrainGain, growth meant making sure product, fulfilment, and commerce infrastructure worked together as volume and complexity increased.
The scale crept up fast. “We started during COVID as a bit of a COVID side hustle… started with 25, then sold 75, then 150, and then a container, and then two containers. We knew we had to move to Shopify instead of fulfilling orders ourselves,” said Kareem Raslan, co-founder, BrainGain.
Cross-border demand made the operating model more complex
European expansion was central to the story. BrainGain needed to serve customers across markets without treating cross-border commerce as an afterthought. That meant thinking through storefront structure, localisation, pricing, shipping expectations, and checkout experience for buyers outside the UK.
That demand showed up before any marketing spend. “We were periodically getting orders from the Netherlands and Germany and France without us doing any sort of marketing activities,” said Kareem.
Checkout needed to support buyer confidence
In fitness equipment, carts can be heavy and purchase decisions are considered. As paid traffic, cross-border demand, and order volume increased, checkout became a critical part of the customer experience. BrainGain needed a checkout that could support conversion, trust, and clarity, especially for customers buying across markets.
The solution
Shopify Plus gave BrainGain the infrastructure to keep scaling without treating every new market or operational challenge as a one-off workaround. The decision also started with a practical financial question: whether the economics of upgrading made sense before BrainGain layered in checkout, AOV, and cross-sell upside.
My advice? Run the numbers. When we first saw the higher monthly fee, we were like ‘Oh wow, that is quite a big investment.’ But then when we ran the numbers, the payment processing fee savings meant that upgrading to Shopify Plus was a no-brainer. Even if we use none of the other features, we’re actually in a better position by moving than by not moving. Layering on the AOV uplift and conversion uplift, having that flexibility has helped us scale revenue, upsells, cross-sells, and ultimately profit.
Cross-border growth, market by market
European expansion was not just a question of turning on international shipping. BrainGain had already seen the friction that comes with selling heavy fitness equipment across borders: customs delays, unexpected duties, expensive returns, different buyer expectations, and different local payment preferences.
Plus offered a cleaner way to structure growth by geography. Instead of forcing every market through one storefront experience, the team used Plus expansion stores to separate the UK and European businesses while keeping the brand connected.
“We’ve got UK, we’ve got Europe, separate inventory, separate currency, separate payment methods, separate prices,” said Kareem.
That structure helped BrainGain localise around how customers actually buy. In Europe, the team could adapt pricing, payment methods, inventory, fulfilment messaging, and checkout trust signals to the market, including clear reassurance that orders were fulfilled from within the EU.
Local payment methods also became part of the growth strategy. Kareem noted how Plus helped BrainGain support more localised payment experiences without adding third-party payment processing fees.
For BrainGain, cross-border growth meant going deeper in each priority market, not simply selling everywhere.
Pick your market and go super, super, super deep on each of those markets. (...) One of the benefits of Plus is no third party payment processing fees.
Checkout control for high-consideration purchases
For a brand selling physical fitness equipment, checkout is not just the final payment step. It is where customers look for reassurance around delivery, trust, and whether the order experience matches the value of the purchase.
For us, especially as we launched into international markets, people don’t know us… social proof and giving people a reason to spend 200, 300, 400, 500, 600 euros for a brand they’ve ultimately not heard of was super, super powerful.
With Shopify, BrainGain could build a checkout experience that better fit how the business sells as carts became heavier and journeys became more complex.
“One of our little banners at checkout says very, very clearly: fulfilled from within the EU, next-day free delivery, over 100,000 customers,” said Kareem.
A commerce stack that could keep pace with volume
BrainGain’s growth required more than a product catalogue. It needed infrastructure that could support higher order volume, market expansion, and operational complexity without slowing the team down. Plus gave the business more headroom as demand continued to increase.
The migration itself was the easy part. The real work came after. “The actual migration was absolutely seamless. But it’s the bit afterwards… how do I really juice up my Shopify store, and how do I really start seeing things improve?” said Kareem.
The results
Plus did not create BrainGain’s growth story. It gave a fast-moving brand more control, flexibility, and infrastructure as the business scaled across markets.
In the first year on Plus, compared with the year prior, across BrainGain storefronts:
- Online Store GMV increased 45%
- Online Store orders increased 35%
- Online Store AOV increased 7.7%
AfterSell checkout impact
BrainGain also uses AfterSell across its EU and UK storefronts to support checkout and post-purchase upsells:
- €11,575+ in additional revenue from AfterSell upsells since launch, with a current run rate of approximately €27k per year.
- +29.0% AOV on orders touched by an AfterSell upsell (+€156 per order).
- Both surfaces growing double digits month-over-month (checkout +54%, post-purchase +34%).