Founded in 2010 by Australian podiatrists Caroline and Alan McCulloch, FRANKIE4 was created to support the wellbeing of women worldwide by changing the way they experience shoes. FRANKIE4’s range of podiatrist-founded footwear delivers style and comfort and is underpinned by the brand’s Sole Hero® Footbed insole technology, designed to support alignment and deflect pressure from areas prone to pain, adding bounce and subtracting stress.
With ecommerce a key consumer sales channel for FRANKIE4 from day one, the certified B Corp company’s previous ecommerce solution required extensive developer resources to customize, upgrade, and even update with new product information, making it hard for the brand to create the kind of customer experience they wanted for their customers.
Meanwhile, an expanding footprint of physical retail outlets saw FRANKIE4 face challenges keeping track of inventory across in-store and online channels. Using Shopify and Shopify POS, FRANKIE4 gained unified visibility and a platform that was easy to customize, meaning the company could give their customers an experience that lived up to their brand promise.
With Shopify, FRANKIE4 has seen:
- 170% increase in site visits since switching to Shopify
- 25% reduction in return rate, over 5 years
- Double their retail store footprint, from 4 to 10
The challenge: Expensive customization put the brakes on innovation
FRANKIE4 initially sold products in podiatry clinics, but online sales played a central role in their business from the outset. However, the brand’s original online store required external developer resources to upgrade and customize, even to upload new products. The time and money needed to make changes hampered innovation.
Additionally, the website struggled to handle high volumes of online traffic, occasionally crashing during visitor peaks. This was a big problem for a retailer that typically runs two or more major, multiday sales each year. To make matters worse, site speed and performance was less than ideal on the previous platform, impacting customer experience.
From previous experience at a digital agency, when an upgrade was requested on a non-Shopify environment, it would require almost 150 hours of developer time at up to AU$200 per hour to accomplish. Whereas with Shopify, we just don’t have that kind of cost involved in upgrading a website. We now have full control and autonomy over our website.
Another hurdle presented by FRANKIE4’s previous ecommerce platform was a lack of real-time integration between the online store and back-end systems, such as the brand’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform, warehouse infrastructure, and in-store point of sale (POS) solution. This led to inventory issues, poor customer experiences, and slow, manual processes.
Moreover, as FRANKIE4 expanded their physical presence with dedicated retail stores, the POS solution they previously used proved difficult to learn and failed to enable accurate inventory tracking due to integration challenges with back-end systems. This made it hard for FRANKIE4 to create a truly unified commerce offering for their customers.
The solution: Integrated tools power a unified commerce strategy
FRANKIE4 migrated to Shopify in 2018 and switched to Shopify POS for their retail transaction solution in 2020. This combination gave the retailer a seamless integration between their back-end and in-store systems, a key component to creating a unified commerce experience for their customers.
With access to a resilient platform and a user-friendly interface, it was easier for FRANKIE4’s ecommerce team to make changes quickly to the online store, such as content and product uploads, with minimal external developer input. The flexibility of the Shopify platform has also empowered the retailer to easily run A/B tests, integrate with other systems, and quickly test new capabilities via the Shopify App Store.
Innovation is critical to us, and it is baked into the spirit of our business. With Shopify, it is easier to innovate quickly to create better customer experiences through powerful customizations. This has given us a lot of flexibility back. For instance, the ability to test concepts through apps and easily execute on A/B testing is really important.
With Shopify’s Checkout Extensibility, FRANKIE4 can now customize their checkout for the ideal look and feel while also including features such as upsell prompts, adding value to every transaction. Shopify Launchpad, meanwhile, gives the retailer the ability to easily mount multiday flash sales. The stability of the Shopify platform comfortably supports the increased traffic, leading to more sales, with FRANKIE4 able to drive more than a million sessions over a few days.
Shopify Flow is being used to power a number of automated functions, some of them mission-critical, such as the ability to hide stock from product searches when inventory levels of particular items may be low, avoiding out-of-stock disappointment for customers, flagging risky order notifications, and notifying stores when new stock is available.
Besides the customization tools built into Shopify, FRANKIE4 has used the Shopify App Store for easy access to applications aimed at driving personalization on their online store. For instance, FRANKIE4 has implemented True Fit, an AI size guidance tool, for customer size selections and recommendations.
FRANKIE4 is also using video shopping application Tolstoy to power video commerce on their site, Klaviyo to engage customers both online and in-store, and Yotpo for product reviews, with the company having received over 140,000 five-star product reviews from customers since implementation. Meanwhile, Shopify’s expansion stores have seen the company launch dedicated online stores in the United States and New Zealand, driving international expansion.
Today, we get by on a single in-house developer which gives us agility to quickly launch new features based on trade and customer behaviour and constantly iterate. For example, we recently implemented checkout upsells, and the turnaround time for us on that feature was three to four days, from start to finish—from design to implementation and build. So, we can now go fast, and be nimble. In this way, Shopify allows us to be very agile.
Shopify Payments has also provided FRANKIE4 with a payment solution that offers industry-leading merchant rates along with the ability to easily offer additional payment methods to customers. Plus, the Shop Pay checkout button has proven so popular among customers that 30% of FRANKIE4’s orders in the month of February 2025 were made via the accelerated checkout option.
In 2020, FRANKIE4 switched to Shopify POS for their in-store transaction system. Not only has Shopify POS provided the retailer with seamless integration between their retail, back-end, and online systems for clear inventory and sales oversight, it has also been easy for sales associates to pick up, making training quick and easy.
Thanks to the seamless integration Shopify POS provides, FRANKIE4 has been able to achieve a truly unified commerce approach to business, offering a ship-to-customer service that gives customers the ability to order an item in-store, even if it’s not in stock at the retail outlet. At the same time, online orders can be more easily fulfilled by the brand’s retail store network.
We’re dedicated to helping every customer find their perfect pair, and Shopify helps us deliver on that with seamless ship-to-customer capabilities. If a store doesn’t have the right size or style in stock, we’re not limited—we can still get the shoes to them effortlessly. It’s all about creating a stress-free, elevated shopping experience where our customers leave happy, knowing their perfect pair is on its way. That ability to provide a frictionless and elevated shopping journey is one of the most valuable advantages Shopify brings to our retail operations.
Such unified commerce capabilities can be seen in a major warehouse sale FRANKIE4 ran in 2023, when they spun up a dedicated website in just a few days using a Shopify expansion store and the Matrixify application to import product data in bulk. Customers could scan QR codes on items to see pricing on the website and pay at the warehouse using Shopify POS.
The results: Iterative improvement drives customer service and growth
Since switching to Shopify and adopting Shopify POS for in-store transactions, FRANKIE4 has transformed their ability to innovate iteratively, test new features online, and create the personalized customer experience they need to fuel their primary value proposition, footwear innovation, in-store and online. This has helped to reduce their return rate by 25%.
The ease with which FRANKIE4’s team members can make updates and changes to the online store in Shopify has given the retailer the ability to adapt to customer needs and preferences faster, boosting site visit volumes by 170% since implementing Shopify, while also improving employee experience, which in turn boosts the morale of staff internally.
Our team satisfaction is really important, and based on my own experience working on a different platform in a different environment, being able to have full control and full autonomy over the performance of our website is really empowering, not only for the leadership team, but also for our team members to understand the part that they play directly in our site performance. This is critical.
Thanks to the unified commerce approach made possible by Shopify POS and the Shopify platform, FRANKIE4 has been able to more effortlessly scale their business to meet demand, expanding their retail store footprint from 4 to 10, launching 2 international sites, and being able to launch dedicated warehouse sale POS environments within a week.
Looking ahead, FRANKIE4 is focused on continuously enhancing their digital experience with a strategic technology roadmap designed to elevate customer engagement and drive growth. Key initiatives include refining the online shopping journey to improve discoverability, streamline conversions, and create a more seamless path to purchase.
The brand is also investing in features that enhance personalization and self-service capabilities, reducing friction while unlocking new opportunities for engagement and revenue. As FRANKIE4 approaches their next milestone—150,000 five-star reviews and their 15th birthday—the brand continues to expand their US presence, supported by key wholesale partners Nordstrom and Dillard's.
