Founded by Alisa and Lysandra Fraser – Australia's favorite design duo and previous winners of national renovation competition reality TV series The Block – al.ive body is a premium personal care brand offering aesthetically designed products for home, body and personal care. Inspired by the fusion of design, eco-consciousness and product quality, the company aims to bring its innovative products to an international audience.
Challenge
al.ive body was launched amid the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its founders identifying a gap in the market for personal care products that satisfy both aesthetic appeal and product purity demands. The business struck a chord with customers who were increasingly shopping online and looking for a new brand they could identify with.
As al.ive body started to scale, relying on third-party applications was becoming unwieldy, and managing two stores – one for direct-to-consumer (DTC) and wholesale – added to the complexity and cost. al.ive body needed a solution to streamline operations, improve customer conversion and support the next phase of its growth, with expansion into the United Kingdom and Asia top of mind for the founders.
Solution
al.ive body was already finding success with Shopify, so the upgrade to Shopify Plus was an obvious path. In addition to the immediate cost savings from consolidating applications and stores into one easy-to-use dashboard, al.ive body gained access to additional strategy, advice and support from a merchant success team.
Drawing upon Shopify Plus’s expansion store capabilities, al.ive body created a dedicated B2B online store for its wholesale customers. This meant the company could provide customer-specific catalogs, payment terms and purchase orders for individual business customers, all achieved through a single unified backend. The possibility of country-specific expansion stores also provided the company with a pathway to international expansion.
Moreover, with Shopify Functions, which enables merchants to customize the backend logic of the Shopify platform, al.ive body was able to improve the customer experience in a variety of ways, including a more streamlined checkout process.
Results
The results were instant. For starters, having everything consolidated into one backend dashboard saved the team significant time in operations and product management – particularly when separating the DTC and wholesale aspects of the business.
From a growth perspective, al.ive body achieved its best sales period to date since upgrading to Shopify Plus, bringing in over AU$1 million in just four days during Black Friday sales. Further capitalizing on the increased volume of customers during sales seasons, al.ive body increased customer conversion by 47% since adding customizations to streamline the checkout experience.
Encouraged by the exceptional results they have observed with Shopify Plus, Alisa and Lysandraare are now more confident than ever before that they have the right mix of winning products, great tech and stellar customer service to make their international expansion plans a reality.
There’s absolutely no reason why we can’t be an international brand now that we have Shopify Plus. Its powerful customization features have empowered us to prove our business model and it gives us the confidence to take the next leap in our business journey.
