2024 Commerce Cloud Migration to Shopify

How the Right Shopify Theme Selection Transformed Functionality, Focus, and Flexibility

  • Job Title
  • Senior Web/UX Designer
  • Research
  • Prototyping
  • User journey mapping
  • Competitive analysis
  • A/B testing
  • Design & Production
  • Low fidelity wireframes
  • High fidelity prototypes
  • UI & UX Design
  • Dev documentation

The Scenario

It's 2024, your company has seen continued success year over year, and customer demand shows no signs of slowing -- but your in-house UI designer has just shown you a surprising review of the brand's website performance and things aren't adding up.

Mobile traffic is at an all-time high -- nearly 75% during peak seasons -- yet conversions are lagging. Plus, in a highly sales driven shopping economy, your internal teams are frustrated with the countless complexities and the time required to create marketing/promo campaigns on the site.

It's become clear that a re-think of the platform is needed -- this includes both the user experience and level of effort involved in managing Commerce Cloud. To navigate this, you assemble a team to evaluate more mainstream alternatives with the goal of moving to a completely normalized shopping experience. One that also simplified internal operations.

The Brand

Pajamagram
A seasonal lifestyle and gifting brand known for its matching pajama sets. It is expanding into loungewear and lifestyle products.

Todd's Role

Todd selected the Shopify theme based on years of user insight and platform analysis. He then partnered with external developers to lead a smooth migration and full-site redesign, ensuring a consistent, user-focused experience across all touchpoints.

The Team

Todd worked collaboratively with internal marketing and merchandising teams, content and design teams, as well as Shopify developers.

Simplify the experience. Unify the system. Prioritize the user.

Initial Research:

Years of user testing and analytics had provided a clear view of what customers wanted — and what wasn't working. Todd conducted research across four key focus areas:

  • Accessibility: The new platform needed to support modern compliance and usability standards out of the box.
  • Mobile experience: With mobile traffic reaching ~75% during peak, a mobile-first design was non-negotiable.
  • Competitive analysis: Benchmarked against industry leaders, the previous site fell short on speed, clarity, and ease of navigation.
  • Marketing support: The new framework needed to allow easy implementation of promotions, seasonal campaigns, and testing — without slowing teams down.

Traffic Data Highlights:

  • ~75% of traffic during peak seasons came from mobile
  • ~80% of traffic during off-peak came from desktop
  • Bounce and abandonment rates were increasing due to poor UX and overcomplicated flows

Proposing The Project:

With an ultimate goal to focus a shopping experience around products, performance and users -- Todd and his team presents a strategy that shifted away from a heavily customized, maintenance-heavy site to a more agile and standardized framework. Key points included:

  • Normalize the shopping experience by removing bloated legacy features
  • Unify templates and layouts to create a cohesive visual identity
  • Retain successful UX elements from the previous version, including:
    • Brand Content (EBC)
    • Optimized PDP design
    • Streamlined PLP and collection layouts

Conceptualization

Todd selected a Shopify theme that prioritized speed, scalability, and accessibility. It became the foundation for a fully reimagined user experience.

Key Touchpoints:

  • Homepage
  • Main navigation
  • Collection/PLP templates
  • Filtering systems
  • PDP
  • Cart and checkout

Focused Updates:

  • Removed the Gift Experience and PZA flow, which added unnecessary friction
  • Created a unified style guide and design system to maintain consistency across all touchpoints
  • Built in flexibility for A/B testing, seasonal marketing, and campaign-based updates
  • Empowered internal teams with a CMS structure that allowed fast updates without developer intervention

Brand Redesign Delivery:

With the new Shopify theme implemented, Pajamagram's site underwent a full transformation:

  • Navigation was simplified, product discoverability improved, and key landing pages were optimized for intent
  • Mobile UX was standardized and refined, with clearer paths to purchase
  • Promotional flexibility increased, allowing marketers to easily launch and adjust seasonal content
  • Maintenance and updates became significantly easier — reducing reliance on developers and increasing speed to market

The Result:

The right platform doesn't just support your brand — it sharpens your focus

While early in its rollout, the new Shopify-powered experience has already delivered measurable results:

  • Page speed improved by ~30%, particularly on mobile
  • Bounce rate decreased by 18%, thanks to clearer navigation and faster load times
  • Conversion rates rose by 22% across both desktop and mobile
  • Site management time reduced by over 50%, giving marketing more control
  • Customer friction minimized, especially on mobile and checkout flows

Back to Top

  • Contact:
  • toddunn@gmail.com
  • © 2025 Todd Dunn