An independent luxury women's shirt and blouse brand, based in London since 2007
Client
The Shirt Company
Sector
Fashion
Platform
Magento 2
Project Time
3 Months
40%
Increase in Conversion Rate
A persona-driven redesign and migration to Magento 2 delivered an immediate uplift in how effectively the site converted visitors into buyers.
30%
Jump in Sales
Record months in December and January following launch, driven by a faster, more confident shopping experience.
6%
Reduction in Drop-Offs
Better product information, clearer sizing, and a streamlined checkout meant fewer customers abandoning before purchase.
A Luxury Brand Ready to Grow
The Shirt Company is an independent luxury women’s fashion brand, based in London since 2007 and focused exclusively on women’s shirts and blouses. Their collections are designed for modern living: simple, elegant, and built to last. It’s a brand with a clear identity, a loyal customer base, and a product that speaks for itself.
Actuate had been working with The Shirt Company for years, maintaining their Magento 1 site with security updates and ongoing support. The relationship was well established and the team trusted us to keep things running.
But Magento 1 was reaching end of life, and the migration to Magento 2 couldn’t wait. Rather than treating it as a straight platform swap, we saw it as the opportunity it was, a chance to redesign the entire experience around the customer, capture the brand’s heritage whilst delivering something new, and build a platform ready to support the company’s growth ambitions, including expansion into international markets for the first time.
Designing for the Customer, Not the Brand.
It’s easy to design a luxury fashion site that looks beautiful. The harder job is designing one that converts. We ran a series of discovery sessions with The Shirt Company to understand who their customers really were, not who the team assumed they were.
We used analytics data to challenge and refine those assumptions, creating detailed personas that would shape every design and UX decision. The wireframes and user journeys were built around these personas, with input from the team at every stage to ensure we were adding genuine value to the experience whilst keeping it effortless.
The build itself took three months, migrating all existing Magento 1 data, crafting the new design, integrating Glopal for international selling, upgrading to Stripe for mobile payments, and completing full QA testing and deployment.
Record Months Straight Out of the Gate.
Actuate had been working with The Shirt Company for years, maintaining their Magento 1 site. When the platform reached end of life, we treated the migration as a strategic opportunity rather than a technical chore. We ran discovery sessions to understand who the customers really were, using analytics data to challenge and refine assumptions, and created detailed personas that shaped every design and UX decision.
The build took three months, covering full data migration from Magento 1, a persona-driven redesign with enhanced size guides and significantly richer product imagery, streamlined navigation with clearer calls-to-action, and performance optimisations across every page. We integrated Glopal to handle multi-currency pricing and localised experiences, opening up international markets for the first time. Stripe was added for mobile payments, and the entire checkout was rebuilt to inspire the confidence that luxury fashion purchases demand.
Every Detail Designed to Convert
Buying luxury fashion online requires confidence. Customers need to trust the quality, feel certain about the fit, and be reassured that the checkout is secure. Every element of the new site was designed to build that confidence — removing the hesitation points that were causing drop-offs on the old platform.
Size Guides That Build Confidence
Sizing is one of the biggest barriers to conversion in fashion ecommerce — particularly for a brand where fit and quality are the product’s defining features. We introduced detailed size guides with both visual and text-based options, giving customers the information they need to choose with confidence. Fewer sizing doubts means fewer abandoned carts and fewer returns.
Designing for the Customer, Not the Brand
It’s easy to design a luxury fashion site that looks beautiful. The harder job is designing one that converts. We ran a series of discovery sessions with The Shirt Company to understand who their customers really were — not who the team assumed they were.
We used analytics data to challenge and refine those assumptions, creating detailed personas that would shape every design and UX decision. The wireframes and user journeys were built around these personas, with input from the team at every stage to ensure we were adding genuine value to the experience whilst keeping it effortless.
The build itself took three months — migrating all existing Magento 1 data, crafting the new design, integrating Glopal for international selling, upgrading to Stripe for mobile payments, and completing full QA testing and deployment.
Enhanced Product Swatches and Imagery
When you can’t touch the fabric or see the detail in person, photography and product presentation have to do that job. We enhanced the product swatches for easier colour and fabric selection, and significantly increased the number of product images — giving customers a richer, more detailed view of every piece. For a luxury brand where the craftsmanship is a key selling point, showing more means selling more.
Clearer CTAs and Streamlined Navigation
The UX was overhauled to remove friction at every stage. Clearer calls-to-action guide customers toward key decisions without feeling pushy. Simplified navigation makes it easy to find the right piece quickly. And performance optimisations ensured faster load times across the board — because in luxury fashion, a slow site undermines the sense of quality before the customer even sees a product.
What did this mean for The Shirt Company?
In three months, The Shirt Company went from an ageing Magento 1 site to a modern, conversion-focused Magento 2 platform — with international capability built in from day one. The migration wasn’t just a technical upgrade. It was a strategic step that delivered immediate commercial results and opened up a new market for the brand.
1
A Shopping Experience That Matches the Product
Luxury fashion demands a luxury experience. Detailed size guides, rich product imagery, and a clean, effortless journey from browsing to checkout gave customers the confidence to buy — and the results followed immediately.
2
International Selling From Day One
Glopal integration opened up international markets for the first time, turning a UK-only brand into a global one. Multi-currency pricing and localised experiences meant international customers received the same quality of experience as domestic ones.
3
A Platform Built on Deep Customer Understanding
The persona-driven design process ensured every decision was rooted in how real customers actually browse and buy – not assumptions. That rigour showed up in the numbers, 40% more conversions and 30% more sales,
