One of the UK's fastest-growing fashion brands, with 8 million social media followers worldwide.
Client
Oh Polly
Sector
Fashion
Platform
Magento
Project Time
3 Months
155,000
Visitors in Month One
A social-first brand with millions of followers finally had a platform that could convert that audience into customers.
£2m
Revenue in the First 12 Months
From zero standalone ecommerce revenue to over £2 million through their new Magento store in the first year.
52%
Returning Customers
Over half of all visitors in the first year came back, proof that the experience matched the brand.
A Million-Pound eBay Business That Had Outgrown eBay.
Before Oh Polly became one of the UK’s fastest-growing fashion brands, before the 8 million social media followers, the international shipping, and the comparisons to BooHoo, Missguided, and ASOS, they were a scrappy, fast-moving team doing over £1 million a year through eBay.
The brand was already growing at pace. Their social media presence was exploding at a time when social commerce was still in its infancy. The product was resonating. The audience was there. But the platform wasn’t.
eBay had been the launchpad, but it couldn’t be the destination. Oh Polly needed their own site, a polished, professional, feature-rich shopping experience that reflected the brand’s identity, could compete with established fashion retailers, and had the scalability to handle the growth that was clearly coming.
They were referred to Actuate, and the brief was clear: build us a home.
Understanding a Brand Built on Social.
Oh Polly wasn’t a typical fashion startup. Their audience had been built entirely through social media: Instagram posts, viral content, and a visual identity defined by pastel tones and trend-driven styling. The website couldn’t just be a shop. It had to feel like a natural extension of the social experience that had built the brand in the first place.
We immersed ourselves in the brand, its ethical culture, its Cambodian charity roots through The Brannerson Foundation, and crucially, what motivated, inspired, and engaged its audience. A thorough analysis of Oh Polly’s social activity directly informed the site’s visual style, tone, and user experience. Every design decision was rooted in what had already proven to resonate with their customers.
A Platform Built for Explosive Growth
The build took three months. But the decisions made during those three months would define the infrastructure behind one of the UK’s biggest fashion success stories.
Quick Buy, Colour Options, and Back-in-Stock Notifications
Fast fashion shoppers don’t browse — they act. We built personalised shopping features designed for speed and impulse: Quick Buy functionality that lets customers add to cart without leaving the page, intuitive colour option selectors, and out-of-stock notifications that bring customers back the moment an item is available again. Every feature was designed to reduce the gap between wanting and buying.
155,000 Visitors and a 4% Conversion Rate in Month One
The launch was immediate proof that the platform was right. With all of Oh Polly’s existing trade coming from eBay, the new site welcomed over 155,000 visitors in its first month, converting at an impressive 4% from day one.
Within the first 12 months, the Magento store generated over £2 million in revenue. And 52% of all visitors in that first year were returning customers, a retention rate that showed the experience was matching the brand promise and keeping customers coming back.
The brand has since grown into one of the UK’s most recognisable fashion labels, with an 8 million strong social following and international sales spanning almost every country in the world. The Magento platform built in those three months was the foundation that made that growth possible.
Linnworks Integration for Multi-Channel Stock Management
Oh Polly was selling across eBay, Amazon, and now their own Magento store — all managed by a small team. Without unified stock management, that’s a recipe for overselling, manual errors, and wasted time. We integrated Linnworks as a virtual warehouse CRM, bringing inventory management across all sales channels into a single system. For a lean team managing rapid growth across multiple platforms, this was transformative — turning what could have been operational chaos into a streamlined, reliable process.
Scalability from Day One
Oh Polly wasn’t going to stay small. The social following was growing by the day, product drops were generating huge spikes in traffic, and international demand was building. Magento 2 was chosen specifically for its ability to scale – a fully customisable platform that could handle traffic surges, expanding product catalogues, and international selling without requiring a re-platform down the line. The site needed to be ready not just for launch day, but for what came after.
What did this mean for Oh Polly?
In three months, Oh Polly went from a million-pound eBay business with no standalone website to a fully-fledged ecommerce brand competing with the biggest names in fast fashion. The platform we built didn’t just support the business at launch. It provided the infrastructure for the explosive growth that followed.
1
From Marketplace to Own-Brand Destination
Oh Polly’s entire revenue had come through eBay. The new Magento store gave them ownership of their customer relationships, their brand experience, and their data, the foundations of a business that could scale on its own terms.
2
Immediate Commercial Traction
155,000 visitors and a 4% conversion rate in month one. Over £2 million in revenue within the first year. And 52% returning customers, proving the site wasn’t just attracting traffic. It was building loyalty.
3
A Platform That Scaled with the Brand
From a scrappy eBay seller to one of the UK’s fastest-growing fashion brands with millions of followers worldwide. The Magento platform built in three months handled that entire journey: product drops, traffic spikes, international expansion, and all.
