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Aquila: Shopify Replatform
Australia's heritage men's footwear house, established 1958, replatformed onto Shopify Plus for a faster, leaner storefront.
Founded in 1958, Aquila is one of Australia's best known men's footwear and accessories brands, built on Italian inspired craftsmanship across leather dress shoes, boots and the elevated D'ORO collection. It trades online across Australia and New Zealand, backed by a national store network and the Apparel 21 retail platform.
The online store had outgrown its foundations. It ran on a platform with a sprawling stack of apps stitched around it, from Nosto and Searchanise to a custom built store locator, which made it harder to merchandise, slower than it needed to be and expensive to change. Every update to a template, promo page or menu went through a developer.
Moustache Republic moved the brand onto Shopify Plus and rebuilt the storefront on a custom Wonder theme, then consolidated the stack into fewer, better tools and layered on the merchandising, loyalty and speed work the old platform could not support.
Search, filtering and merchandising were consolidated into Boost AI Search, letting the team merchandise collections and place campaign banners inside product grids. Stock-in-Store powers the store locator and Find in Store, so customers can see which stores are nearby and what is on the shelf. Yotpo brings customer reviews onto every product, Swym Wishlist Plus lets shoppers save and come back to their favourites, and Klaviyo handles email and SMS. Apparel 21 stays the source of truth for product, inventory and orders.
The result is a faster, mobile first storefront the Aquila team runs themselves, updating templates, launching promo pages and changing navigation without waiting on an agency, with a premium experience that does more of the selling and an Aquila+ membership whose rewards follow the customer everywhere.
How we did it
- Migrate onto Shopify Plus and retire a costly, developer dependent stack
- Hand day to day control of the storefront back to the Aquila team
- Preserve the premium feel of the brand, including distinct homes for the Italian Made and D'ORO collections
- Consolidate search, merchandising and validation into fewer, best in class tools
- Tune the experience for value per visit, not just traffic
- Keep Apparel 21 as the source of truth for product, inventory and orders
- Mobile first across the whole journey, for a mobile first audience
- Product cards that do more of the selling, with hover video, colour swatches, live sizes and quick add
- Bespoke, elevated designs for the premium Italian Made and D'ORO collections
- Wishlists so shoppers can save and come back to their favourites
- A modular, section based page system so the team can build pages themselves
- A clean mega menu and considered navigation across a broad footwear and accessories catalogue
- A custom theme on Shopify Plus, with reusable Online Store 2.0 sections so campaigns and content can be built without code
- Rich PLP product cards with second image and video on hover, image carousel, colour swatches, live size availability and quick add
- Bespoke collection and product templates for the premium Italian Made and D'ORO ranges
- Boost Commerce AI Search replacing Nosto and Searchanise, powering search, filtering, recommendations and merchandising, including campaign banners inside product grids
- Stock-in-Store powering the store locator and Find in Store, surfacing nearby stores and on-shelf availability
- Aquila+ loyalty built with Shopify Functions, applying the member discount automatically at checkout
- Swym Wishlist Plus for saved favourites, Yotpo reviews on every product and Klaviyo for email and SMS
- Passwordless customer accounts, Refundid returns and Addressfinder validation at checkout
- Image optimisation and Core Web Vitals work across the key templates, with a full data migration of customers, orders, blog, reviews and coupons
The Challenge
A heritage brand held back by an ageing platform and a sprawling stack.
- The previous platform was slow to merchandise, slow to load and expensive to change
- Every change to templates, promo pages or navigation needed a developer
- A sprawling app stack, including Nosto, Searchanise and a custom built store locator, added cost and complexity
- The premium Italian Made and D'ORO collections had no distinct home to match their positioning
- Product cards did too little, leaving discovery and sizing to extra clicks and page loads
- Apparel 21 needed to stay the source of truth for product, inventory and orders through the move
The Solution
A Shopify Plus rebuild, tuned for value per visit.
- A faster, mobile first storefront on Shopify Plus with a custom theme the Aquila team runs themselves, with no developer queue
- Product cards that carry more of the selling, with hover video, colour swatches, live size availability and quick add
- Bespoke, elevated experiences for the premium Italian Made and D'ORO collections across listing and product pages
- One search and merchandising engine, with Boost AI Search replacing Nosto and Searchanise and letting the team merchandise collections and run campaign banners inside product grids
- Stock-in-Store powering the store locator and Find in Store, showing customers which stores are nearby and what is on the shelf
- Aquila+ loyalty that applies itself, recognising members and applying the discount automatically at checkout
- Wishlists, reviews and lifecycle messaging consolidated into Swym, Yotpo and Klaviyo
- A leaner, consolidated stack with Refundid returns and Addressfinder validation, all wired to Apparel 21
- Image optimisation and Core Web Vitals work, plus a full migration of customers, orders, blog, reviews and coupons
Grow with the mo.
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