Floral Lab Moved to Shopify — Rebuilt Around How Flowers Actually Sell
A florist and event-design studio was running on an aging WordPress store that treated flowers like ordinary products. We rebuilt it on Shopify as a gift-first storefront — card messages, delivery dates, sender-and-recipient handling — and migrated the whole catalogue and customer history without losing a link.
[[CONFIRM: name + photo + permission]]
A Store That Sold Flowers Like Ordinary Products
Floral Lab had real demand and a real brand — but the storefront underneath it was an aging WordPress build that couldn't do the one thing a florist needs most: sell a gift someone sends to someone else, on a chosen date, with a message attached.
Aging WordPress storefront
A dated WooCommerce site that was slow to update and harder to grow — built for a generic shop, not a florist.
No real gifting flow
No clean way to add a card message, pick a delivery date, or send to a recipient who isn't the buyer — the core of how flowers are actually bought.
Manual, one-off customer care
Follow-up, reminders and thank-yous were manual — done when there was time, which in a working studio is rarely.
SEO at risk in any move
Years of product and content URLs meant a careless replatform would drop rankings and break links the day it launched.
Catalogue & customers to carry over
An existing product catalogue and customer list had to move intact — nothing lost, no duplicate mess, consent respected.
A brand ready to look premium
The studio's work is high-end; the old site didn't show it. The rebuild had to match the quality of the flowers.
A Gift-First Shopify Store, Migrated Clean
The new store is live and public at floral-lab.com. Behind it is a full Shopify rebuild, a clean migration of the whole catalogue and customer history, and a gifting flow built for exactly how a florist sells. Every figure below is a measured fact from the build.
Built for gifting, not generic checkout
- Gift-first cart — a card message, a chosen delivery date and window, and a "surprise" option built into the buying flow.
- Sender-and-recipient handling — the person paying and the person receiving are treated as two people, the way a gift actually works.
- Interactive delivery map — customers see the delivery area at a glance, backed by six local-area pages so the studio turns up in nearby searches.
- Gift cards, auto-delivered — three gift-card products that send themselves to the recipient on purchase.
Migrated clean, and kept for repeat sales
- Whole catalogue & history moved — 44 products across 17 collections, plus existing order history and 119 customer contacts, imported and reconciled.
- SEO preserved on the move — 61 redirects mapped from the old WordPress URLs, product SEO, structured data, and a full 90-page audit that came back with zero broken links.
- Automated customer care — five care flows plus native store email handle delivery follow-ups, freshness reminders and anniversaries, so repeat business runs on its own.
- Every enquiry captured — on-site forms route to a single lead inbox with CRM sync, plus 12 SEO articles, Google Business Profile and analytics wired in.
A real store, fully transferable
The rebuild ran through a five-phase lifecycle — 77 work items across 43 design iterations — from brand and catalogue to launch and care. At handover it shipped with a complete 220 MB backup and documentation, so the studio owns it outright and can run it independently at any time.
What Changed for the Business
The build facts above are verified and public. The business-outcome figures below are owner-reported and must be confirmed with Floral Lab — and cleared for publication — before this page goes live. No result number is invented.
Placeholder figures are drafting markers, not claims. Every result number must trace to Shopify, GA4 or a written owner statement before publication (see the case-data framework).
From a Generic Shop to a Florist's Store
Same studio, same beautiful work — a storefront that finally sells the way flowers are actually bought and sent.
Aging WordPress store
- Generic checkout with no real gifting flow
- No card message, delivery date or recipient handling
- Customer follow-up done by hand, when there was time
- A dated look that undersold high-end floral work
Gift-first Shopify store
- Card message, delivery date and window built into the cart
- Sender and recipient handled separately, like a real gift
- Five automated care flows keep repeat business moving
- A premium storefront that matches the quality of the flowers
[[CONFIRM: real owner quote — exact words from the Floral Lab owner, with written permission to publish]]
— Owner, Floral Lab [[CONFIRM: name + permission]]
No quote is published until it is the owner's real words, attributed and cleared. This block stays a placeholder until then — and only then does a Review schema get added.
Five Phases, 77 Work Items
The rebuild followed a five-phase lifecycle, built and refined iteratively against the owner's feedback — 77 work items across 43 design iterations.
Insight
Audited the old store, set the requirements, and defined the delivery policy that the whole gifting flow would be built around.
Design
Built the premium visual identity — palette, typography, logo lockup and a full icon set — to match the quality of the studio's floral work.
Build
Homepage, filterable catalogue, gift-first cart, forms and automations — rebuilt repeatedly to reach the final composition.
Launch
Domain migration and SSL, 61 redirects mapped from the old URLs, and a public go-live with a full smoke test.
Operate
Care automations live, leads captured, a full 90-page audit with zero broken links, and a complete backup handed over.
Selling Online but Fighting Your Store?
Floral Lab went from an aging WordPress shop to a gift-first Shopify store, migrated clean with zero broken links. Get a free audit and we'll show you what a rebuild could do for how you sell.