Some ecommerce businesses sell. Others only sell when they offer discounts. The difference between the two is not always the product — often, it lies in the website, the platform and how the brand is presented.
This is the case of a VILAX client in the home sector who had been in that second situation for years: they had a functioning online shop, but it only generated sales when they ran promotions. No discount, no sale. The turnover ceiling was €2,500 a month — and to reach that figure, they had to sacrifice their profit margin.
What we did was not launch more campaigns or lower prices further. We changed the foundations on which the online business operated. The result: over €4,000 generated in the first 15 days of the new website, and more than €10,000 per month in the following months — almost without discounts.
Why can an ecommerce business that works stop selling without discounts?
An ecommerce business stops selling without promotions when the website fails to justify the product’s price. If the image does not convey value, the customer will not pay the full price.
The client had a WooCommerce site developed more than six years ago. At the time, it was a well-crafted and well-designed website — but the digital market evolves quickly, and what felt modern in 2018 can suggest neglect in 2024.
The problem was not only aesthetic. An outdated website implicitly suggests that the business does not take care of its digital presence — and this creates a lack of trust that customers may not always be able to put into words, but that still influences their purchasing decision. The result is predictable: the only argument that convinces them is price. And the price that convinces them is the discounted price.
With that diagnosis on the table, the solution was not to optimise what was already there — it was to rebuild the foundations.
What was done to transform the ecommerce?
They were migrated to Shopify with all redirects carefully managed, the catalogue was reduced and improved by prioritising quality over quantity, and the brand image was repositioned towards a high-end product offering.
The intervention was built around three simultaneous pillars:
Migration from WooCommerce to Shopify with all redirects in place. The platform change was necessary, but it came with a real risk: losing the SEO positioning built up by the previous website. Each URL from the old website was correctly redirected to its equivalent on the new one, preserving the authority gained and avoiding error pages that would have penalised both SEO and the user experience.
Catalogue reduction and improvement. A decision was made that goes against the usual instinct of many ecommerce businesses: reducing the number of products. Having more products is not better if none of them are properly presented. The quality of each item’s photography and descriptions was prioritised over the number of available references. Each product on the new website has images that justify its price and a description that communicates benefits, not just features.
Image repositioning towards a high-end product offering. The design, colour palette, typography and tone of communication of the new website were aligned with the perception of value the product deserved. The website stopped looking like a generic ecommerce store and started to feel like a brand with a clear point of view.
With a €1,000 investment in advertising — mainly Meta Ads — to support the launch, the results came from the very beginning.
Why does Shopify work better than WooCommerce for an ecommerce business that wants to grow?
Shopify is designed specifically for online selling: superior speed, a frictionless checkout process, dedicated technical support and scalability without depending on developers.
This is the question many ecommerce owners ask themselves after years of working with WooCommerce. The honest answer is that WooCommerce can work well — but Shopify is designed from the ground up to sell, and that shows in four specific areas:
1. Designed for ecommerce. WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin — an ecommerce solution built on top of a content management system. Shopify is a native ecommerce platform. Every feature, every user flow and every integration is designed to maximise the conversion of an online store.
2. Website speed. Loading speed is one of the factors with the greatest impact on conversion — every additional second of loading time reduces the likelihood of purchase. Shopify websites have natively optimised loading times, without the need for additional plugins or complex technical configurations. WooCommerce, on the other hand, depends on the quality of the hosting, the plugins installed and ongoing technical maintenance to maintain an acceptable speed.
3. Ease of payment. Shopify’s checkout process is one of the most optimised on the market. Fewer steps, more payment methods available natively and a smooth experience that reduces cart abandonment. In WooCommerce, the payment experience depends on the plugins installed and can become fragmented due to updates or conflicts between extensions.
4. Technical support. Shopify has a support team available to manage technical issues related to the platform.
With WooCommerce, any technical problem falls on the owner — or on the developer they need to hire to solve it.
Additional point — POS system (Point of Sale). Shopify includes a point-of-sale system that allows physical and online sales to be managed from a single platform, unifying stock in real time. In this specific client’s case, it has not been implemented yet, but it is one of the features being considered to simplify inventory management and unify physical and digital operations.
What results did the change generate?
In the first 15 days after launching the new website, revenue exceeded €4,000 — surpassing the previous monthly maximum. In the following months, monthly revenue consistently exceeded €10,000, almost without discounts.
That last point is the most relevant: the growth in revenue did not come with a drop in margin.
On the contrary — by no longer needing promotions to sell, the margin per order improved directly.
With an advertising investment of €1,000 in Meta Ads to support the launch, the return was immediate.
But advertising was the accelerator — not the cause. The cause was that the new website justified the product’s price without needing a discount to do it.
What lessons does this case offer for other ecommerce businesses in the home sector?
An outdated website does not just sell less — it forces you to sell through discounts. And relying on discounts systematically destroys both margin and the brand’s perceived value in the long term.
The three most transferable lessons from this case:
The platform matters more than it may seem. Migrating from WooCommerce to Shopify is not just a technical change — it is a change in the customer’s shopping experience and in the business’s operational capacity. For ecommerce businesses that want to scale, Shopify removes frictions that WooCommerce tends to accumulate over time.
Fewer, better-presented products sell more than many poorly presented products. Reducing the catalogue was a counterintuitive decision that had a direct impact on conversion. A customer who lands on a product page with high-quality photography and a description that justifies the price does not need a discount to buy.
Image repositioning has a direct impact on the selling price. When the website communicates value, the customer pays the full price. When it does not, the only argument left is the discount. Investing in brand image is not an aesthetic expense — it is a margin decision.
