How Mocka Grew Sales 31% After Moving to Shopify
Mocka is a leading home and lifestyle retailer known for its cross-generational appeal and presence in both Australia and New Zealand. Established as a prominent online retailer, Mocka has integrated physical retail into its growth strategy. However, the platform supporting its e-commerce operations was hindering its progress. In 2024, Mocka transitioned from BigCommerce to Shopify, a move that enabled them to reinvent their operational processes, expand into physical retail, and provide a seamless omnichannel experience.
The Challenge: Slow Updates and Innovation
Before the migration, Mocka relied on a customized BigCommerce platform that limited their ability to innovate and deliver campaigns efficiently. The process for product uploads and promotional rollouts required extensive coordination among team members and could take up to six hours. This often necessitated overnight shifts, restricting the brand’s ability to leverage trading insights, launch new products quickly, and test different customer experiences.
The rigidity of the previous platform became a significant barrier to growth, preventing Mocka from delivering an exceptional customer experience and pursuing new growth initiatives. Catherine Williamson, CEO of Mocka, stated, “Our previous platform placed limits on how quickly our team could move. As we looked ahead to the next stage of growth, it became clear that Shopify was the right platform to help us execute initiatives faster and more effectively.”
The Solution: Agility through Shopify
Mocka’s transition to Shopify was aimed at enhancing agility across e-commerce, retail, and product innovation. The team selected Shopify for its user-friendly interface, unified commerce capabilities, flexible backend, and commitment to ongoing improvements. Campaigns that previously required extensive developer quality assurance cycles could now be created in a matter of hours using drag-and-drop templates.
Shopify Flow enabled customer journey messaging and automated essential workflows, while Shopify Launchpad facilitated promotional scheduling and theme changes without manual intervention. Furthermore, Mocka utilized Shopify’s Checkout Extensibility and Checkout Blocks to customize their checkout experience, enhancing buyer trust and boosting conversion rates.
With the implementation of Shop Pay, returning customers enjoyed a quicker checkout process. The optimization of the Shop App profile to highlight appealing product ranges and bestsellers contributed to a 13% quarter-on-quarter increase in transactions. Additionally, the Sidekick AI assistant improved internal accuracy and agility, allowing the e-commerce team to verify code, identify trending products, and generate trade insights in mere minutes.
Mocka also launched its Christchurch lab store, where retail staff could replicate the online experience in-store using tablets, accessing customer data in real time. Rodney Rupan, Ecommerce Specialist at Mocka, remarked, “With Shopify, the speed of innovation and delivery is totally different. Our e-commerce team can make homepage updates, launch collections, and optimize product pages without waiting for developer tickets.”
The Results: Enhanced Performance and Growth
With Shopify powering their omnichannel retail journey, Mocka has transformed its operating model. The ability to respond to customer and trading insights in real time has led to significant outcomes. In FY25, Mocka’s pre-tax earnings grew by 21%, and total sales increased by 15%, with Australian sales experiencing a remarkable 31% year-on-year growth.
New product updates have accelerated, allowing e-commerce team members to update homepage content independently, reducing project turnaround times from days to hours. New collections, including Youth & Teen, Lighting, and Outdoor, were launched within months, thanks to Shopify’s scalable templates and app integrations.
Mocka is also expanding into in-store retail and new product categories, such as sofas, while planning to incorporate delivery-to-the-room services powered by third-party plug-in apps in Shopify. This digital transformation has allowed Mocka to build on the momentum of their growth and achieve their organizational goals.
Williamson concluded, “Moving to Shopify has given Mocka the ability to move faster, test a greater volume of releases, and react to trading conditions dynamically. We are bringing more campaigns to market with speed and with fewer resources.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Mocka switched to Shopify due to the limitations of their previous platform, which slowed down innovation and campaign delivery. They needed a more agile solution to support their growth and expansion into physical retail.
Shopify improved operational efficiency by allowing Mocka to create campaigns quickly with drag-and-drop templates, automate workflows, and customize their checkout experience, thereby reducing the time needed for updates and improving customer experience.
After moving to Shopify, Mocka experienced a 31% increase in total Australian sales, a 21% growth in pre-tax earnings, and a 13% lift in quarterly average order value, demonstrating significant growth and improved operational capabilities.
Note: The information presented in this article is based on data available up to October 2023 and reflects the experiences of Mocka after their transition to Shopify.
