Vetevo - Shopify Plus streamlining & optimization

Theme overhaul –  Shopify Plus

Homepage desktop view for Vetevo- a personalised pet care provider. The hero section includes an image of a happy dog with their owner.

Overview -
Vetevo Webshop

Our brief was to fix Vetevo’s front-end performance. Primarily making use of Shopify Apps & page builders for Vetevo’s Shopify theme had made their site become slow to load, unappealing in appearance and difficult to maintain. They needed professional help, which is where we stepped in.

Client

Vetevo GmbH

Services

Web development

/

Speed & SEO Optimization

Duration

7 Months

The team

1 Project Manager

/

2 Front-end

Engineers

Challenges & goals

We were confronted with two main issues: Firstly, Vetevo’s Shopify theme was not equipped for Google Web Vitals, which led to poor SEO values. Secondly, due to the use of Shopify Apps & page builders, the visual design of their webpage was not doing their professional products and vision justice. Things needed to change.

Our approach

We take pride in expertly guiding our clients through their decision-making process. We needed to decide whether their current theme should be kept or if we should take a crack at developing a new one. With the help of technical audits, we were able to create a proposal for Vetevo that included their current marketing, design, and tech team requirements with their current Shopify theme. The key was a design system in Shopify.

67

Speed movements

2-6x

Faster loading time

50+

Deployments

3

Especial dream team employees

Desktop view of Vetevo’s e-commerce site displaying a “Bestsellers” product carousel. Product cards include ratings, descriptions and clear pricing.
Desktop view of Vetevo’s slide-out cart including product summary, product recommendations, discount field and a high contrast ATC button.

Roadmap - Reach your Goals quickly with ‘Usain Bolt-like’ Sprints

We had weekly meetings in which our developers and designers worked closely alongside the markets and designers from Vetevo. Together we created a standardized design system for key elements such as buttons, colors and fonts which were all designed with the aim of achieving faster loading times. We then used the design system for vital A/B tests to validate and speedily implement new page designs in their online shop.

Design system development
A/B testing
Implementation
Optimization
Desktop view of product categories. Filtering is achieved through animal type tabs. Category cards include charming images of pets alongside Vetevo products. Mobile view of Vetevo’s e-commerce store homepage, displaying the site’s responsiveness.
Close up mobile mockup displaying Vetevo’s filtering menu which allows users to filter by animal or product type.
What is a design system?

It’s a framework of reusable design components such as font formatting, buttons, tables etc. It helps product teams adhere to a uniform design language and helps in validating high-performance, high-conversion elements in A/B tests, and allows you to quickly implement them in code.

Concept & UX UI Design - Standardize, Develop, Optimize!

01 Develop a flexible design system

We designed a clear design system for Vetevo, based on their existing theme and design concept elements. The aim of ours is to improve, not to re-invent the wheel! The creation of new pages and layouts became both easier and faster using recurring components.

02 Create the basis for content

We achieved a much-improved brand image, streamline and standardized online shop by cleverly applying the design system to existing elements in the theme. On top of this, we also created new components for more dynamic content and new landing pages that Vetevo wanted to incorporate. Thanks to Shopify's Stores 2.0, these can now be used freely when building landing pages.

03 Find the optimal solution

We take our A/B testing very seriously. Through running extensive tests, we were able to expertly identify the best solution for existing elements and all the new components that we added. The result? Implementation of the best ideas which, not surprisingly, had a correspondingly positive effect on Vetevo’s conversion rate. It is very clear to us that taking the time to properly run through tests is worth it!

04 Performance optimization

We took a laser eye focus whilst developing and improving the technical performance of Vetevo’s online shop. Not only does the customer have a more enjoyable experience with faster loading times, and Google Web Vital optimization, but Google rewards these tech improvements with better search engine rankings. Winning on both ends!

Mobile view of Vetevo’s product detail page including product gallery, title, rating and product description. Close up mobile mockup of a banner advertising the Vetevo app with an image, title, subtext and a teal “Download Now” button.
Desktop view of Vetevo’s product listing page. A grid of product cards takes up most of the screen with filters on the left.

Marketing benefits - A fairy-tale ending for Vetevo's Marketing Team

Vetevo’s marketing team can quickly and easily change and exchange content, as well as create completely new landing pages – all by themselves, without having to rely on technical help. This was all achieved, by us, through creating new sections and updating the theme to Shopify Stores 2.0.

The groundwork has been done, the technical infrastructure is as solid as a rock, and now Vetevo can look forward to independently launching new campaigns by using the tools

we have implemented. The improved data performance of their online shop also allows visitors to find what they are looking for quickly and smoothly. Which we all know has a direct effect in an increased return on ad spend (ROAS).

Desktop view of Vetevo’s product detail page alongside a mobile view of a “Bestseller” product carousel.

Technical specifications -
Improved performance

Sometimes it’s the little things that count most. We were able to achieve greatness through numerous small changes to the Shopify theme of Vetevo’s online site. By optimizing and focusing on Google Web Vitals, the new shop shines with extremely good values in the areas of First Input Delay (FID), Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). The webstore pages usually load under 2 seconds and only 0.1 seconds pass before interactions can be carried out.

Areas of optimization

Web Vitals

/

Theme Liquid

/

JavaScript

/

Shopify Apps

/

Github & DevOps

/

HTML 5 + CSS3

Four mobile views: Purchase option selection, recommended product carousel, banner including text, image and CTA button and cart page.

Outcome & outlook

Immediate success in many important areas was achieved through our extensive revision of the theme. It’s worth noting that the user experience, loading times and SEO performance have all much improved. We’ve equipped Vetevo with a long-term reliable basis for their online presence and they now have a much more flexible infrastructure for all their marketing dreams and aspirations.

67

Speed movements

2-6x

Faster loading time

50+

Deployments

3

Especial dream team employees

Two desktop views: one showing the Shopify checkout form and another showing customer pet images and reviews.

Client reference -
First class experts

“We knew that we needed first-class experts and developers as partners to further develop our Shopify shop. In Especial we have found an agency that has not only implemented our specific wishes but has also contributed to our company's success with their expert advice.”

- Dr. Daniel Ringbeck, Head of Product

Vetevo placed #31

at ‘Jung von Matt's StartUp Brand Ranking’ – putting it ahead of greats such as Flaconi, Flixbus or Hello Fresh. All thanks to their improved online brand presence.

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