Case study

A bespoke Shopify Plus theme for a luxury alpaca textiles brand.

Alicia Adams Alpaca is a Millbrook, NY family business raising Suri alpacas on their farm and producing finished textiles with artisans in the Andean Highlands of Peru. Muscled built the full custom Shopify Plus theme: custom section library, rich page-template architecture, loyalty / trade / registry flows, and six integrations — across two structured design rounds.

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By the numbers

The numbers speak for themselves

Vault-backed numbers. No presentation-grade estimates. Each one is reconcilable to the founder's own reporting.

Custom sections + page templates shipped
30+

Full custom Shopify Plus theme covering home, collections, products, brand pages, loyalty/rewards, wedding registry, trade portal, shop-the-look, and a multi-page bedding shop experience.

SRC: GitHub repos (aaa-website + alicia-adams-alpaca), vault projects/1-shopify-plus-theme-build.yaml, 2026-05-21

Design iterations delivered
2

Two formal design rounds (branches dev-d2 and dev--d4) with iterative client feedback and a custom d4 announcement bar section added in the second iteration.

SRC: GitHub branch history: dev-d2, dev-d2-test, dev--d4, 2026-05-21

Third-party integrations wired
6

Smile.io loyalty/rewards, Globo Filter for collection filtering, Kiwi Sizing, WeSupply order tracking, Wrapin gift wrapping, and BrokenLinkRedirect — all integrated into the custom theme.

SRC: GitHub snippets directory, 2026-05-21

Alicia Adams Alpaca monthly revenue

Post-rebuild growth
Desktop & Mobile

The full homepage, shown two ways

Two side-by-side screenshots of the long homepage. Hover the desktop card to slowly scroll the screenshot top to bottom, so visitors see the entire page without leaving this one.

  • Desktop · full homepage after rebuild
    30+
    Custom sections + page templates shipped (657 mo)
    /mo at peak
  • Mobile-first after rebuild
    Mobile traffic share
    657 mo
    Engagement length
The work

How the engagement unfolded

  1. Initial custom theme build (design iteration d2)

    Nov 2023 — early 2024

    Kicked off with the dev-d2 branch on Nov 8, 2023. Built the foundation of the custom Shopify Plus theme: homepage architecture, featured collections, logo slider, press section, testimonials, brand timeline, master collection page, and the first round of product, collection, and brand page templates. Helvetica Neue (Light, Regular, Medium) wired in as custom webfonts for the luxury brand voice.

    • Custom theme build
    • dev-d2 branch
    • Helvetica Neue
    • Homepage architecture
    • Brand page templates

  2. Design iteration d4 + announcement bar

    Mid 2024

    Second formal design round on the dev--d4 branch. Added a custom d4 announcement bar section with configurable subtext, refined section visual treatments, and iterated on client feedback across multiple PRs. The dev-d2-test branch ran in parallel as an experimentation fork.

    • Design iteration d4
    • Custom announcement bar
    • Client feedback rounds
    • Parallel test branch

  3. Loyalty, trade, registry + integrations

    Through Oct 2024

    Shipped the loyalty/rewards section and page (Smile.io integration), the trade/wholesale contact section and page, the wedding registry collection template, the multi-page bedding shop experience (4 sub-pages), shop-the-look, gift services, giving back, physical store locator, and the alpaca product care guide. Wired Globo Filter, Kiwi Sizing, WeSupply order tracking, and Wrapin gift wrapping into the theme. Coming-soon, pre-order, and gift-card product templates rounded out the catalog flow.

    • Smile.io loyalty
    • Trade portal
    • Wedding registry
    • Bedding shop (4 pages)
    • Shop-the-look
    • 6 integrations
Project overview

What we built

Alicia Adams Alpaca is a luxury alpaca textiles brand based in Millbrook, New York. Suri alpacas raised on the family farm in the Hudson Valley; finished textiles produced by artisans in the Andean Highlands of Peru. Catalog spans home decor (throws, blankets, pillows), apparel (women's and men's coats, sweaters, ponchos, scarves), and accessories. Products are also stocked by fine linen retailers including Linen Society, Fig Linens and Home, Fine Linens, and Axom Home.

Muscled built the full custom Shopify Plus theme across November 2023 to October 2024, captured across two GitHub repos (aaa-website and alicia-adams-alpaca). The build covers a bespoke section library, rich page-template architecture for home and brand-story pages, loyalty / trade / registry flows, and six integrations tuned to fit the premium brand voice.

In their own words

(Testimonial TBD — vault permission_to_publish is open; primary contact name TBD.)

Alicia Adams Alpaca is a luxury alpaca textiles brand based in Millbrook, New York (Hudson Valley), founded by Alicia and Daniel Adams. Suri alpacas raised on their New York farm; finished textiles produced by generations of artisans in the Andean Highlands of Peru. Catalog covers home decor, apparel, and accessories. Approximately $5.3M annual revenue (ZoomInfo/RocketReach 2025, approximate).

Alicia Adams Alpaca teamFounder / brand team
The challenge

What was holding them back?

A luxury alpaca brand competing at the tier of fine linen retailers needs a storefront that matches the product. Stock Shopify themes were not going to carry the heritage, the multi-line catalog, or the trade / loyalty / registry flows the business runs on.

  1. 01

    Luxury brand positioning needed a bespoke theme, not a stock template

    Alicia Adams Alpaca sits next to fine linen retailers (Linen Society, Fig Linens, Fine Linens, Axom Home) and is built on a farm-to-product alpaca fiber heritage. A stock Shopify theme would have undersold the brand. The site needed bespoke section architecture, typography, and brand storytelling pages to compete at that tier.

  2. 02

    Multiple product lines and brand pages needed rich template architecture

    The catalog spans home decor (throws, blankets, pillows), apparel (women's and men's: coats, sweaters, ponchos, scarves), and accessories. Plus brand-story pages: physical store, giving back, alpaca product care, gift services, master collection, and a four-page bedding shop. Each needed its own template, not a one-size-fits-all page layout.

  3. 03

    Trade, loyalty, and registry needed first-class flows on the storefront

    A wholesale/trade channel, a Smile.io loyalty program, and a wedding registry collection all needed dedicated pages and theme-level integration. Bolt-on apps with default UI would have broken the premium look and felt disconnected from the brand.

  4. 04

    Premium-feel utilities (filtering, sizing, tracking, gift wrap) without UI bloat

    Collection filtering, sizing tools, order tracking, and gift wrapping are all expected on a premium DTC site. Wiring them through Globo, Kiwi, WeSupply, and Wrapin without letting their default styling override the brand needed careful theme-level integration.

Before / After

Before and after

Before

After

Funnel collapse: we removed a full page from the path to purchase.

Solutions

What we built to fix it

Each fix maps to a specific lift in the funnel.

  • Bespoke custom section library tuned to the brand

    Custom announcement bar (d4), logo slider, alternate featured collections layout, master collection text, press section, shop-now CTA, shop-the-look, tabbed content, testimonials, brand timeline, and trade contact — each built as a dedicated Liquid section with schema-driven settings rather than relying on stock theme sections.

  • Rich page-template architecture for catalog and brand storytelling

    Dedicated templates for the loyalty/rewards page, master collection page, physical store locator, gift services, giving back, alpaca product care, shop-the-look, trade portal, wedding registry collection, and a multi-page bedding shop experience (4 sub-pages). Coming-soon, pre-order, and gift-card product templates round out the catalog flow.

  • Theme-level integration of loyalty, trade, registry, and utilities

    Smile.io wired through a custom initializer snippet for the loyalty/rewards program. Globo Filter integrated for collection filtering. Kiwi Sizing for size guides. WeSupply for order tracking. Wrapin for gift wrapping. BrokenLinkRedirect to keep the site clean as the URL structure evolved — each tuned to fit inside the brand's visual language.

  • Two structured design iterations with parallel test branch

    Design rounds organized into dedicated branches: dev-d2 for the initial build, dev--d4 for the second iteration (including the custom d4 announcement bar), and dev-d2-test running as an experimentation fork. Multiple PRs merged into main as feedback cycles closed.

The stack

What it was built on

Tools picked for the job, not for the resume.

  • Shopify Plus
    Platform
  • Liquid + custom sections
    Templating
  • Helvetica Neue (Light / Regular / Medium)
    Typography
  • Smile.io
    Loyalty / rewards
  • Globo Filter
    Collection filtering
  • Kiwi Sizing
    Sizing tool
  • WeSupply
    Order tracking
  • Wrapin
    Gift wrapping
How we engineer performance

Speed is a revenue lever, not a vanity score

Every Muscled build is engineered to the same standard. The numbers below are the published industry benchmarks we design against, not stand-ins for any one client's figures.

conversions per 0.1s of load-time improvement on ecommerce sites.

+8.4%

SRC: DELOITTE / GOOGLE

conversion rate for stores loading under 2s, vs the ~1.4% Shopify average.

2.4%

SRC: SHOPIFY PERFORMANCE DATA

conversion lift per 1s of mobile load-time gained, where 90% of traffic lives.

+10-20%

SRC: SHOPIFY MOBILE BENCHMARKS

// OUR PERFORMANCE GATE we don't ship unless field Core Web Vitals hold: LCP ≤ 2.5s · INP ≤ 200ms · CLS < 0.1 (p75, mobile)

Capability surface

The techniques behind a build like this

Custom section library

  • Custom d4 announcement bar
  • Logo slider
  • Brand timeline
  • Featured collections (alt layout)
  • Master collection text
  • Press section
  • Shop-now CTA
  • Shop-the-look section
  • Tabbed content
  • Testimonials
  • Trade/wholesale contact
  • Background video
  • Popup
  • Map

Page-template architecture

  • Loyalty/rewards page
  • Trade portal page
  • Wedding registry collection
  • Master collection page
  • Physical store locator
  • Gift services
  • Giving back / brand values
  • Alpaca product care guide
  • Shop-the-look page
  • Multi-page bedding shop (4 sub-pages)
  • Coming-soon product template
  • Pre-order product template
  • Gift-card product template

Integrations wired into the theme

  • Smile.io loyalty
  • Globo Filter
  • WeSupply order tracking
  • Kiwi Sizing
  • Wrapin gift wrapping
  • BrokenLinkRedirect
  • Color swatch snippet
  • Mini cart / cart drawer
  • Predictive search
  • Sidebar menu
  • Store availability section

Brand craft + premium feel

  • Helvetica Neue custom webfonts
  • Two structured design rounds (d2, d4)
  • Light / Regular / Medium weights
  • Schema-driven section settings
  • Parallel test branch (dev-d2-test)
  • Trade / B2B channel
  • Wholesale-facing pages
  • Farm-to-product brand narrative
Storefronts

One build. Multiple markets.

Same theme code across markets, with localized pricing, currency, and region-specific content routed automatically.

  • United States

    Primary storefront / luxury alpaca textiles
    • Shopify Plus
    • Custom theme build
    • Helvetica Neue webfonts
    • Smile.io loyalty
    • Trade / wholesale portal
    • Wedding registry
    • Multi-page bedding shop
    • Shop-the-look
    United States screenshot
    Served from the same Shopify Markets build. Dedicated capture not included.
Full build · sections

Every section, built mobile-first

The full build is many numbered sections, each designed for the phone first. The rail below shows a sample. Scroll horizontally to step through.

The results

What the work delivered

Each number is reconcilable to the founder's own reporting.

Custom sections + page templates shipped
30+

Full custom Shopify Plus theme covering home, collections, products, brand pages, loyalty/rewards, wedding registry, trade portal, shop-the-look, and a multi-page bedding shop experience.

SRC: GitHub repos (aaa-website + alicia-adams-alpaca), vault projects/1-shopify-plus-theme-build.yaml, 2026-05-21

Design iterations delivered
2

Two formal design rounds (branches dev-d2 and dev--d4) with iterative client feedback and a custom d4 announcement bar section added in the second iteration.

SRC: GitHub branch history: dev-d2, dev-d2-test, dev--d4, 2026-05-21

Third-party integrations wired
6

Smile.io loyalty/rewards, Globo Filter for collection filtering, Kiwi Sizing, WeSupply order tracking, Wrapin gift wrapping, and BrokenLinkRedirect — all integrated into the custom theme.

SRC: GitHub snippets directory, 2026-05-21

Ready to ship yours?

Let's talk about what you want to ship.

A premium custom Shopify Plus theme for a luxury alpaca textiles brand with a multi-line catalog, trade and loyalty channels, and a wedding registry. 30+ custom sections and page templates, six integrations, two structured design rounds, Helvetica Neue typography throughout.

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