Case study

One brand. Four storefronts. Seven languages. Six currencies.

Premium New Zealand Manuka honey brand on Shopify Plus. Custom Liquid theme for the German store, parallel design iterations across three branches, and multi-store architecture covering International, Germany, the EU, and the UAE.

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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.

Country-specific storefronts
4

Shopify Plus multi-store architecture spanning International (.com), Germany (.de), the European Union (.eu), and the UAE (.ae). Each has localised currency, language, and compliance.

SRC: vault / live storefronts, 2026-05-31

Languages supported
7

English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Arabic across the four storefronts. Five EU languages on the .eu store via Weglot; English plus Arabic on the UAE store; DE/EN/NL locale files in the German repo.

SRC: vault / live storefronts, 2026-05-31

Commits across design iterations
220+

Roughly 220 commits across four branches on the German store theme (dev-d2: 100, dev-d8: 73, dev-d6: 46, plus main and develop). Three parallel design iterations shipped in January 2024.

SRC: GitHub muscled-clients/nzhoney-de, 2026-05-31

New Zealand Honey Co. monthly revenue

Post-rebuild growth
$30K$100K$300K$1M$1.5MDE store buildd2 / d6 / d8InternationalEU launchUAE launch10 marketplaces DE store build Parallel iterations International store EU store launch UAE store launch 10 Amazon marketplaces
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
    4
    Country-specific storefronts (676 mo)
    /mo at peak
  • Mobile-first after rebuild
    Mobile traffic share
    676 mo
    Engagement length
The work

How the engagement unfolded

  1. German store — custom Liquid theme build

    Jan 2024

    Full custom Shopify Liquid theme for the German store at newzealandhoneyco.de (myshopify: nzhc-de.myshopify.com). Brand-specific sections built from scratch: parallax video hero, Swiper-based Manuka features carousel, metafield-driven certification icons, UMF/MGO quality guide, traceability section, and Stamped.io reviews integration. Multi-locale support: DE, EN, NL.

    • Custom Liquid theme
    • Manuka education sections
    • Multi-locale (DE/EN/NL)
    • Stamped.io reviews

  2. Parallel design iterations (d2, d6, d8)

    Jan 15-16, 2024

    Three parallel design iterations developed across branches dev-d2 (100 commits), dev-d6 (46 commits), and dev-d8 (73 commits). Roughly 220 commits total in 48 hours of intensive build, letting the client compare three live variants before locking the production design.

    • Parallel iterations
    • d2 / d6 / d8 branches
    • 220+ commits
    • Compare-before-lock workflow

  3. Multi-store expansion (International, EU, UAE)

    2024 — 2026

    Shopify Plus multi-store architecture extending to four country-specific storefronts: International (.com) covering USD/CAD/AUD/NZD, the EU store (.eu) with five languages via Weglot, and the UAE store (.ae) with EN + Arabic and AED. Each storefront carries localised currency, language, legal pages, and shipping rules.

    • Shopify Plus multi-store
    • 4 storefronts
    • 7 languages
    • USD/EUR/AED/CAD/AUD/NZD

  4. Ongoing maintenance

    2024 — present

    Active multi-project ongoing relationship. The German store repo was last pushed on 2026-05-14 — two years after the initial build — confirming live deployment and ongoing maintenance. Theme stack: TriplePixel, Google Tag Manager, Shogun page builder, Liquid Ajax Cart, Stamped reviews, Weglot translation, Elevar, Smile loyalty.

    • Active multi-project ongoing
    • Live since Jan 2024
    • Last push May 2026
    • Stack: GTM / Shogun / Weglot / Stamped
Project overview

What we built

New Zealand Honey Co. is a premium Manuka honey brand selling UMF-certified honey across four international Shopify Plus storefronts and ten Amazon marketplaces. Founded in 2006 by South Island beekeepers, acquired by Scott and Marc in 2018, the brand is 100% New Zealand-owned and competes with Comvita and Manuka Health in the luxury Manuka segment.

Muscled built the German store theme from scratch — a fully custom Liquid theme with brand-specific sections for UMF/MGO product education, hive-to-home traceability, and certification display. Three parallel design iterations on isolated branches (dev-d2, dev-d6, dev-d8) let the client compare directions before locking production.

In their own words

(Testimonial TBD — vault contact_name is open. Brand owned by Scott and Marc since 2018; founder testimonial not yet collected.)

New Zealand Honey Co. is a premium Manuka honey brand founded in 2006 by South Island beekeepers, acquired by Scott and Marc in 2018. Headquartered in Mt Maunganui, NZ. 100% New Zealand-owned. UMF-certified Manuka honey across UMF 5+ through UMF 24+.

New Zealand Honey Co. teamFounder team
The challenge

What was holding them back?

Premium Manuka honey is sold on UMF grading, glyphosate-free purity, and traceability. Generic Shopify themes can't communicate any of that. And expanding into Germany, the EU, and the UAE means four storefronts with localised currency, language, legal compliance, and shipping rules — not one global store with a translator bolted on.

  1. 01

    Country-specific storefronts needed for international expansion

    New Zealand Honey Co. sells Manuka honey into multiple international markets — International (USD/CAD/AUD/NZD), Germany, the EU, and the UAE. Each market needs its own currency, language, legal compliance, and shipping rules. A single global store wouldn't pass German DSGVO / EU GDPR or serve Arabic-reading UAE customers.

  2. 02

    Premium positioning requires custom product education

    Manuka honey is sold on UMF / MGO grading, glyphosate-free purity, and hive-to-home traceability. Generic Shopify themes can't communicate UMF ratings, certification badges (UMF, Non-GMO, Halal, Fernmark), and quality guides in a premium way. The brand competes with Comvita and Manuka Health in the luxury segment and needs the storefront to match.

  3. 03

    Multi-language and multi-currency compliance

    Seven languages across the storefronts (English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Arabic) and four currencies (USD, EUR, AED, plus CAD/AUD/NZD on the international store). Translation, locale files, RTL Arabic on the UAE store, and per-store legal pages all need to ship cleanly.

  4. 04

    Design certainty needed before locking the German store

    The German store was the brand's first European expansion. Picking the wrong design direction would be expensive to undo. The team needed a way to compare multiple production-quality design directions side by side before committing.

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.

  • Shopify Plus multi-store architecture (4 storefronts)

    Four country-specific Shopify Plus storefronts: newzealandhoneyco.com (International), .de (Germany), .eu (EU), and .ae (UAE). Each has its own currency, language stack, and legal pages. Plus-tier infrastructure handles the multi-store organisation.

  • Custom Liquid sections for Manuka product education

    Purpose-built sections: parallax video hero, Swiper-based Manuka features carousel with metafield-driven per-product icons, UMF/MGO quality guide, hive-to-home transparency section, certification badges (UMF, Non-GMO, Halal, Fernmark), and Stamped.io reviews integration.

  • Parallel design iterations on isolated branches

    Three production-quality design directions developed in parallel on dev-d2, dev-d6, and dev-d8 branches. Roughly 220 commits across the iterations let the client preview and compare all three live before locking the production design.

  • Multi-locale + translation stack

    Locale files for DE / EN / NL in the German store repo. Weglot for EN / FR / IT / ES / NL on the EU store. EN + Arabic on the UAE store. Currency handled at the storefront level (USD, EUR, AED, CAD, AUD, NZD).

The stack

What it was built on

Tools picked for the job, not for the resume.

  • Shopify Plus
    Platform
  • Liquid
    Templating
  • Swiper
    Carousels
  • Jarallax
    Parallax / video
  • GSAP + ScrollTrigger
    Animation
  • Stamped.io
    Reviews
  • Weglot
    Translation
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

Multi-store & internationalisation

  • 4 storefronts
  • 7 languages
  • 6 currencies
  • Shopify Plus organisation
  • Country-specific storefronts
  • Locale files (DE/EN/NL)
  • Weglot (FR/IT/ES/NL)
  • Arabic (RTL)
  • EUR / USD / AED / CAD / AUD / NZD
  • DSGVO / GDPR-aware
  • GCC shipping rules

Premium product education

  • UMF / MGO quality guide
  • Hive-to-home transparency
  • Certification badges
  • Manuka features carousel
  • Metafield-driven icons
  • Per-product feature blocks
  • Product FAQ accordion
  • UMF / Non-GMO / Halal / Fernmark
  • Stamped.io reviews

Build & design workflow

  • Custom Liquid theme
  • Parallel design iterations
  • 220+ commits
  • dev-d2 / dev-d6 / dev-d8 branches
  • Compare-before-lock
  • Section-driven architecture
  • Brand fonts as web fonts
  • Git-based deploys
  • Active multi-project ongoing maintenance

Stack & integrations

  • Liquid
  • Swiper
  • Jarallax
  • GSAP + ScrollTrigger
  • Fancybox
  • Liquid Ajax Cart
  • Stamped.io
  • Weglot
  • Shogun
  • Google Tag Manager
  • TriplePixel
  • Elevar
  • Smile loyalty
  • Geolocation Redirects
Storefronts

One build. Multiple markets.

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

  • International (US / NZ / CA / AU)

    Primary / international storefront
    • Shopify Plus
    • USD / CAD / AUD / NZD
    • English
    • Ships US / NZ / CA / AU
    • US + NZ phone support
    International (US / NZ / CA / AU) screenshot
    Served from the same Shopify Markets build. Dedicated capture not included.

  • Germany

    German storefront / custom Liquid theme
    • Shopify Plus
    • Custom Liquid theme
    • DE / EN / NL locales
    • EUR
    • Stamped reviews
    • Shogun page builder
    Germany screenshot
    Served from the same Shopify Markets build. Dedicated capture not included.

  • European Union

    EU storefront / 5 languages via Weglot
    • Shopify Plus
    • EUR
    • EN / FR / IT / ES / NL
    • Weglot translation
    • GDPR-compliant
    European Union screenshot
    Served from the same Shopify Markets build. Dedicated capture not included.

  • United Arab Emirates

    UAE storefront / GCC market
    • Shopify Plus
    • AED
    • English + Arabic
    • GCC region
    • Ships UAE
    United Arab Emirates 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.

Country-specific storefronts
4

Shopify Plus multi-store architecture spanning International (.com), Germany (.de), the European Union (.eu), and the UAE (.ae). Each has localised currency, language, and compliance.

SRC: vault / live storefronts, 2026-05-31

Languages supported
7

English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Arabic across the four storefronts. Five EU languages on the .eu store via Weglot; English plus Arabic on the UAE store; DE/EN/NL locale files in the German repo.

SRC: vault / live storefronts, 2026-05-31

Commits across design iterations
220+

Roughly 220 commits across four branches on the German store theme (dev-d2: 100, dev-d8: 73, dev-d6: 46, plus main and develop). Three parallel design iterations shipped in January 2024.

SRC: GitHub muscled-clients/nzhoney-de, 2026-05-31

Ready to ship yours?

Let's talk about what you want to ship.

Four country-specific Shopify Plus storefronts, seven languages, six currencies, and an active multi-project ongoing relationship that's still pushing two years after the initial build. Muscled is the engineering team behind the German store and the multi-store architecture.

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