Case study

A metafield-driven athlete page template + multi-territory deploy roadmap for a percussion recovery brand.

Sunamee sells percussion / massage recovery devices across three SKUs (professional, consumer, active-lifestyle) and runs an athlete ambassador program. Muscled designed the premium black-and-white Shopify storefront in Figma, built one metafield-driven athlete landing page template that serves every athlete on the program (JJ Watt as reference, Julian Fassette as first new athlete), and set the multi-state expansion roadmap on an affiliate-first architecture that graduates to a custom Shopify app at 5 to 6 territory deployments.

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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.

Metafield-driven athlete ambassador landing page template
1 template

One Shopify page template serves every athlete ambassador. Each athlete's landing page is populated by filling in metafields (intro animation or video, action stills, testimonial quote, affiliate code, social links, optional practitioner section). New athletes are content-editor operations, not code changes.

SRC: Discovery + scoping calls (vault transcripts), 2026-01-01

Percussion recovery device line
3 SKUs

Three SKUs across the percussion / massage recovery line: a professional-use model, a consumer model, and an active-lifestyle model. Catalog is comparable in category to Theragun and Hyperice. PDPs and cart flows had to support upsells, cross-sells, and bundle offers per SKU once the offer structure is confirmed.

SRC: Vault notes + product strategy calls, 2026-01-01

Multi-state expansion via affiliate, then custom app at scale
Affiliate first

Multi-state expansion (Arizona, Wisconsin, California, Hawaii, Texas, etc.) is handled via the affiliate model first: local territory operators are affiliates to the main sunamee.com store. Once 5 to 6 deployments are running, a custom Shopify app takes theme assets, product data, and metafields and deploys them to new territory stores automatically.

SRC: Architecture scoping calls (vault transcripts), 2026-01-01

Sunamee 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
    1 template
    Athlete ambassador landing page template driven by metafields
    /mo at peak
  • Mobile-first after rebuild
    Mobile traffic share
    Engagement length
The work

How the engagement unfolded

  1. Discovery + Shopify access setup on sunamee.myshopify.com

    Discovery

    Took on the Sunamee Shopify store on the sunamee.myshopify.com handle. Walked the founder and operational lead through collaborator-access setup (Shopify 4-digit collaborator code flow) for the founder, the operational lead based in San Diego, and a third internal collaborator. Set the engagement up with full collaborator access from day one.

    • sunamee.myshopify.com
    • Collaborator access setup
    • Full access from day one
    • Operational lead onboarding

  2. Figma design system (~20 pages) on a black-and-white neutral direction

    Figma design

    Designed approximately 20 pages in Figma against a Therabody-like reference (premium black-and-white neutral, lifestyle photography). Earlier lime-green accents were dropped in favor of fully neutral. Mahtab's pre-built section arsenal was adapted to the founder's reference brands, with Apple as a secondary neutral reference.

    • ~20 Figma pages
    • Therabody-like reference
    • Black-and-white neutral
    • Apple as secondary reference

  3. Metafield-driven athlete ambassador landing page template

    Template architecture

    Built one Shopify page template that serves every athlete ambassador. Each athlete page is populated by filling in metafields: intro animation or video, still action images of the athlete using the product, testimonial quote, affiliate code, social links back to Sunamee profiles, and an optional practitioner section for doctors working with athletes.

    JJ Watt's hero section was built into the theme as the reference template; the first new athlete page built off the template is Julian Fassette (pro volleyball player). New athletes onboarded later are content-editor operations, not code changes.

    • One template, many athletes
    • Metafield-populated content
    • JJ Watt reference hero
    • Julian Fassette as first new athlete

  4. Multi-state expansion architecture (affiliate first, custom Shopify app at scale)

    Expansion architecture

    Multi-state expansion is handled via the affiliate model first: local territory operators are affiliates to the main sunamee.com store. Clean financial separation, no separate store required. Once 5 to 6 territory deployments are running, the roadmap calls for a custom Shopify app that takes theme assets, product data, and metafields and deploys them to new territory stores automatically.

    • Affiliate model first
    • Local territory operators as affiliates
    • Custom Shopify app for 5+ deployments
    • Theme + product + metafield deployment
Project overview

What we built

Sunamee is a US sports recovery brand selling percussion / massage recovery devices in three SKUs: a professional-use model, a consumer model, and an active-lifestyle model. The category is comparable to Theragun and Hyperice. The brand runs an athlete ambassador program: signed athletes get a landing page, an affiliate code, and content support, and promote on their own social channels back to the Sunamee store. The founder comes from a sports-media background and runs the NBA Summer Series in Las Vegas.

Muscled took on the Shopify storefront at sunamee.myshopify.com. Designed approximately 20 pages in Figma against a Therabody-like reference (premium black-and-white neutral, lifestyle photography), with Apple as a secondary neutral reference. Built the athlete program around one Shopify page template populated by metafields, so each new athlete is a content-editor operation rather than a coding task. JJ Watt's hero section sits in the theme as the reference template; Julian Fassette (pro volleyball player) is the first new athlete page built off the template.

In their own words

(Testimonial TBD. Vault names the founder and operational lead but permission to publish individual names is open.)

Sports recovery brand based in the US. Founder has a sports-media background (formerly Director, CBS Sports digital) and runs the NBA Summer Series in Las Vegas. Operational lead based in San Diego brings a pharma industry background. Product line covers three percussion recovery SKUs (pro, consumer, active-lifestyle). Multi-state expansion is on the roadmap.

Sunamee teamFounder + operational lead
The challenge

What was holding them back?

Coding a custom page per athlete does not scale once the roster expands. Multi-state expansion to roughly 50 territories cannot stay on a single storefront. Brand direction had to settle before the product page and athlete page could ship (earlier lime-green accents were rejected in favor of fully neutral). And B2B bulk pricing for resellers had to live inside the same Shopify storefront as the consumer brand, not as a separate store.

  1. 01

    Athlete ambassador rosters scale but coding a page per athlete does not

    The brand signs athletes onto an ambassador program. Each athlete gets a landing page, an affiliate code, and content support. Coding a page per athlete does not scale once the roster expands. Standard Shopify product or page templates do not give a content-editable surface that handles this content model out of the box.

  2. 02

    Multi-state expansion to ~50 territories cannot run on one storefront forever

    The brand's stated long-term goal is roughly 50 territory deployments. A single storefront cannot cleanly handle local pricing, local fulfillment, and local territory P&L at that scale. But standing up 50 separate Shopify stores by hand is also not viable. An expansion architecture had to be picked deliberately.

  3. 03

    Brand direction had to settle before the product page and athlete page could ship

    Early Figma direction had lime-green accents the founder eventually rejected as not matching the premium positioning. Therabody is the design reference (premium black-and-white, lifestyle photography). Apple is the secondary neutral reference. Direction had to settle before the product page and athlete page could ship.

  4. 04

    B2B bulk pricing for resellers had to live inside the same storefront

    Volume buyers (12-packs, 36-packs for resale) needed wholesale pricing inside the same Shopify storefront the consumer brand runs on. Shopify B2B customer account tagging is the native path: account-tagged buyers see wholesale pricing. Many agencies present this as custom work; the build uses it as the native Shopify feature it is.

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.

  • One athlete page template populated by metafields

    Built a single Shopify page template for the athlete ambassador program. Each athlete's landing page is populated by filling in metafields: intro animation or video (athlete-specific), still action images of the athlete using the product, testimonial quote, affiliate code, social links back to Sunamee profiles, and an optional practitioner section.

    JJ Watt's hero section was built into the theme as the reference template that shows prospective athletes what their page will look like. Julian Fassette (pro volleyball player) is the first new athlete page built off the template. Onboarding the next athlete is a content-editor operation.

  • Affiliate model first, then a custom Shopify deploy app at scale

    Multi-state expansion runs first on the affiliate model: local territory operators become affiliates to the main sunamee.com store. Clean financial separation, no separate Shopify stores required. Once 5 to 6 territory deployments are live, the roadmap calls for a custom Shopify app that takes theme assets, product data, and metafields and deploys them to new territory stores automatically. Same theme. Same product data. Different territory P&L.

  • Premium black-and-white direction across homepage, PDP, and athlete pages

    Rebuilt the visual direction against Therabody (premium black-and-white, lifestyle photography) as primary reference and Apple as secondary neutral reference. Lime-green accents from earlier Figma direction were dropped. Hero on the athlete pages is positioned to read like next-generation sports media so athletes feel their image is presented at the level they expect.

  • B2B bulk pricing via Shopify customer account tagging

    Volume buyers and resellers get wholesale pricing through Shopify B2B customer account tagging. Account-tagged buyers see wholesale pricing inside the same consumer-facing storefront. Native Shopify feature, used as it was designed, no custom-app overhead required to get a working wholesale tier into the store.

The stack

What it was built on

Tools picked for the job, not for the resume.

  • Shopify
    Platform
  • Figma
    Design
  • Shopify metafields
    Athlete-page template content
  • Shopify B2B customer account tagging
    Wholesale pricing tier
  • Affiliate model
    Multi-territory expansion
  • Shopify Collective (roadmap)
    Multi-store product distribution
  • Custom Shopify app (planned)
    Theme + product + metafield deployment at scale
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

Metafield-driven athlete page template

  • One template, many athletes
  • Metafield-populated content
  • Content-editor onboarding
  • Intro animation or video
  • Still action images
  • Testimonial quote
  • Affiliate code
  • Social links back to Sunamee
  • Optional practitioner section
  • JJ Watt reference hero
  • Julian Fassette first new athlete

Percussion recovery product line

  • Pro model
  • Consumer model
  • Active-lifestyle model
  • Comparable category to Theragun and Hyperice
  • Used by pro athletes + practitioners
  • Upsells + cross-sells + bundles on PDP and cart
  • Premium positioning

Multi-state expansion architecture

  • Affiliate model first
  • Custom Shopify app at 5+ deployments
  • Same theme + product + metafield deploy
  • Local territory operator as affiliate
  • No per-territory Shopify store at first
  • Shopify Collective on the roadmap
  • Roughly 50 territories long-term
  • Clean financial separation per territory

B2B wholesale via Shopify customer-account tags

  • Wholesale tier inside same storefront
  • Native Shopify customer-tag pricing
  • Volume buyer pricing visible only to tagged accounts
  • 12-pack + 36-pack reseller pricing
  • Hidden from untagged shoppers
  • Native Shopify feature, used as designed
  • No custom app overhead for the wholesale tier
Storefronts

One build. Multiple markets.

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

  • United States

    Sunamee Shopify storefront (custom domain pending launch)
    • Shopify
    • Athlete ambassador program
    • Metafield-driven athlete page template
    • 3 SKU percussion recovery line
    • B2B customer-tag wholesale tier
    • Premium black-and-white direction
    • Multi-territory affiliate model
    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.

Metafield-driven athlete ambassador landing page template
1 template

One Shopify page template serves every athlete ambassador. Each athlete's landing page is populated by filling in metafields (intro animation or video, action stills, testimonial quote, affiliate code, social links, optional practitioner section). New athletes are content-editor operations, not code changes.

SRC: Discovery + scoping calls (vault transcripts), 2026-01-01

Percussion recovery device line
3 SKUs

Three SKUs across the percussion / massage recovery line: a professional-use model, a consumer model, and an active-lifestyle model. Catalog is comparable in category to Theragun and Hyperice. PDPs and cart flows had to support upsells, cross-sells, and bundle offers per SKU once the offer structure is confirmed.

SRC: Vault notes + product strategy calls, 2026-01-01

Multi-state expansion via affiliate, then custom app at scale
Affiliate first

Multi-state expansion (Arizona, Wisconsin, California, Hawaii, Texas, etc.) is handled via the affiliate model first: local territory operators are affiliates to the main sunamee.com store. Once 5 to 6 deployments are running, a custom Shopify app takes theme assets, product data, and metafields and deploys them to new territory stores automatically.

SRC: Architecture scoping calls (vault transcripts), 2026-01-01

Ready to ship yours?

Let's talk about what you want to ship.

A premium black-and-white Shopify storefront for a percussion recovery brand. One metafield-driven athlete page template that serves every athlete on the ambassador program. A multi-state expansion architecture that starts on the affiliate model and graduates to a custom Shopify app at 5 to 6 territory deployments. B2B wholesale tier via native Shopify customer-account tags. The kind of build where the content model and the expansion architecture are the build.

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