best

Two builds for one Leeds shop. First the drop, then the whole store.

client

Best, Leeds

what I did

Design, build, drop launches, SEO

built with

Shopify, Liquid, vanilla JavaScript

live at

wear.best

the shop

Best is a streetwear shop on New Market Street in Leeds, with its own label and a following that turns up for drops. I have built their website twice. The first time to launch a drop. The second time from nothing, because what they needed from a website had changed.

build one: the drop

The first job was a launch. The store had to stay locked until a set time, open early for members only, then open to everyone an hour later, without anyone touching it on the night.

• A lock screen with a live countdown - over a slow reel of the drop photos, with email signup and a members password field
• A one-hour early access window - members got in first, with a banner counting down to the public opening and the site confined to the drop so nobody wandered off
• Scarcity that was true - low stock badges driven by real inventory, and a selling-fast strip that only appeared once the doors had opened
• Launch emails - early access, public launch, restock and abandoned cart, in the brand's black and yellow

I also shot the flatlays for it.

build two: the rebuild

Drops were working, but the store around them was still a standard theme with a lot bolted on. So I started again on a clean base and built the opposite: almost nothing on the page except the clothes.

• One screen, no scrolling page - on desktop the product grid scrolls inside its own panel while the logo and footer stay pinned, so the shop always feels like one room
• Images first - tiles are just the product. Hover one and the name and price follow your cursor in a black label. On a phone they sit underneath instead
• A mini cart, not a cart page - adding to the bag drops a small panel in under the cart link, and you carry on shopping
• Everything rebuilt to match - cart, search, 404 and the lock page, so there is no corner of the site where the old theme shows through

a lookbook you can shop from

Best had a full shoot and nowhere good to put it. The lookbook is a slideshow of that shoot, arranged into chapters by colour so it reads like a story rather than a camera roll. Every piece in every photo is marked, and each mark goes straight to the product.

It is built so the shop can run it themselves. Photos are added in the Shopify editor, and each marker is placed by dragging two sliders until it sits on the garment.

on a phone

On a phone the lookbook drops the markers and puts a button for each piece under the photo, because nobody can hit a small dot with a thumb.

getting the shop found in leeds

Best is a real shop with a real door, and the website was doing nothing to tell Google that. Alongside the rebuild I took on their local SEO:

• Structured data on every page - so Google reads Best as a clothing shop in Leeds with an address and opening hours, not just a website
• A page for the shop itself - built for people searching for streetwear and vintage in Leeds
• Their Google Business Profile, recovered - the listing was tied to an old account nobody could log into. I got it back under the brand's control, along with Search Console and Analytics
• Review replies - a plan for answering old reviews honestly and new ones quickly

"Gets the job done to an excellent high standard."

Perri, Best  ·  5.0 on Google

what this shows

Most designers hand over a site and leave. I have been with Best through a drop, a sale, a full rebuild and the search work that follows, and the site has changed each time the business has. That is what a monthly retainer is for. If you have a Shopify store that has been patched more times than it has been designed, this is the fix.