Water Gardening Direct is a good example of the kind of Shopify project where the theme cannot just look clean on the homepage. The store has to support a large catalogue, practical product information, clear browsing routes, delivery details, reviews, supporting content, and customer confidence across the full buying journey.
This project was delivered in partnership with Grey Coffee, who brought me in to support the Shopify development side of the build. Grey Coffee led the client relationship and wider project direction, while my role focused on Shopify theme development, technical implementation, storefront features, app configuration, testing, and practical ecommerce delivery.
The project was built around a Dawn-based Shopify setup, but the work went much further than changing colours and adding sections. The goal was to shape the storefront around the way customers actually shop for water gardening products: by category, by product type, by brand, by technical requirement, by compatibility, and by delivery need.
Partnership With Grey Coffee
Grey Coffee is a design studio that builds brands and designs spaces for hospitality, food and beverage, and retail businesses. For this project, the work was collaborative: Grey Coffee held the agency/client relationship and project direction, and I supported the Shopify development layer.
That meant taking the agreed direction and turning it into working Shopify theme functionality across the storefront. My contribution sat mainly in the technical delivery: Dawn customisation, theme sections, product and collection templates, app setup, storefront logic, content support, testing, and front-end development.
Starting With A Practical Shopify Foundation
Dawn is a strong starting point because it gives a Shopify store a clean, modern base. For Water Gardening Direct, the value was in using that foundation while extending it where the catalogue needed more control.
The work included custom storefront areas, app integrations, product page improvements, collection logic, navigation planning, content migration, and testing. Rather than treating each page as a standalone design, the project needed a connected system that could support a product-heavy store at scale.
Homepage And Storefront Structure
The homepage needed to do more than introduce the brand. From a Shopify implementation point of view, it had to direct customers into the right shopping routes quickly.
Key homepage and global storefront work included:
- Announcement bar in the header
- Custom header with predictive search
- Custom mega menu
- Main hero image carousel
- Featured collections
- Special offers area
- Feefo review integration
- Help and advice content section
- Newsletter sign-up
- Custom brand carousel
- Cookie consent integration
- Custom footer
For this kind of store, homepage sections are not just decorative. They act as signposts into the catalogue. A customer might arrive looking for a specific product, a replacement part, a brand, advice, or an offer. The homepage and navigation need to support all of those entry points.
Custom Navigation And Mega Menu
Navigation was a major part of the Shopify development work. Product-heavy stores can become difficult to browse if the menu structure is too shallow or too generic.
The custom header and mega menu helped create clearer routes through the catalogue. This included thinking through primary navigation, product collections, product types, brands, and the way customers move between broad categories and more specific sub-collections.
Good navigation is especially important for stores where customers may not know the exact product name. They need the store to guide them.
Collection Templates For A Product-Heavy Catalogue
The collection work was one of the most important parts of the build. Water Gardening Direct needed collection pages that could handle both products and supporting collection routes in a consistent way.
Custom collection work included:
- Breadcrumbs
- Custom sidebar
- Product grids that could present collections and products consistently
- Custom titles and descriptions based on character length
- Sub-collection templates
- Description tabs below products
- Product sizing charts
- Product videos
- Product questions
- Fully custom product collection cards
The product cards also needed to carry useful buying information. This included product title, price, Feefo rating, stock state, and delivery messaging such as free next working day delivery.
This is where a standard theme often starts to feel limited. A catalogue-heavy merchant needs the collection page to act like a product discovery tool, not just a grid of images.
Product Pages With Rich Product Information
Product pages needed to support the kind of detail customers expect before buying technical or practical ecommerce products.
The product page work included:
- Fully custom product page structure
- Product title and gallery
- Feefo product rating
- Manufacturer references and product codes
- Client product codes
- Price display
- In-stock notification
- Model and variant options
- Back-in-stock notification
- Add-on apps
- Wishlist and ask-a-question features
- Instruction manual PDF
- Product video
- Short description and extended product descriptions
- Custom product tabs
- Associated products
This matters because a product page has to answer doubts before checkout. Customers may need to check compatibility, delivery, product codes, manuals, videos, questions, and related products before they feel ready to buy.
Dynamic Delivery Logic
Delivery was another area where the store needed more than a generic message.
The project included dynamic delivery information based on the product set, covering delivery types such as:
- Direct delivery
- Pallet delivery
- Next day delivery
- Next day by 2pm
- Standard delivery
Shipping zones also needed to work dynamically across the UK.
This kind of logic is important because delivery can change depending on product type, size, weight, supplier, or fulfilment route. Showing the right delivery information in the right place helps reduce confusion and gives customers clearer expectations before checkout.
Supporting Features And Store Tools
The wider project also included additional custom and app-supported features, including:
- Help and advice section
- Search and results page
- Ask a question feature
- Custom filters for selected product collections
- Spare parts collection template
- Spare parts product template
- Shop by brand section
- Brand landing pages
- Product brochure downloads
- Custom calculators
These features show how a Shopify build often becomes more than a theme. The theme, apps, content, product data, and customer support routes all need to work together.
App Stack And Integrations
The project also involved reviewing and configuring apps to support the store.
Apps and integrations included:
- Consentmo GDPR
- Feefo Product Reviews
- Wishlist Prime
- Shopify Claude Connector App
- Shopify Forms
- Microsoft Clarity
- Matrixify
- Shopify Search and Discovery
- Flow for discount codes
- Seguno Email
- Customer account tools
- ShipZip shipping and delivery
- Essential upsell
- Bundle tools
- Smart checkout rules
- SEO and blog tools
- Messaging tools
For a larger Shopify store, app decisions matter. Apps can solve real merchant problems, but they also need to be reviewed for cost, performance, compatibility, and whether the feature should live in the theme, an app, or the store operations process.
Project Process
The project was approached in stages rather than as one large build, with Grey Coffee leading the wider project process and my work focused on Shopify development and technical delivery.
The wider project process included:
- Initial site audit and implementation plan
- Review of navigation and mega menu
- Review of product collections and product types
- Payment provider review
- Delivery and shipping review
- Google Analytics and Search Console review
- Ahrefs technical audit
- Sales performance review
- Product filter planning
- Custom content review
- Custom feature planning
- Proposed site structure
- App requirements
- Data migration planning
- Project roadmap
- Team roles and responsibilities
- Navigation and wireframes
- Design and design development
- Design review and sign-off
- App testing before development
- Development phase one
- Development phase two
- Content migration and upload
- Delivery, payment gateway, and testing
This process matters because Shopify projects can become messy if the build starts before the catalogue, navigation, apps, delivery rules, and content plan are understood. My role was to support the development side of that process by turning the agreed structure and requirements into working Shopify theme functionality.
What This Project Demonstrates
Water Gardening Direct shows the kind of work involved in adapting Shopify for a real product-heavy business through an agency partnership.
The project demonstrates:
- How Dawn can be used as a foundation and extended for a more complex store
- How custom navigation supports large catalogues
- How collection templates can guide product discovery
- How product cards can carry important buying information
- How product pages can support technical details, manuals, videos, product codes, reviews, and delivery logic
- How apps need to be selected and tested as part of the full storefront system
- How delivery and shipping requirements affect theme and product page decisions
- How a clear process helps move from audit to design, development, migration, and testing
This case study is useful because it shows the difference between building a nice-looking Shopify page and building a storefront that supports real ecommerce complexity as part of a wider agency-led project.
The lesson is simple: a good Shopify theme has to work with the business behind it. The design, code, content, apps, products, filters, shipping rules, and customer journey all need to fit together.
That is the kind of work this project represents.
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Need help with a product-heavy Shopify store?
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