Aviator Nation is a 1970s-inspired California lifestyle brand that has grown from founder Paige Mycoskie's Venice Beach garage in 2006 into a retail phenomenon. The brand is beloved by fans not only for their hand-stitched, made in the USA apparel, but also for their immersive retail stores, which are known to contain such creative concepts as live music venues and fitness studios within their walls.
After migrating from Adobe Commerce to Shopify, Aviator Nation's digital business took off. But operating separate systems—Shopify for ecommerce and Lightspeed for point-of-sale—created friction between online and in-store experiences. The team recognized that unified shopping experiences were no longer nice-to-have, they were essential. By switching from Lightspeed to Shopify POS, Aviator Nation was able to deliver the seamless experience they needed to fuel their next phase of growth through unified commerce.
With Shopify's unified platform, Aviator Nation has achieved:
- 70% of customers checking out with Shop Pay
- 3,000+ daily transactions processed at in-person events with minimal hardware
- 17 stores fully implemented and trained on Shopify POS in under one month
- Complete customer visibility enabling personalized experiences across channels
The Challenge: Fragmented systems limit growth potential
As Aviator Nation's popularity grew, running two different systems for digital and retail created mounting problems across the business and led to daily customer frustrations. For instance, if a shopper bought an item online, it was difficult for the in-store team to help them with a return or exchange. As Curtis Ulrich, Director of Ecommerce at Aviator Nation notes, modern day customers "just weren't going to accept that." In an era where consumers pick where to shop based on ease and convenience, the team saw how this could impact loyalty over time.
We want our retail experience to be really dynamic, but more than anything, friction free and smooth.
The split data also prevented Aviator Nation from fully understanding their customers. Purchase histories lived in separate systems, so the brand couldn't use customer insights to create personalized experiences or targeted communications. This incomplete picture meant missing chances to connect with customers in fun and interesting ways that could separate Aviator Nation from other retailers in customers' minds.
Beyond customer-facing issues, the operational burden was taxing as well. Curtis describes the integration process of their previous POS at new stores as "incredibly cumbersome and difficult." Store openings became multi-day technical ordeals that drained resources from their lean team. The combination of all these factors led to the team engaging with Shopify for help with fully unifying the business.
The Solution: Rapid unification transforms operations
Recognizing the urgent need for change, Aviator Nation moved decisively to unify their commerce operations on Shopify. Despite initiating the migration during their busiest season, the team was determined to deliver a seamless experience for the holidays. "We started having discussions with Shopify probably at the worst time of the year. It was October, November," says Curtis, noting the pressure they were under to get the job done fast. What followed was a remarkable transformation that the Aviator Nation team completed all on their own.
We got it done in a matter of weeks, migrating at that time, 17 retail stores. Buying all the hardware, swapping everything out, training all the staff right before Black Friday, and then launching on a unified system.
The speed of implementation stood in stark contrast to their previous experiences with complex POS deployments.
The migration unlocked immediate benefits through Shopify's unified data architecture. "The most important thing is that customer walking into the store and not experiencing friction at any point of that in-store experience, or when they go home into a digital experience. Having that be completely unified and connected," says Curtis. Staff could now access complete customer histories, enable seamless returns across channels, and provide the personalized service that customers expected.
Aviator Nation has also taken advantage of Shopify's extensive app ecosystem to enhance every aspect of the customer journey. The brand implemented Checkout UI extensions to optimize conversions, with Checkout Blocks emerging as particularly valuable. They integrated Yotpo for social proof through reviews and Rebuy for strategic upsells, while Tapcart enabled them to launch a custom mobile app synced with their Shopify backend—giving customers another seamless way to shop and stay connected with the brand in a way that's convenient for them.
The flexibility and mobile capabilities of Shopify POS proved especially valuable for the brand's event activations. "We've processed upwards of 2,000-3,000 transactions a day at these music festivals with a card reader and an iPhone," says Curtis, highlighting how the solution has transformed the way Aviator Nation approaches events since they no longer need complex setups to create sophisticated commerce experiences.
The beauty of Shopify is it can be incredibly dynamic. Or you can have a wifi connection, an iPad and a card reader, and process thousands of transactions a day with just that simple technology.
The Results: Soaring growth across channels
The move to a truly unified commerce platform delivered real impact across Aviator Nation's entire operation. Customers can check out with speed and convenience anywhere they shop thanks to Shop Pay, which has seen adoption spike to 70% of transactions.
Curtis notes the compound effect that this payment option has had, saying, "When you're not having to put in your email address, you're not having to re-input your shipping address, the impact that has across conversion when you're processing hundreds of thousands of transactions a year is really meaningful. And we've seen that impact across the entire business, whether it's the digital side or the retail side. It's a huge benefit for us, but more so the customer."
Over 2,000 transactions, when you're saving 20 to 30 seconds by me and you not having to yell letters back and forth at each other, that's huge.
Unified data has changed how Aviator Nation connects with and engages their customers. "Brands need to have a deep understanding of who their customer is and how they want to interact with that brand. And Shopify, as our main partner, plays a large part in that," say Curtis. Aviator Nation can now segment customers based on complete purchase journeys across all touchpoints. This enables targeted marketing campaigns and personalized messaging unique to how each customer interacts with the brand, which was impossible with split systems.
We've come to realize that each of our customers has a unique relationship with the brand. Whether they met us at a retail store or they discovered us at a music festival or they came to a spin class, all of those are unique data points that we can understand about the customer. It's not even a question if that would be possible before we were on a unified platform.
It also means things like processing in-store returns for online orders are no longer an issue, and the team can offer new benefits to delight customers, such as providing same day shipping for items ordered online when the item is in-stock at a retail store. The team has found such capabilities have triggered more sales, and they now report shipping thousands of orders per month from retail store inventory to online customers.
As Curtis notes, today's retail customers increasingly pick where to shop based on how smooth the experience feels across channels. By removing friction at every touchpoint—from festival booths to flagship stores to online checkout—Aviator Nation has solidified the foundation for growth while retaining the authentic, community-driven experiences that define their brand and keep customers coming back.
When asked what the team would do without Shopify, Curtis replies with a smile in one word that says it all: "Retire." With Shopify, Aviator Nation is moving full speed ahead.
Adopting Shopify was a huge moment for Aviator Nation. If you look at our trajectory over the years, things really started to pick up after we migrated from disparate systems— Magento and Lightspeed POS—to Shopify.
