Founded in 2005 by Nicola Elliott and Oliver Mennell, NEOM Wellbeing was born out of a mission to supercharge the wellbeing of their customers while making a positive impact on the planet. The NEOM journey began when Nicola started blending her own essential oils in her kitchen, initially for personal use and then for friends and family, eventually leading to the creation of the brand. NEOM offers a diverse range of wellbeing products designed to improve sleep, reduce stress, boost energy, and enhance your mood.
Today, NEOM Wellbeing operates across the UK, Europe and the US, combining their online presence with dedicated Wellbeing Hubs. With an increasing focus on unified experiences, personalisation, and global expansion, NEOM Wellbeing needed to enhance their digital and retail infrastructure to keep pace with the rapid growth they were enjoying.
Since upgrading, the brand has seen:
- Checkout conversion up 34%
- Order volume increase by 10%
Challenge: Scaling a multi-channel business while maintaining efficiency
NEOM Wellbeing first migrated to Shopify from Magento in 2018. The initial build served the business well, helping the founding team to significantly grow in the UK. However, as they expanded, the team knew they needed to take advantage of the latest technology and features on offer – an option their existing combination of off-the-shelf and custom setup could not offer any longer.
At the same time, the company's Wellbeing Hubs – dedicated and owned physical retail spaces that offer customers the chance to experience NEOM Wellbeing's product offering in person, such as a unique Scent Discovery Test – operated on a separate POS system to NEOM Wellbeing's online store. This made it difficult to gain a single and consistent view of inventory, pricing, and promotions across digital and in-store channels.
Combined, these restrictions were impacting customisation, performance and conversion rates. As Clare Jerome, Technology Product Manager, explains: "It's fair to say we got the most we could from our first build, but we were definitely ready for an upgrade to support us through the next phase of growth." Coinciding with a brand refresh, NEOM Wellbeing decided it was time to act.
Our previous site was becoming outdated, and we were missing out on some of the newest features on offer. We knew it was time for a full-scale upgrade to align with our growth strategy.
Solution: Upgrading and unifying the business
In 2023, NEOM Wellbeing migrated to the latest version of Shopify. Immediately they saw positive change, including optimised site speed, alongside enhanced flexibility and reliability to handle even the highest volume shopping periods.
One change that has made the biggest impact is the decreased reliance on custom development to create a unique offering for customers. Through Shopify Sections, the team can easily update, move and customise products, content blocks and even new pages much faster than via their previous build – offering a speedier and more cost effective solution.
Another significant appeal for NEOM Wellbeing to upgrade was the ability to tap into Shopify Subscriptions. Previously the team faced difficulties connecting different discounts across third party solutions, but now they can make use of the native Shopify Subscriptions app to seamlessly integrate and expand the service. Feedback from customers has been glowing in the four months since launch, leading to plans to explore gift subscriptions and other models in future, combining native and custom options.
Implementing Shopify POS across the Wellbeing Hub stores has also played a critical role for NEOM Wellbeing. From accepting online gift cards and offering promotions to onboarding customers onto the Neom Points loyalty program, developed using Loyalty Lion, the team have been able to adopt a unified commerce approach that allows them to gain deeper and richer insights into their customers. They have also been able to streamline aspects of the business, such as finance and operations. Offline payments through Shopify POS have also proved critical: several of the Wellbeing Hubs are situated in buildings where mobile and Wi-Fi connectivity can be challenging, but the retail teams can work with peace of mind knowing that they do not need to constantly be connected to take payments and fully support customers.
With Shopify POS in place, NEOM Wellbeing has streamlined retail operations, making it easier for store teams to manage transactions and for customers to have a frictionless and unified experience.
Results: Growth, efficiency, and a future-ready business
The flexibility and reliability of Shopify has allowed NEOM to grow at pace, adapting quickly to changing market conditions while maintaining the high standards of service and product quality their customers expect.
Upgrading has resulted in significant gains for NEOM Wellbeing across all metrics. Checkout conversions have increased 34%, coupled with a 10% increase in order volumes. It points to a strong future for NEOM Wellbeing, where they are able to focus on diversifying their high-street footprint, international scale and product offerings, without worrying about whether their commerce platform can support their ambitions.
We've tripled in size since we first started on Shopify, and the platform has grown with us. It gives us the flexibility, scalability, and the tools we need to keep pushing forward.
NEOM Wellbeing's international markets have also seen a boost, with sales in their EU and US expansion stores both growing. And, now that they can tap into the huge capabilities of Shopify Markets – such as expanding to international audiences in multiple languages and currencies.
NEOM Wellbeing has also recently created the Gift Builder. A customisation built on Shopify, it is a tool that enables customers to compile and create a bundle of complementary products to address their wellbeing needs. The team also has plans to elevate it further through continued journey optimisations and innovations.
Looking to the future
NEOM Wellbeing is planning for growth across all channels and markets. As Jerome explains: "The ability to open new stores with Shopify POS seamlessly integrated, providing a unified hub where we can monitor everything, represents a significant advancement."
As NEOM Wellbeing looks to continue expanding, they are exploring additional features that can help the brand to grow, such as Shopify Email, which helps merchants design and deliver segmented email marketing campaigns. Another is how they can incorporate AI through Shopify Magic, using Shopify Sidekick further to help them optimise, create discounts and reduce the manual burden on teams.
