Sweet Water Decor began with a simple mission: to bring "attainable luxury" home decor to customers seeking to create beautiful, cohesive living spaces. Founded as a premium candle and home accessories brand, they quickly built a loyal following by offering high-quality products that help customers complete their home environments without breaking the bank.
But as the brand grew, founders recognized a dual opportunity. They could expand their reach by selling through other retailers without traditional wholesale complexities, while simultaneously offering their customers a complete home decor ecosystem by curating complementary products from trusted partners.
Sweet Water Decor found their solution in Shopify Collective, becoming both a successful supplier and strategic retailer on the platform. This dual approach has fundamentally transformed how they serve customers and scale their business. What's most remarkable is the consistency Collective has brought to their operations—maintaining live products for 649 out of 655 days since installation, creating a reliable revenue stream that operates seamlessly alongside their core business.
Since embracing Shopify Collective, Sweet Water Decor has achieved:
- 9% of total annual Shopify sales flowing through Collective across both supplier and retailer activities
- 126 total partnerships across both sides of their business—supplying products to 91 retailers while sourcing from 35 suppliers
- 655 days of sustained growth with consistent order activity
- 9-day time to value—from installation to first sale—proving rapid market validation
Challenge: Breaking Through Traditional Commerce Limitations
As Sweet Water Decor's popularity grew, they encountered the scaling challenges that many successful DTC brands face on both sides of their business.
On the supplier side, traditional wholesale relationships required significant upfront commitments from retail partners—minimum orders, inventory management, and complex payment terms that many potential partners couldn't accommodate. The brand was leaving money on the table and limiting their reach to only retailers with substantial resources who could house inventory themselves.
On the retailer side, Sweet Water Decor recognized a fundamental gap in their customer experience. While they excelled at candles and core home accessories, customers wanted to create complete room environments. The challenge was offering complementary products without the traditional challenges of inventory risk and managing relationships with dozens of suppliers.
We always market it as 'complement your Sweet Water Decor products with these curated finds.' We're really giving our customers the whole home decor variety that they need—you can grab a candle, you can grab a cute little tray to put it on, you can grab a vase to put next to it, you can grab flowers to put in that vase.
Solution: Streamlined Supplier Operations and Discovery-Driven Retail Expansion
Sweet Water Decor's approach to Shopify Collective leveraged both sides of the solution to solve their scaling challenges efficiently.
Sweet Water Decor created a sophisticated yet streamlined system for managing supplier relationships. They integrated Collective into their existing sales process by emailing wholesale customers about drop-ship capabilities, prominently featuring their Collective referral link on their website.
Their partner vetting process ensures quality relationships from the start. When requests come through, they carefully review each potential partner's website for brand alignment and business maturity. Beyond basic product sharing, Sweet Water Decor creates a personalized onboarding experience that builds lasting partnerships.
We provide a complete onboarding experience—sharing our price list for seamless integration and sending detailed welcome information so partners have a direct contact at our brand for any questions.
Notable partnerships like Decor Steals and Four Days came directly through Collective's discovery features, proving the platform's ability to generate qualified inbound interest from established retailers. Orders are managed directly in Shopify with calculated shipping rates, product details sync automatically, and the automated payment system removes administrative overhead.
It's honestly a set it and forget it system—98% of our catalog is available through one master price list, and orders flow seamlessly through our existing Ship Station fulfillment like any other Shopify order.
As a retailer, Sweet Water Decor's merchandising team uses Collective's Discover tool strategically to rapidly expand their catalog without inventory investment. Over 649 days of maintaining live products, they've proven that Collective serves as an effective testing ground for new categories, allowing them to validate customer demand.
Collective's discovery feature makes it incredibly easy to find specific item types we want to test or products we don't want to stock but still want to offer our customers.
The team has connected with 35 suppliers, including major players like Boutique Rugs, Walker Edison, and A Floral, allowing them to offer everything from area rugs to seasonal decor. This selective strategy has resulted in significantly higher-value transactions, more than three times higher than their supplier sales. This demonstrates their success in curating premium products that align with their "attainable luxury" brand positioning. They've created dedicated collections and integrated Collective products into their seasonal marketing campaigns, maintaining brand consistency while dramatically expanding their offering.
Most importantly, Collective serves as a testing ground for new categories, allowing them to validate customer demand before making manufacturing investments—either continuing with drop-ship if successful or investing in their own production based on proven market response.
Results: Transforming Business on Both Sides
Sweet Water Decor's dual approach with Shopify Collective has delivered impressive results across their entire operation, proving that strategic marketplace participation can drive growth without compromising operational efficiency.
Sweet Water Decor proved Collective's effectiveness immediately—installing on September 1, 2023, achieving live products within 7 days, and generating their first sale within just 9 days. This rapid success set the foundation for sustained long-term growth.
Their supplier operations represent most of their success. Simultaneously, as a retailer, Sweet Water Decor maintains 35 supplier partnerships, focusing on higher-value transactions that align with their brand standards. 32% of new customers are repeat purchasers, demonstrating strong acceptance of the curated product mix alongside their core offerings.
The partnership concentration metrics reveal the strength of their relationship-building approach, seamlessly creating a flywheel-effect. This demonstrates their success in identifying and nurturing high-value, long-term partnerships rather than managing numerous small relationships.
Collective has become our gateway to building meaningful vendor relationships—it's created mutual success opportunities where everybody wins.
Sweet Water Decor's experience demonstrates how forward-thinking brands can leverage solutions like Shopify Collective to transform both sides of their business simultaneously. By achieving significant scale while maintaining operational simplicity, they've created a template for sustainable, efficient growth in the modern commerce landscape.