Client case study Use the arrow keys to move between sections.
A boutique for tween girls on the Upper East Side, made to feel like hers online and in the shop.
TROOP is a boutique for tween girls, with a shop on Third Avenue, an online store and pop-up events. It carries fashion, beauty and accessories from sixteen brands, from DL1961 and Emi Jay to iScream and Flowers by Zoe. ELYSIAN runs the commerce side of the business: the Shopify storefront, the catalog and barcodes behind the register, product imagery, Klaviyo email, and the point of sale.
- The brand
- Fashion, beauty and accessories for tween girls, in a Manhattan shop and online
- Platforms
- Shopify, Shopify POS, Klaviyo
- Our role
- Commerce and technology partner from catalog to launch, working directly in the store, with the founder signing off on key decisions
Shopify storefront
A store that feels made for her
TROOP's site runs on Shopify's Horizon theme. We customized the parts shoppers touch most, so sixteen brands browse like one boutique.
Plush Shorts
Forever Floral
4 colors
Plush Shorts
Beary Cute
Plush Shorts
Pretty in Pink
Plush Shorts
Blue Ditsy
iScream's Plush Shorts in a collection grid, sketched with their real photos.
Every color gets its own card
Many pieces come in several colors, and a collection grid used to show only one of them. Now each colorway appears as its own card, with its own photo and link, so shoppers see every color while they browse.
A product only splits once every color has a photo, so a color never drops out of the grid.
Switch views to compare.
Chaser
Girl Power Sweatshirt
Size
The whole size run, not just what's on the shelf
Product pages list every size the brand makes, in the brand's own order, with sizes TROOP doesn't carry shown as out of stock. The lists come from each brand's own website, or from its stockists where a brand has no shop.
A brand's list is skipped for any product with a size that isn't on it, so a product never shows the wrong sizes.
Navigation
A stacked menu built to the founder's own list, in her words: Knits, Jewels, Undies. Empty categories stay hidden until stock arrives, dropdowns wait for the pointer to rest before they open, and a pink ribbon underline draws in under each heading.
Feature cards in the menu
Hand-picked editorial cards inside the dropdowns replace Horizon's automatic product images, and the phone menu gets a swipeable row of them. All of it is editable in the theme editor.
A homepage that's always shoppable
Product rows of up to six that leave out sold-out pieces, so every product shown can go straight in the bag.
Birthdays & Private Shopping
Party content across the site became Birthdays & Private Shopping, with a route to book a private shop through the contact page.
Accessibility
An accessibility page that says plainly what the site meets, what's still in progress, and how to get help placing an order. No overlay widget.
Invoices that look like TROOP
Special orders get a branded invoice email and checkout, and a personal note from the shop when there is one.
Custom shopping tools
Tools that make shopping feel like play
Three features built into the theme with no extra apps: a gift builder, an outfit shuffler and an illustrated neighborhood guide.
A working sketch of the shuffle, using real TROOP gift pieces. Keep a piece and the rest re-spin.
Make Your Gift
A gift builder that starts with three taps: her vibe, what she's into, and a budget. It builds a set from what's in stock, or shoppers can start from six curated sets, such as Pretty in Pink and Spa Night In.
Surprise me reshuffles the set, and Keep holds a piece while the rest re-spin. The whole set goes in the bag in one tap, and each item is marked on the order so the shop knows it belongs to a gift.
The Troop Girl's Guide to the UES
A neighborhood page with TROOP and eleven favorite spots nearby, grouped into Shop, Eat, Do and Treat Yourself.
The map is drawn in code, in TROOP's own colors and fonts. It stays sharp at any size, reads every address to screen readers, and is regenerated whenever a spot changes, as it was when Butterfield Market joined the list.
Shop
1Troop
2KatieJNYC
3Terez on Lex
Eat
4EJ's Luncheonette
5Mezzaluna
6J.G. Melon
Do
7Rowan
8Lip Lab
9ColorPop Workshop
Treat Yourself
10Mimi's
11Van Leeuwen
12Butterfield Market
The map from the live page. Point at a spot to find it.
The Mix
An outfit shuffler on its own page: spin tops, bottoms and extras into a look. A card on the homepage invites shoppers in.
Gifting beyond accessories
Pajamas, cozy pieces and off-duty weekend clothes joined a Gifts collection that had held only accessories, beauty and slippers. Dresses and jeans were left out on purpose, because fit matters more.
Gift wrap in the bag
A tick box in the cart drawer adds gift wrap, which rings up as its own item online and on the register.
Catalog and merchandising
One catalog the register and the website both trust
Everything TROOP sells, in the shop or online, comes out of one Shopify catalog, so the product data has to be right before a piece reaches the shelf.
A code on every tag
Every item has a code built the same way: vendor, style, color and size. That code is also its barcode, so every tag scans at the register. Before, none of the products had a barcode.
New stock arrives as supplier emails, order sheets and screenshots. We turn each one into import files, check it against the order, and prepare a label checklist for tagging.
Real codes from the catalog, drawn as Code 128 barcodes.
The Tops collection before and after, one photo per product.
Collections sorted by color
The old order, mostly Shopify's automatic sort, scattered colors and split up matching sets. Twenty-eight collections are now hand-ordered by color, from white and cream through pinks and blues to black, with prints last and each top followed by its matching bottom.
Sold-out pieces stay visible at the end of their color group, so each group opens with something you can buy.
No photo, no website
Pieces without a photo sell in the shop but stay off the website until a photo arrives.
Descriptions in TROOP's voice
Product descriptions were rewritten to one standard: a short intro, a features list, fabric and care, sizing where the brand gives it, and a brand, style and color footer. Every fact comes from existing copy, the brand's or a stockist's site, or the photos.
Collections that fill themselves
New smart collections built from tags, product types and title words, so new stock lands in the right part of the menu automatically.
Product imagery
Every card in the same clean frame
Photos arrive from each brand in its own style: studio, lifestyle, flat lay. We set one standard for the product card and brought 80 products up to it.
Mickey Cream Studded Cardigan
Studio backdropBackground made white, centered
Sam Silver Sequin Dress
Studio backdropBackground made white, centered
Black Track Pant
Skatepark photoThe brand's flat on white leads
Maya Taupe Sweater
Chair prop and boots in frameThe brand's flat on white leads
One standard for every product card
We checked 164 hero and color photos against the 4:5 product card, looking for busy backgrounds, faces cut off at the edge, off-center subjects and low resolution. 101 new 1600 × 2000 images went onto 80 products, each centered on white, and 183 variants now point to the right photo.
Where a brand had a flat shot on white, it replaced lifestyle photos taken at playgrounds, skateparks and football fields. The originals stay in the store's files.
Switch the photos above to compare.
Photo requests that set the bar
Requests for missing photos list each product's brand page, the file name to use and a minimum size, so low-resolution thumbnails stay off the site.
Photos matched to colors
Color photos are attached to their variants, so choosing a color on a product page shows that color.
Klaviyo email
A welcome worth signing up for
We built TROOP's sign-up and email program in Klaviyo and wrote every message in the brand's voice, which its style guide sums up as a friend texting good news.
- 1EmailFirst dibs on new drops and member-only perks.
- 2Birthday, if she likes"Birthdays are a big deal here."
- 3Welcome"You're in, Trooper!" and a personal code for 10% off.
A two-step sign-up
The pop-up asks for an email first, then an optional birthday, then shows a personal 10% code that's good for 14 days. Taking the email first means the sign-up counts even if she skips the birthday.
The artwork was chosen from two rounds of illustrated panels and also heads the day-10 reminder email, so the pop-up and the inbox read as one campaign.
Welcome series
When someone joins the list
- You're in, Trooper.
- 2 days
- A little about Troop
- 2 days
- Still thinking it over?
- 6 days
- Your 10% expires in 4 days
Birthday
On her birthday, each year
- Happy birthday, Trooper.
Unfinished checkout
Started checkout, didn't order
- 4 hours
- You left something behind
- 20 hours
- Second thoughts, or just a busy day?
- 2 days
- Last call on your bag
Items left in cart
Added to cart, didn't check out
- 4 hours
- Good eye.
- 20 hours
- Still thinking about it?
After an order
Placed an order online
- 1 day
- Thank you — from all of us at Troop
- 10 days
- Show us how she styled it
One email, never two
Shopify's own marketing emails are switched off wherever a Klaviyo flow takes over, so nobody gets the same reminder twice. Order and shipping emails stay in Shopify.
A deadline that's real
The welcome offer is a percentage with a 14-day deadline, so a small accessory never sells below cost, and the day-10 reminder is always telling the truth.
A voice guide for every message
A writing guide for email, texts and site copy, with the brand's phrases, a list of things TROOP never says, and before-and-after rewrites.
A signature to match
A branded email signature for the founder, with step-by-step setup for Mac and iPhone and a fix for the way Apple Mail resized it.
Point of sale and operations
Ready for the register and the road
Shopify POS runs the register for the shop and for pop-up events. We set up the register side so every sale, wherever it happens, lands in the same system.
Tagged before the first event
Every product had a barcode and a printable label checklist, sorted by brand, ready for tagging before TROOP's first event.
Pop-ups as their own locations
Since the Miami pop-up, each event runs as its own dated location in Shopify, so event stock and sales stay separate from the shop's.
Two states, one register
For a one-day event in Miami we set up Florida sales tax alongside New York's, checked it on every order, then moved the stock back and closed the location the next day.
New York tax, checked
Clothing and shoes under New York's exemption sell tax-free while accessories are taxed, confirmed with a test order rather than a settings screen.
A full backup before launch
A verified snapshot of the store before launch: products, collections, pages, menus, media, policies and theme files.
How we work
Careful with every release
We work directly in TROOP's Shopify and Klaviyo accounts, so the process matters as much as the output.
Approved first
Every change is reviewed before it goes live, and the founder signs off on the big pieces, from review sheets for the sign-up artwork to a draft theme she can click through.
Easy to undo
Theme releases are built and tested on a copy of the live theme, and the previous version stays in the theme library to restore. Collection orders are backed up before they change.
Checked live
Releases are checked on the real store, and before launch every page and internal link was crawled to make sure it loads.
Asked, not guessed
When a size, code or price would otherwise be guessed, we flag it and ask the founder rather than assume.
See the work in place
The storefront, the gift builder and the neighborhood guide are live on shoptroop.com. The shop is at 1260 Third Avenue, between 72nd and 73rd Streets.