Online store
The client
A maker of hand-poured soy candles, botanical soaps and car perfumes in India, selling online and taking custom orders for weddings, corporate gifts and festivals.
What they needed
Gaea Scents makes everything by hand. They needed a shop that felt as considered as the products, and a simple way to take the big custom orders that come in for weddings and gifting.
The hard part
Two very different kinds of customer use the same shop. Someone buying one candle wants to browse and pay in a minute. Someone planning a wedding may want 200 personalised gifts, a quote and a conversation. And a handmade brand loses its charm on a slow, generic store.
How we approached it
- 1
A theme of our own
We built the WooCommerce theme for the brand instead of adapting a bought one, so the collections, gift sets and product pages look like the products feel.
- 2
Two paths through one shop
The regular checkout for single orders, and a separate custom order page with a quote form and WhatsApp for the big ones. Custom orders start at 20 units.
- 3
Made fast
We moved the homepage's main image to WebP, which made it 69% smaller, loaded it first, and removed a cart script that held up every page.
- 4
Checked on the live site
The Our Story page had a finished design that never showed, because the template was named for a different page address. Nothing reported an error. We found it by checking what the live page actually rendered, and fixed it.
What we built
- A store designed around the products, with collections for candles, soaps and car fragrances.
- Checkout, customer accounts, order tracking and discount codes for seasonal offers.
- A custom order flow for weddings, events and corporate gifting, with a quote form and WhatsApp for quick questions.
- A theme built for the brand rather than bought off the shelf.