E-COMMERCE · 2025 - ONGOING
MiKi
Jewellery
A national brand hiding behind a small website. So we built one that told the real story.
An ocean-inspired jewellery label from Dunsborough, designed in-house and stocked in surf shops and boutiques across Australia, with a website that gave no hint of any of it. This is the story of a full Shopify rebuild, and the strategy that put the designer back at the centre of the brand.
ENGAGEMENT
Strategy + Rebuild + Ongoing
PLATFORM
Shopify
ROLE
Strategy · UX · Design · Build · SEO
TIMELINE
2025 · Ongoing
SECTOR
D2C Jewellery & Retail
01 Background
Miki Jewellery has been making ocean-inspired jewellery from Dunsborough since day one, every piece designed in-house on the South West coast.
Necklaces, rings, earrings and bracelets in gold and silver, shaped by shells, waves and the coastline they come from. What started as a local label has grown into a national brand, stocked in surf shops and boutiques around Australia, with founder Nicola still designing every piece herself.
The website hadn't kept pace with any of it. The old store worked, but only just. Navigation was cluttered, collections were hard to browse, and nothing on the site told you the one thing that sets Miki apart, that the jewellery is designed in-house by the founder, not pulled from a catalogue. Customers landing on the site saw a generic jewellery store. Miki Jewellery, despite everything behind it, looked like everyone else.
02 Our Approach
The strategy came before the design.
Three decisions did the most to define what got built.
01
Positioning
Make the designer the story.
Nicola designs every piece in-house, and the old site never said so. That became the north star for the whole rebuild. The in-house design process was pulled out of the background and made the brand's clearest differentiator, with a dedicated In-House Design page and messaging woven through the site, so a first-time visitor understands within seconds that this isn't a catalogue brand.
02
Architecture
Structure the site around how people actually shop.
Keyword research and UX workshops shaped the navigation before a single page was designed. Collections were reorganised around real search demand and genuine browsing behaviour rather than internal logic, with clear paths by product type, metal and design. The result is a structure a new customer can navigate without ever having met the brand.
03
UX
Treat it as a considered purchase, not a quick sale.
Miki sits at a price point where customers browse, compare and come back. So instead of pushing quick-buy shortcuts, the build invested in strong product pages: a custom gold-and-silver swatch system linking sibling products, structured specifications for materials, dimensions and water resistance, and reviews where they carry weight. Fewer gimmicks, more confidence at the moment of decision.
03 How We Delivered It
Launched June 2026, with every product accounted for.
At a glance
400+ products migrated to a premium Shopify theme
Custom gold and silver swatch system across sibling products
Reviews, email marketing, returns and wholesale integrations
Markup-based review workflow
The new store was built on Shopify's Pipeline theme, chosen for its retail-first design and strong collection browsing. Over 400 products were migrated using bulk import tooling, each with cleaned-up data, structured specifications and SEO-optimised metadata. Custom development included a gold and silver swatch system that links sibling products, so customers can flick between metal options without leaving the page, and a specifications layout covering materials, dimensions and water resistance.
The wider stack came across too. Reviews were migrated to Judge.me, Klaviyo was wired into the checkout and back-in-stock flows, returns run through Redo, and wholesale customers get their own access via Wholesale Gorilla. Site review was managed through Markup rather than long email chains, so feedback stayed pinned to the exact element it referred to. The site went live in June 2026.
BEFORE · 2025
AFTER · 2026
From placeholder to platform. The WordPress site it replaced had little more than contact details. The rebuild preserved the SEO equity and gave the business a storefront that matches its standing.
What it produced
A step Craig described as “like night and day” from where the company started. The numbers agree.
+134%
Search visibility more than doubled in the five months after launch.
Search visibility measured across the tracked keyword set from the original research. Order growth measured against the store's own launch forecast.
+180%
Online orders a month at peak, nearly triple what was forecast when the store was scoped.
“We are very impressed with our new website and online storefront. Kirstie brings her energy and creativity to every project and has achieved a fantastic result for our company.”
— Craig Abud · Co-director, Niche Medical
04 How We Continue Working Together
The relationship didn't end at launch. It shifted shape.
Ongoing maintenance was scoped into the original engagement. In practice, that has meant a steady cadence of work that goes well beyond the launch project.
Late 2025
Site goes live
SEO equity migrated. 18-product Commerce store launched. Stripe + PayPal payments configured.
December 2025
First e-newsletter
Campaign to 1,600 customers. Traffic doubled month-on-month. Walked through the analytics together.
February 2026
CSAT in email signatures
Smiley-face rating system across the team. CNAME, SPF and TXT records configured end to end.
Ongoing
Cadence, not contract
Updates, additions and tech work happen as needed — without a separate management agreement.
Kev put it most plainly when he asked us to skip the quoting on smaller pieces of work and "just do it." That kind of trust is earned both ways.
The work moves faster, and we make sure it's worth the latitude.
Not everything we do is website work in the strict sense. The CSAT rollout was email and DNS configuration. The newsletter analytics walkthrough was a phone call.
It's the broader tech work the team trusts us to take care of — because we're already there, and we already know how the pieces fit.
Looking for a more considered approach to your website? If you value clear thinking, thoughtful design, and a site that reflects the professionalism of your business, you should get in touch.
NEXT PROJECT