From legacy custom website to modern retail engine — how Chimes unlocked its next chapter

Chimes Home & Garden — Essex’s largest indoor and outdoor furniture showroom — came to Due North with a business ready to grow and a digital operation that was getting in the way. Here’s how we helped them change that.

2x meta ads conversion rate. Backed up with increases across all other channels

Unified online and in-store customer journey via Shopify POS

3D customised pergola builder built from scratch based on exact customer needs

Brand Overview

Chimes Home & Garden has been operating from its showroom in Essex, alongside its ecommerce store since 2019.

Chimes specialises in premium, high-quality Home & Garden furniture. The business has built a strong reputation for offering stylish, durable products backed by exceptional customer service.

However, the legacy technology supporting the Chimes had begun to stunt business growth.

The challenge: a business punching below its weight online

Chimes approached Due North with a clear bottleneck: paid advertising and SEO were generating strong traffic, and brand awareness was climbing. But they were struggling to convert that demand into revenue online while managing an increasingly fragmented backend operation.

1. Poor Conversion Performance
While traffic was increasing, the website experience was leaking revenue. Customers buying high-ticket items encounter unique psychological friction during the buying journey—specifically when researching dimensions, variations, and visualising how a product will look in their space. The legacy site failed to address this.

2. Platform Limitations
The existing custom-built platform was restrictive, slow, and expensive to maintain. Launching a simple weekend promotion, updating product lines, or running a layout test required heavy developer involvement and costs. Checkout outages were all-too-frequent, and product discoverability was being held back with limited search and navigation functions.

3. Disconnected Operations
Ecommerce, physical showroom retail, and warehouse inventory systems were running completely independently of one another. This fragmentation created constant stock discrepancies, duplicated manual accounting entry, and gave customers a poor journey via their online and offline channels.

The blueprint: a full platform migration and a new way of working

We helped Chimes to migrate from their custom build onto Shopify — rebuilding their digital presence from the ground up with a focus on conversion, content flexibility, and operational efficiency. Then we kept building.

Increased conversion rate with a modern Shopify storefront

A modern, high-performance website designed to replicate the quality of the in-store experience — and built to be managed by the Chimes team without agency dependency.

Higher check out rates with robust, modern checkout

Shopify’s native checkout with digital wallet support and built-in abandoned cart recovery — removing friction at the point of purchase and recapturing lost revenue automatically.

Single view of customers with in-store POS

In-store and online joined up properly for the first time — giving Chimes a single view of customers, stock and transactions across their physical and digital presence.

Improved stock & accounting control with ERP integration

Cin7 integration alongside custom app development for stock control and in-store printing — replacing manual processes with a connected, digital-first operation.

Tailored customer experience with bespoke 3d pergola builder

Pergolas represent one of Chimes’ fastest-growing and highest-margin product categories. We designed and built an interactive, fully custom 3D product configurator into their Shopify Plus store.

Protected SEO with detailed migration plan

Platform migrations carry real ranking risk. We managed the transition to protect existing organic visibility and built the foundations for long-term search growth on the new platform.

The results: doubling down on what was always there

Since moving to Shopify, the conversion rate on Chimes’ Meta advertising has more than doubled. With a proper checkout, faster site performance, and a brand presence that matches the quality of the products, paid traffic is finally converting the way it should.

The operational picture has changed just as meaningfully. Manual processes that were eating time are now automated. In-store and online now feel like the same business. And the Chimes team can manage their own website — updating offers, products and content — without waiting on an agency.

“Since moving to Shopify, our Meta advertising performance has more than doubled. With a proper checkout, faster site performance, and a brand presence that matches the quality of the products, paid traffic is finally converting the way it should.”

Lee Brightman, Chimes Home & Garden

Looking to scale your ecommerce brand? Get in touch for advice.

Whether you are trapped on an inflexible custom platform, struggling to connect your physical retail with your website, or looking to build advanced bespoke features to lift your AOV, our sector-specialist team can help.