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DTC Shopify agency for business owners
When you sell direct, your store does the work a shop assistant, a stockist and a good review used to do for you. We design and build Shopify stores for direct-to-consumer brands that earn trust, tell your story and bring customers back.
5.0 ★ on Google · Shopify stores for Zourani, VYOLA and Thereza Pedrosa Gallery · Led by Karina Paviotti, who worked in product design at Uber, helping shape payment experiences for drivers.
Why it matters
What does a DTC Shopify agency do?
We plan, design and build the Shopify store a direct-to-consumer brand sells through: the strategy behind it, every page from home to checkout, and the emails that bring a first customer back. We work with business owners in fashion, beauty and lifestyle across the Netherlands and Belgium, and keep improving the store after launch.
DTC (or D2C) means direct to consumer: you sell your own product to your customer, on your own store, with no shop or marketplace in between. If you’d like the longer version, read What is DTC?.
Who it's for
When are we the right fit?
A good fit
We’re a good match when:
✓
You sell your own product, under your own name, and your Shopify store is (or will be) where most of it sells.
✓
The product is good and the store doesn’t show it yet. People who hold it in their hands love it. People who only see the site hesitate.
✓
You want someone to work out what your customers need to hear, not only make the store look better. Strategy comes first on every project.
✓
You care about the second order as much as the first. Retention is part of the store, not an afterthought.
✓
You’re the owner, and you decide. You’d rather work directly with the person leading your project than with an account manager.
Not for us
And honestly, we’re not the right fit when:
×
Most of your sales run through marketplaces or stockists, and the store is a side channel. Our work is your own store.
×
You need someone to run your ads. We don’t, on purpose. Sending more people to a store that isn’t selling yet only makes that problem more expensive. When the store converts, we’re happy to refer a media buyer we trust.
What's inside
Why does a DTC store have to work harder than a shop?
1. Earn trust before the sale
A first-time visitor doesn’t know you. They want to know the product works, that it fits, that it arrives, and that you’ll still be there if it doesn’t. On Zourani, a red light therapy brand, we explained how the technology works on the page, before anyone is asked to choose, and put a comparison against the best-known masks on their own product page. A shopper doesn’t have to leave the store to do that research somewhere else.
2. Tell the story no one else will tell
In a shop, someone can say “the founder makes these by hand.” Online, the page has to say it. VYOLA makes body jewelry by hand, made to measure, in an atelier in Belgium. It sold beautifully at events, where people could try a piece on. Online, the founder’s own story and the atelier became part of the store, because the maker behind the jewelry is part of why people buy it.
3. Answer the doubt where it happens
Made-to-measure is a risk for someone who can’t try it on first. So on VYOLA the fit guarantee sits right under the size input, not on a separate FAQ page. Our rule for every product page: the answer has to be where the doubt is.
4. Own the customer, and bring them back
Selling direct means the customer and the data are yours. That’s only worth something if the store uses it: a welcome email that continues the story, a reminder when someone leaves a cart, a request for a review after the order arrives. Those flows are what turn a first order into a relationship.
Before starting Design by Karina, Karina worked in product design at Uber, helping shape payment experiences for drivers. A driver typing in their bank details is deciding whether to trust the company. Your customer makes that same decision at checkout. Trust is designed before beauty.
What's inside
What’s included in a DTC Shopify store?
Strategy
A strategy session and a written brief: who is buying, what they need to believe, and what’s stopping them at checkout.
Positioning and customer journey: how people arrive (Instagram, search, a friend) and what each page has to answer for them.
A sitemap you approve before anything is designed.
Design and build
A store designed for your brand, not a template with your logo on it (The Atelier and Bespoke), or your brand placed properly into our system (The Launch).
Product pages that answer the doubt: benefits in order, sizing or usage where the question comes up, reviews, and the next thing to buy.
Brand pages that tell the story: your story, how it’s made, a real FAQ.
A checkout set up for your market: iDEAL and cards, shipping, taxes and EU-compliant policies, with branded order emails.
Mobile first, reviewed screen by screen, because that’s where most DTC traffic arrives.
Retention
Key email flows (The Atelier): a welcome series, an abandoned cart reminder and a review request after purchase, set up in the tool you own, such as Klaviyo or Shopify Email.
A sign-up with a reason to join, so your list grows from the first day.
Launch and after
Launch together, with a training video and 30 days of support.
The Growth Plan, if you want the store to keep improving every month. (see Shopify CRO)
Selling in Belgium too? A second language or market is added to your proposal, item by item. For several languages or markets, subscriptions or B2B pricing next to your DTC store, we plan a Bespoke project with you, phase by phase.
Pricing
What drives the cost of a DTC store?
Package and design depth
your brand in our system, or a store designed from scratch for your brand.
The number of products
and how complex they are (variants, made-to-measure, bundles).
Languages and markets
like Dutch, French and English for the Netherlands and Belgium.
Copy
polishing what you have, or writing the key pages from scratch.
Retention
whether email flows and reviews are set up as part of the project.
Moving from another platform
with your products, customers and order history.
Integrations
your operation depends on, like subscriptions or a stock system.
Good question for the call
Not sure which fits? That’s what the intro call is for.
How we work
How does a DTC Shopify project run?
1. Book the intro call
A free 30-minute call. You tell us about the brand, the store and what isn’t working, and we ask a lot of questions, because the real problem isn’t always the one you’d expect.
You: tell us where your sales come from and where customers hesitate.
We: give you an honest view, even if that view is that your store is fine for now.
2. Decide what it says
We work out who is buying, what they need to believe and what’s stopping them at checkout. That becomes a written brief and a sitemap, and you approve both before anything is designed.
You: share what customers ask you in DMs, at events and in emails.
We: turn those questions into the order of arguments on every page.
3. Design and build
Your pages are designed around that brief, then built on Shopify and tested on every screen size. Payments, shipping, policies and email flows are in place before launch, so the store is ready to sell from the first day.
You: review the design, send products and photos, and give feedback in rounds.
We: design, build, set up checkout and retention, and test every flow.
4. Launch, then learn
We launch together, and you get a training video and 30 days of support. With the Growth Plan, the store keeps improving every month after that, because the most useful information about a store only arrives once real customers start using it.
You: sell, and tell us what customers say.
We: watch how real visitors use the store and fix what costs you the most.
Selected work
DTC brands we’ve built for
Zourani
red light therapy, Netherlands and Belgium
VYOLA
made-to-measure body jewelry, Belgium
Thereza Pedrosa Gallery
contemporary art jewelry
The studio
Who will you work with?
5.0 ★ on Google.
Karina Paviotti is the founder of Design by Karina, a boutique Shopify agency in Rotterdam. Before starting the studio, she worked in product design at Uber, shaping payment experiences for drivers. Today she leads every project, from strategy to launch, for business owners in fashion, beauty and lifestyle.
That’s the point for a DTC brand: you work directly with Karina, so what you tell us on the call is what ends up in the store. More about the studio.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Not on the list?
Ask it on a call
Thirty minutes, free. You talk to Karina, not a salesperson, and by the end of the call you’ll know whether we’re a good fit. If we’re not, we’ll tell you that too.
Keep reading
Shopify store design
→
Shopify CRO and the Growth Plan
→
Shopify migration
→
Shopify for skincare brands
→
What is DTC?
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A product page that sells
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