Success Story: How Studio M Migrated from Shopify to Adobe Commerce
Where They are Today
Based in St. Louis, Studio M creates remarkable outdoor products ranging from mailbox wraps to art poles, flags, and doormats. The family-run company has built its reputation by cultivating a creative, art-forward community.
Today, Studio M utilizes Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) to serve customers and retailers. With help from Blue Stingray, the company successfully migrated from Shopify without losing data or forcing customers to re-register for the new platform.
Introduction: Migrating from Shopify to Adobe Commerce
The team at Studio M needed a flexible, scalable eCommerce platform that could facilitate the growth of their business-to-business (B2B) offerings. While Shopify has a user-friendly interface, it has limited capabilities for customization, and the decision was made to migrate to Adobe Commerce.
In addition to its timeline goals, the Studio M team wanted to ensure a streamlined experience for existing customers. After all, successful eCommerce migrations should not depend on the end user.
The Problem: Migrating from Shopify to Adobe Commerce
Initially, Studio M worked with another firm to manage the migration. Unfortunately, the developers underperformed and missed deadlines.
While the firm was a U.S.-based marketing agency, they had no developers on staff. Instead, they relied exclusively on a rotation of overseas developers, which introduced substantial bottlenecks and communication issues.
Studio M contacted Blue Stingray, with the goal of completing the project while salvaging as much as possible of the initial developer’s work.
The Solution: Direct Communication and Intensive Discovery
To ensure a successful migration, Blue Stingray prioritized direct communication with the development team. All initial meetings were conducted by experienced Magento/Adobe Commerce developers — not routed through a hierarchy of project managers and helpdesk tickets. We communicated transparently throughout the project, which allowed Studio M to plan effectively.
Prior to development, we also completed an intensive discovery process to analyze the codebase. The goal was to find out what was missing, what would need to be rewritten, and how Studio M’s goals could be realized within the Adobe Commerce implementation.
The discovery process provided for an accurate timeline for the B2B launch. Our team broke the remaining work into several phases, which ensured that a minimum viable product (MVP) could be launched as soon as possible.
The Results
Blue Stingray established a working NetSuite connector, which allowed for the import of nearly 8,000 existing wholesale customer accounts. Customers would not need to re-register for the new website, and could begin placing orders immediately after launch.
Additionally, we rewrote a product personalization module from the ground up. The module showcases the customer-focused approach that prompted the move to Adobe Commerce — and while the project had stalled under the first development team for nearly a year, Blue Stingray was able to deliver the feature.
The Long Term: A Custom Adobe Commerce Implementation Designed for Sustainable Success
eCommerce platform migration can be a difficult process, even for experienced developers. Each project has unique challenges and goals, and outsourcing the work to overseas developers can result in significant delays.
Blue Stingray was able to help Studio M actualize its goals by migrating to a scalable, feature-rich eCommerce platform. Studio M has the necessary tools to grow its B2B offerings and provide customers with a greater degree of personalization — and perhaps most importantly, the company has a dedicated Adobe Commerce partner for making future improvements.
