Delicando
Shopify Plus Stores on a Single Platform
Products managed centrally from the ERP system
Months from Kickoff to Go-Live
Delicando, based in Weiz, Styria, is the premium gourmet portal for fine spirits and wine: over 10,000 products, including more than 2,000 whiskeys alone, as well as rum, gin, tequila, liqueurs, and a wide selection of wines. Sales are conducted almost exclusively online, serving both private customers in six countries and the foodservice and wholesale sectors, complemented by an on-site pickup store.
The Starting Point: A Store for Everyone Is a Store for No One
Delicando was selling through a proprietary e-commerce platform that had evolved over the years and was reaching its limits. The real challenge, however, lay in the business model: Three customer groups with completely different needs share the same product lineup. Retail customers want to browse, discover, and order conveniently. The foodservice sector places recurring orders in bulk and on its own terms. Wholesalers work with customized price lists, tiered pricing, and their own unique processes. And because prices, product ranges, and availability cannot be publicly mixed across customer groups, it was clear: a single store that shows everything to everyone cannot accurately reflect this. Added to this is an industry full of special rules: deposits on containers, excise taxes, price labeling requirements up to the Omnibus Directive, and, in Switzerland, advertising regulations that set their own rules for spirits. It was precisely this complexity that was the challenge.
The Concept: Separate Stores, Shared Foundation
During a joint concept phase, we worked with delicando to develop and approve a requirements and functionality overview that remains the foundation of the project to this day: each feature includes a description, a proposed solution, and clear accountability. Based on this, we made the architectural decision that defines the project: not a single store with workarounds and compromises, but four separate Shopify Plus stores that share a common foundation. Retail customers, the food service industry, wholesale, and Switzerland each get the platform that’s right for them, plus their own development store for risk-free testing.
To ensure that four stores don’t mean four times the work, the theme is housed in a shared repository: a single codebase rolled out to all stores via a CI/CD pipeline. New features and fixes reach every instance without anyone having to make the same changes four times. We started with a purchased theme, which we migrated to a professional development setup with version control, feature branches, and code reviews, and then thoroughly customized to align with the delicando brand. A deliberately pragmatic approach: The budget went toward the features that make delicando stand out, not toward reinventing the standard.
One ERP as the source, four stores as the stage
With 10,000 products, no one has to maintain data twice. Delicando’s merchandise management system remains the single source of truth: products, inventory, prices, and customer groups are automatically fed into all stores, while orders and customer data flow back. Overnight full synchronizations keep the catalog complete, and frequent delta syncs keep inventory and prices up to date. Deposit information is also integrated into this data flow: a single attribute from the ERP is all it takes, and our custom-developed Shopify function automatically adds the correct deposit amount to the shopping cart, with a link to the product tile and product page. Translations into four languages are handled via an automated pipeline that translates only the changes made each day. And the client’s marketplace integrations – from Google Shopping to price comparison sites – draw from the same data.
B2C: Browse 10,000 Products
A product range of this size is both a blessing and a curse: whoever helps customers find their way around will make sales. That’s why the consumer-facing store relies on an AI-powered search with smart filters, curated category entry points with a clear hierarchy and breadcrumbs, and brand pages that we’ve built as standalone, SEO-optimized pages rather than letting them languish as mere manufacturer listings. Added to this are the features that turn visitors into repeat customers: a wish list, product reviews, “back in stock” notifications for sold-out rarities, and a customer account with invoice downloads and cancellation requests directly from the order overview.
We’ve refined the price display down to the last detail: base prices, tax information, and strikethrough prices – consistently displayed across the storefront, shopping cart, checkout, and confirmation email. For a product range involving deposits and excise taxes, this isn’t just a nice-to-have – it’s the foundation for trust and legal certainty.
In terms of content, too, the shop is built for visibility: Category pages organize their SEO content in dedicated fields and only display sections when there’s actually content to show. The blog separates knowledge articles from recipes, and recipes automatically provide their structured data to Google. International visitors are seamlessly redirected to the appropriate market via IP detection, with a country and language selector that integrates seamlessly into the theme.
Optimized for Two Metrics: Conversion and Cart Value
From the very beginning, it was clear what the new store needed to be measured against: conversion rate and average order value. That’s why optimization isn’t limited to a single feature, but involves many steps throughout the entire customer journey. The progress indicator in the shopping cart shows how close the next goal is and turns shipping thresholds into an incentive rather than a surprise. Gift cards and store credit are redeemed directly in the shopping cart flyout, without having to go through checkout—a solution built using the Storefront API that isn’t available off-the-shelf. Bulk pricing and tiered discounts reward larger orders and directly boost the cart value. Password-free login removes the biggest hurdle for returning customers, while guest checkout does the same for new ones. And even those who don’t buy today remain reachable: via the wish list, back-in-stock notifications, and web push notifications—which work even without an email address.
B2B: Two Stores That Function Like Tools
The food service and wholesale industries place orders differently, so they get their own stores. Without logging in, the B2B stores display neither prices nor terms: Tiles, product pages, and the search function hide all sensitive information; the product schema does not pass prices on to search engines; and instead of a shopping cart button, a registration prompt appears. Only after approval by delicando does the store open – and it does so individually for each customer.
Behind the scenes, the actual engine is at work: Customer groups and terms come directly from the ERP. Which prices a customer sees, which volume discounts apply to them, and which payment methods are available to them: all of this is controlled by the customer profile, not by chance. Case prices on the product tile show “starting at X bottles” and automatically add the appropriate quantity to the shopping cart; on the product page, a volume discount table points the way to better terms. Minimum order values are tailored to each customer and are presented as a friendly reminder rather than a checkout error. Customers who need the price list can download it from their account or subscribe to receive it at their preferred frequency. And for anything not included in the standard product range, there’s the product inquiry feature – where customers can specify their desired quantity and price – sent directly from the product page to the sales team.
Discounts That Shopify Can’t Handle on Its Own
delicando’s complex discount logic requires custom Shopify Functions, as the standard platform is structurally unable to support these requirements. While retail customers use strike-through prices and personal discount codes (newsletter, welcome, birthday) – which apply only to non-discounted products – the foodservice sector relies on order-value tiers (always only the highest tier), which can be combined with payment method benefits and appear as a single consolidated discount line item at checkout. Wholesale, on the other hand, uses volume-based tiers per product as well as individual terms and conditions. Deposits and excluded items (via tagged collections) are always exempt from discounts. The system is supplemented by marketing codes created centrally in Shopify and country-specific sales rules secured on the server side during checkout.
Switzerland: When Advertising Law Shapes the Architecture
In Switzerland, strict rules apply to spirits: no promotions, no discounts, no advertising. Instead of riddling the international store with exceptions and special cases, we built the cleanest solution: a standalone Swiss store, deliberately streamlined, legally sound, and with its own minimum order value. Swiss customers are automatically directed to the store where everything is just right for them, and the rest of the shop remains free of compromises. This is exactly what the multi-store architecture is designed for: The fourth store wasn’t a new project, but rather another instance built on the existing foundation.
Migration Without a Clean Slate
An established online store has a history, and we couldn’t let that be lost. We migrated customer accounts without causing password chaos: Instead of forcing tens of thousands of customers to reset their passwords, the new store uses email codes for login. Keep your account, log in, and you’re done. Several years of order history were transferred so that regular customers could find their orders again and customer service wouldn’t have to start from scratch. Balances from the loyalty program were transferred as store credit, and gift cards retained their remaining value. And to ensure that the rankings built up over the years survived the move, every old URL was neatly redirected to its new home, including a curated migration of the most important blog content based on Search Console data.
The go-live itself was almost unspectacular, and that was exactly the plan: Following a soft launch of the ordering process, the big moment technically boiled down to a single DNS entry, with the entire team on standby.
The Result
Four stores that can be managed as a single system yet feel like separate shops for each customer group. Retail customers can browse 10,000 products in four languages, while the foodservice and wholesale sectors operate under their own terms and conditions behind the login, and the Swiss market runs on its own instance in full compliance with local regulations. The platform is live, continues to grow as it operates, and is being continuously refined by us: exactly as intended.
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