Small outdoor and adventure businesses like kayak schools, campsites, fishing guides, rafting companies and conservation orgs. If your clients are on a river or a mountain, we get it.

What makes you different from other agencies?

We specialise in outdoor businesses and actually understand the industry. Plus we use AI tools to deliver agency-quality work at freelancer prices. No massive overhead, no account managers. Just direct access to someone who gives a damn.

Website Care plans start from €29/mo depending on your site's traffic and requirements. SEO & Growth starts at €99/mo. New website builds are a one-time project from €500. No hidden fees, no long contracts — we'll give you a clear quote upfront.

Do you only work with outdoor businesses?

Primarily, yes. It's our niche and we're good at it. But if you're a small business that needs honest digital help, get in touch. We'll tell you straight if we can help.

How do I get started?

Book a free 30-minute call or run our website audit. We'll look at what you have, tell you what needs fixing, and give you a clear quote. No pressure, no upsell.

Why We Migrated Our Client from WooCommerce to Shopify

When Source to Sea, a whitewater kayak shop based near Innsbruck, Austria, came to us with a struggling WooCommerce store, we knew a platform change was the right move. Here's how we approached the migration and what we learned along the way.

Why the Switch?

WooCommerce is a powerful platform, but it's not the right fit for every business. For Source to Sea, the pain points had become hard to ignore:

Plugin Fatigue Their WooCommerce setup relied on over 20 plugins for basic e-commerce functionality — payment gateways, shipping calculators, inventory management, SEO tools, security patches. Every WordPress or WooCommerce update risked breaking something, and plugin conflicts were a regular headache.

Performance Issues Product pages were loading slowly, especially on mobile. WooCommerce's reliance on a traditional PHP/MySQL stack meant every page request hit the database. Combined with unoptimised images and render-blocking scripts from various plugins, the shopping experience felt sluggish.

Maintenance Overhead As a small team running kayak courses and camps across the globe, Source to Sea didn't have time to manage server updates, security patches, and plugin compatibility. They needed a platform that worked out of the box.

Why Shopify?

We evaluated several options — Shopify, BigCommerce, and even a headless setup with Next.js and the Shopify Storefront API. For this client, standard Shopify made the most sense:

**Managed infrastructure** — no servers to maintain, automatic security updates
**Built-in payment processing** — Shopify Payments with support for European payment methods
**App ecosystem** — curated integrations that are less likely to conflict
**Admin simplicity** — the team could manage products, orders, and inventory without developer help

The Migration Process

1. Product Catalogue Export We exported all products from WooCommerce including variants, pricing, descriptions, images, and inventory levels. Source to Sea carries kayaks from brands like Pyranha, Waka, DragoRossi, and Werner — each with multiple size and colour variants that needed careful mapping.

2. Custom Theme Build Rather than using a stock Shopify theme, we customised the Warehouse theme to match Source to Sea's brand. This included custom product card layouts, a special order system for backorder items with flexible delivery timelines, and a clean navigation structure organised by product category.

3. SEO Preservation One of the biggest risks in any migration is losing search rankings. We set up 301 redirects from every old WooCommerce URL to its Shopify equivalent. This preserved link equity and ensured existing customers could find products without hitting dead ends.

4. Testing and Launch We ran both stores in parallel for a week, testing the checkout flow, payment processing, and order fulfilment workflows before cutting over to the new domain.

Key Takeaways

**WooCommerce isn't always the answer.** It's flexible and open-source, but that flexibility comes with complexity. For small teams that need to focus on running their business rather than managing a tech stack, a managed platform like Shopify can be the better choice.

**Migration doesn't have to be scary.** With proper planning — especially around URL redirects and data mapping — you can switch platforms without losing traffic or breaking your customer experience.

**Custom doesn't mean complicated.** Shopify's theme system allowed us to build a store that looks and feels custom without the maintenance burden of a fully bespoke solution.

What Comes After Migration

Migration is the foundation — not the finish line. Once Source to Sea was on Shopify, we started looking at what AI could automate for them. Product descriptions, SEO metadata, abandoned cart recovery, customer engagement — all of these can be handled by AI systems that run continuously without adding headcount.

This is where we think e-commerce is heading: platforms like Shopify handle the infrastructure, and AI handles the operations. The business owner focuses on what they know best — in this case, kayaking.

Is It Time to Switch?

If you're running a WooCommerce store and spending more time managing plugins than selling products, it might be time to consider a migration. The key questions to ask:

- Are plugin conflicts costing you time or sales? - Is your site performance hurting conversions on mobile? - Does your team have the capacity to maintain a self-hosted platform? - Would your business benefit from a simpler, more predictable tech stack?

If you answered yes to two or more of those, a migration could be worth exploring. We've been through the process and know how to do it without the headaches.