Founded in 2008 by best friends Adrian Norris and Edwina Forest, Aje began as a coastal lifestyle brand known for its natural fibres, easy shapes, and quintessential Australian aesthetic. Over the past 16 years, the brand has grown into the Aje Collective, encompassing multiple brands, including Aje, Aje Athletica, and their latest addition, Aje Studio.

The launch of Aje Studio in 2024 marked a return to the brand's roots, offering accessible luxury with a coastal lifestyle focus. This strategic expansion formed the need for a complete digital transformation. 

With their existing Shopify site unchanged since 2020, Aje needed a sophisticated digital platform that could not only support the launch of Aje Studio but also provide the foundation for their ambitious multi-brand, international future. They needed a partner who could deliver both technical excellence and strategic insight—leading them to Convert Digital.

Check out the beautiful Aje World website.

Aje faced several challenges that needed addressing:

Content Showcase Limitations

"We're such a content-rich brand. Our marketing team does an amazing job shooting all of our pieces every season, and we have so much amazing content that we create in-house and influencer content," says Rhyanna. "Our old website just couldn't handle the size of the files or showcase the content the way we wanted."

Multi-Brand Scalability

With Aje Studio's launch on the horizon and plans for international expansion, they needed a platform capable of:

• Housing multiple brands under one seamless shopping experience
• Supporting cross-brand merchandising and shopping
• Delivering consistent brand presence across all touchpoints
• Handling increased traffic and content demands

Technical Optimisation

The existing website faced several technical limitations:

• Site speed issues affecting user experience
• Reliance on costly third-party apps for basic functionality
• Limited ability to showcase rich content while maintaining performance
• Addressing the technical debt accumulated over the years 

Convert Digital undertook an ambitious 19-week transformation of Aje's digital presence on Shopify Plus. One of the big focus areas was optimisation to reduce the total cost of ownership and reduce historical technical debt.

"We worked with Convert to build things natively through Shopify to reduce our reliance on third-party apps," explains Rhyanna. "For example, our 'Find in Store' CTA on our PDP previously ran through a costly app. We knew Shopify had a native solution, so Convert Digital built it fresh for this website, resulting in significant cost savings."

This approach of streamlining rather than adding new technology guided the entire rebuild, with Convert Digital optimising the existing tech stack to reduce third-party app dependencies while maintaining core functionality.

Aje Collective continues to harness the following all-star-stack: Klaviyo, Yotpo, Searchspring, Tolstoy, Loop, Gorgias, Refundid, WAIR, Swym, and Checkout Components for checkout upsells. They also work closely with digital agency, Elephant Room, for their ongoing performance marketing.

The project kicked off with an intensive four-week design phase, involving eight rounds of designs across multiple-page templates. "We looked at the designs pretty much once a day every day for the whole four weeks," says Rhyanna. "We wanted it to be super sleek, clean, easy to use, and show off all our stunning pieces so that our customers could get that real brand presence and understanding as soon as they landed on the site."

The collaborative effort brought together key stakeholders from both Aje Collective and Convert Digital, including Aje's marketing director, creative director, senior graphic designers, and ecommerce team, making sure the platform would serve both aesthetic and practical needs. 

"We wanted our whole team’s input because they're creating and manipulating the content to fit the website every week," says Rhyanna. "We wanted it to be easy and efficient for them to do their jobs as well as looking beautiful as a whole."

As a content-rich brand known for its extensive in-house photography and influencer collaborations, the new platform needed to support sophisticated content presentation. The team designed a flexible architecture capable of handling high-resolution imagery and varied content formats while maintaining optimal site speed and performance.

"Our old website just couldn't handle the size of the files or showcase the content the way we wanted," says Rhyanna. The new platform provides advanced capabilities for presenting: seasonal campaign photography, in-house created content, influencer collaborations and cross-brand merchandising.

The success of the project was built on Convert Digital's deep understanding of Aje's business. "Because we've worked with them for about two years, they're very cluey about what our business objectives are and what our day-to-day BAU is like," says Rhyanna. "Each ticket or project we launch with them, they can provide the right advice because the developers and account managers have so much knowledge of our business. That's such a benefit as opposed to working with a freelancer every time you need development done."

The ongoing partnership continues to deliver value through Convert's proactive approach.

The new website launched successfully alongside Aje Studio, delivering significant improvements in user experience and business performance. "Our customers are really responding well to our new site. We're seeing growth in our key ecommerce statistics. Everything can be showcased beautifully on the new site," says Rhyanna.

One month on from launch, the site saw:

With the new platform in place, Aje is focusing on expanding its global presence. Working with Convert Digital, they're implementing features to localise the experience for international customers, including:

• Local currency pricing beyond USD

• Region-specific payment methods (like local buy-now-pay-later options)

• Market-specific shipping rates

• Customised messaging per region

This global expansion particularly targets growing markets like Canada, the UK, and Singapore, where the brand sees significant opportunities for growth. The new Shopify Plus platform provides the foundation to support these ambitious international plans while maintaining the seamless, content-rich experience that defines the Aje brand.

Looking to enhance your online presence, grow your conversion rate, drive more revenue, and more? Reach out to the team at Convert Digital via hello@convertdigital.com.au to see how we can help.