Convert Digital's partnership with Ghanda began in 2021 with a headless Shopify Plus build, but has evolved into a strategic collaboration that continues to drive innovation and growth for the brand today. From being first-to-market with Shopify's checkout extensibility to implementing sophisticated omnichannel capabilities, this ongoing partnership has helped transform Ghanda from a small coastal surf wear brand into a leading Australian retail success story with over 100 retail stores.

Visit Ghanda’s site.

Born in the early 2000s in Torquay, Victoria, Ghanda distinguished itself among surfwear giants through hand-printed garments and authentic Australian design. 

When the pandemic forced store closures in 2020-21, Ghanda’s existing Magento platform couldn't keep pace with surging online traffic, and their small IT team struggled with technical limitations that hampered their creative vision.

"It was great having Blake Waldron, Convert’s Head of Engineering, involved from the start for all those things we didn't quite understand or even know we needed. We were very design-heavy with all the content we do in-house, so we knew what we wanted it to look like and how the site should function, but getting that into action, we needed a lot of help. Alex Healey (our account manager) and Blake were instrumental in that."

In 2021, Convert Digital launched Ghanda's new site—a fully custom, headless build on Shopify Plus delivering better average load time (-66%), bounce rate (-38%) and increasing revenue (+9.1%) within the first 12 months.

But that was only the beginning.

Initially, Ghanda approached Convert Digital to solve technical challenges. However, what started as a practical solution has since evolved into a strong strategic partnership that drives continuous innovation and growth.

Through weekly check-ins, the two teams stay closely aligned—not only on immediate projects but also on broader industry shifts and competitive trends. This regular cadence of collaboration has become a cornerstone of their partnership, inviting an open exchange of new ideas and enabling Ghanda to stay one step ahead of the market.

To bring structure and long-term focus into the picture, Convert Digital implemented an annual roadmap, which sets clear strategic priorities and keeps both teams accountable for measurable outcomes.

The move to a headless architecture has enabled Ghanda to scale its team and capabilities significantly. "We've grown from a really small team to adding several designers doing all our content— not just the website, but all our marketing, socials, and EDMs,” says Mel.

This capability growth has been matched by improvements in site performance and user experience. "With our CMS, we can make rapid changes, unlike the slow and approval-heavy process we had on Magento.”

Convert Digital has helped Ghanda stay at the forefront of ecommerce innovation. They became the first in the ANZ region to implement Shopify's checkout extensibility, and the implementation of the Checkout Components app has driven significant additional revenue through intelligent upselling. In fact, 1.2% of customers who check out now add an upsell product to their cart.

"The 'you might also like' feature at checkout brings in a significant amount of transactions just through that alone," says Mel. "We also add banners at checkout during high traffic periods or promos, which is really helpful for customers to understand things like Christmas cutoff dates."

One of Ghanda's key challenges was bridging the gap between its digital and physical retail operations. Convert Digital's Solutions Architect, Phill Blenkiron, identified this as a crucial opportunity for growth.

"Before, our retail world and online were two very separate things," says Mel. "We know our online customers well, but for stores, we had zero visibility.”

Acting on Convert Digital's strategic guidance, Ghanda is implementing a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to unify their customer data across all channels. "That's going to be a huge game changer," says Mel. "It means we can see the omnichannel experience of the customer in-store and online and then market to them the way they want to be marketed to. At the moment, we're just bulk sending emails and SMS, but we don't know how our customers prefer to be contacted."

Previously, Ghanda’s goal was growth. Now, with a substantial amount of customers and subscribers, the goal is retention.

Through structured weekly catch-ups and the annual roadmap, both teams remain aligned on strategic priorities and accountable for outcomes. As Mel puts it, "The last few years have just been getting on track and growing and making sure that we're keeping up with what our competitors are doing. Now that we know that we're there, we just want to refine and just make our processes better."

From November 2023–November 2024, Ghanda have experienced the following growth:

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