Engagements Services, Engagements and Starting Points for Premium and Luxury Brands.
Services and Disciplines
Seven disciplines, from brand and user experience to Shopify Plus development and marketing creative, held together by one creative direction so the parts read as one.
Every store is built on a set of decisions about the brand: where it stands against its competitors, who it is for, and how it should feel to the people who buy from it. We establish those decisions first, or build on strategy work a brand has already done, and translate them into the tone of voice, typography, image direction and content approach the store is designed against.
For brands whose identity is settled, this is a short alignment phase at the start of a project. For brands still defining themselves digitally, it is the foundation that keeps every later decision consistent and deliberate.
A store is judged in seconds, and the judgement is visual before it is functional. Creative direction holds editorial pacing, photography, typography and copy to one standard across every touchpoint, from the homepage to the order confirmation.
The common failure is drift. Each addition is reasonable on its own; a promotional banner here, a new template there, and within a year the store no longer looks like the brand. Creative direction runs from the first concept to launch and continues through every partnership, so the standard is maintained rather than periodically restored.
Good user experience starts with the customer, not a template. A brand selling limited drops to a loyal community needs a different store from a house selling considered, high-value pieces; one rewards speed and discovery, the other confidence and detail. We design navigation, merchandising, collection and product pages, cart and checkout around how a brand's customers actually browse and buy.
Every page is designed rather than configured, and every decision is tested against the customer it serves. The result is a store that feels right to the people it is built for, rather than one that follows a generic idea of best practice.
Conversion work begins with an audit of the whole store: navigation and search, collection and product pages, cart and checkout, account and post-purchase journeys, site speed and the analytics behind them. We prioritise changes by their likely commercial effect, design and develop them, and put measurement in place to see what moved.
The right changes depend on the brand. For some, the opportunity lies in speed and clarity at checkout; for others, in confidence on the product page or the quality of returning customers. We measure what matters to the business, from conversion rate and order value to full-price sell-through and repeat purchase, rather than chasing a single number.
Most store problems are decided before design begins: in the structure of the catalogue, the choice of markets and currencies, the apps the store depends on and the team that will run it. We set those foundations with the brand, from how collections are organised to how international customers are served and which integrations earn their place.
The plan shapes both the design brief and the build, so the store a brand launches is one its team can operate, extend and measure from the first day.
We build on Shopify and Shopify Plus, often using a customised Shopify theme approach that gives a brand a distinctive store on a proven foundation, with fully custom theme work where the brief requires it. The build covers store configuration, markets and localisation, integrations with reviews, loyalty, subscriptions and email, and content upload, tested with real products rather than placeholders.
Design and development run as one process, with the build reviewed against the design at every stage; the live store matches the design rather than approximating it. Every store is handed over with documentation the brand's own team can work from.
A customer's relationship with a brand continues long after the first purchase, and much of it happens in the inbox and the feed. We design Klaviyo templates and automated flows for each stage of that relationship: engagement before the first order, re-engagement when interest fades, aftercare once a purchase arrives, and the ongoing communication that turns customers into regulars.
Campaign systems and social templates are built to the same typography and image language as the store, so every email and every post looks as though it came from the same place. Each system is documented, so the brand's team can produce campaigns week to week without the standard slipping.
Engagements and Starting Points
A guide to where each engagement starts; for a store, design and build run as one process. If your budget sits below these points, say so: an audit or a phased project is often the right first step.
A structured, evidence-led review of what is already live, delivered as a written report with findings ranked by severity, an explicit scope statement and a sequenced roadmap. The audit comes in three formats:
- Store Audit: user experience, conversion, brand expression, mobile and technical foundations.
- Email Audit: Klaviyo flows, templates, segmentation and deliverability.
- Combined Audit: the store and the email programme together, with a single roadmap across both.
Many of our client relationships begin here; the audit gives both sides a clear, shared view of the store before a larger project is scoped.
Brand Discovery establishes the look and feel of the store before user experience design begins. It is a phase of creative exploration, there to make sure the brand is confident in the direction of the site, and that the direction serves the strategic goals set out in any prior strategy work. It produces:
- Visual Exploration: creative routes for the store's look and feel, developed and refined with the brand.
- Style Guide: typography, colour, image direction and core interface elements, set down as the foundation for design.
For brands that need little more than alignment, Discovery is a short phase; for brands defining their digital identity for the first time, it is a fuller piece of work.
Creative direction, user experience, every page designed, the Shopify build, store configuration and launch, delivered as one process. The scope follows the brand:
- A first store, for brands launching or replacing a template site.
- A full redesign, for established brands whose site has fallen behind the brand.
- Multi-market Shopify Plus programmes, for brands with international stores, large catalogues or complex operations.
Most store projects run ten to fourteen weeks from kick-off to launch; larger programmes are phased around the business.
A design system for everything a customer receives after the site: Klaviyo templates and automated flows, campaign templates and social templates, built to the brand's typography and image language. It covers:
- Engagement: welcome and browse journeys that introduce the brand.
- Re-engagement: abandoned cart, browse abandonment and win-back.
- Aftercare: post-purchase, delivery and care communication.
- Campaigns and social: templates for launches, edits and announcements.
Each system is documented, so the brand's team can run it week to week.
A focused programme on an existing store, for brands where the site rather than the audience is the constraint. It runs in three stages:
- An audit of the whole store, from navigation and product pages to checkout, account and post-purchase journeys.
- Prioritised changes, designed and developed.
- Measurement in place to see what moved, and what to do next.
Programmes run as a single sprint or as a continuing sequence within an Ongoing Partnership.
A continuing relationship after launch or on an existing store, with a set number of days each month and a senior team who know the brand. Most clients continue on one after a project. The time covers:
- New pages, templates and campaign landing pages.
- Refinements and conversion improvements, prioritised month by month.
- Email and social design alongside the store.
- Creative direction across every touchpoint.
Our Experience in Fashion,
Luxury, and Beauty
DBCO works with brands whose customers expect the store to match the product. The categories below set out that work, the names within it, and what each demands of a store.
Houses whose names carry the sale before the product does; the store has to hold editorial pacing and restraint across many markets and languages without diluting the brand.
- Stella McCartney
- Gucci
- Balmain
- Paco Rabanne
- Sabyasachi
- Tatras
Craft-led products where materials, construction and detail decide the purchase, and photography has to carry what the hand would otherwise judge in store.
- Tod’s
- Hogan
- J&M Davidson
- Tyler Ellis
- Mina Baie
High-value, considered purchases where trust, provenance and service matter as much as the object, and the store has to feel as composed as a boutique.
- Baume & Mercier
- Watches & Wonders
- Cadar
Fast-moving catalogues, drop-led merchandising and a customer who shops on mobile; the brand still has to feel considered at speed.
- Diesel
- Liu Jo
- Rat & Boa
- Ramy Brook
- Noushella
- Hunza G
- Undress Code
- Saloni
- JLUXLABEL
British brands with a long history and a physical business behind the site, in tailoring, manufacturing or service; the store has to carry the weight of a workshop or a showroom.
- Anglo-Italian
- Private White V.C.
- Banham
Multi-brand luxury retail, editorial titles and institutions with exacting brand standards, where design systems have to be run by large teams across many pages.
- 24 Sèvres
- Fabric of Society
- Business of Fashion
- Monocle
- Wimbledon
- Pictet & Cie
- Microsoft Surface
Frequently Asked Questions.
Most engagements begin with one of two things: a Site Audit, for brands whose store is underperforming or has fallen behind the brand, or Brand Discovery, for brands whose look and feel has not yet been set for digital. Both give us and the brand a shared, evidenced view of what the store needs before a larger project is scoped. A proposal follows, with phases, timeline and fees set out in full.
An introduction to the brand, a sense of what the store needs to achieve, and an indication of timing and investment. That is enough to judge whether we are the right studio and to shape a proposal around the brand’s ambitions; a formal brief is useful but not required. Where a brand has prior strategy work on positioning, audience or markets, we build on it rather than starting again.
From what already works. An established brand has customers, habits and equity that a redesign should protect, so we begin by understanding how the current store is used, where it falls short of the brand and where it loses sales. The redesign carries forward what customers value and replaces what holds the brand back, rather than treating launch as a fresh start that asks loyal customers to learn the store again.
We treat them as the same question. Every brand sells differently: a fashion label built on community and drops asks something different of its store than a fine jewellery house selling considered, high-value pieces. The right approach depends on who the customer is and how they buy, so each store is designed around that customer rather than a fixed philosophy. The measure is commercial; the brand is how it is met.
Supplied designs are the starting point for a short design phase, not a substitute for one. We refine the file into a development-ready system, typography, styles and an organised set of interface elements, then build from that. We do not build files we have not worked through, because the build is only as good as the system behind it.
Shopify and Shopify Plus give premium brands a stable, secure commerce platform their own teams can run, with the flexibility to build distinctive storefronts on top. Knowing one platform in depth means design decisions are made with a clear understanding of how they will be built, and builds use the platform properly rather than working around it. Where a brand is moving from another platform, the migration is part of the project.
Yes. Many of our clients have in-house teams in marketing, merchandising or development, and some work with other agencies on performance, PR or photography. We set clear responsibilities at the start, work in shared files and documentation, and hand over systems the wider team can use. The aim is to strengthen what a brand already has, not to replace it.
Most store projects run ten to fourteen weeks from kick-off to launch, and larger multi-market programmes run longer. The biggest variable is rarely design or development; it is how quickly content, photography and product data come together. We plan the build around the brand’s production schedule and set the timeline in the proposal, so the launch date is agreed against what is realistic.
Most clients continue on an Ongoing Partnership: a set number of days each month for new pages, campaigns, refinements and the improvements an operating store keeps needing. The months after launch are when a store learns most about its customers, and a partnership means those lessons are acted on rather than collected. Where a team prefers to run the store independently, we hand over with full documentation and training on the theme and admin.
DBCO is led by its founder and creative director, Simon Hughes, who oversees every engagement alongside a senior team. The people who shape the strategy and creative direction are the people doing the work, with no account layer between the brand and the decisions being made.