Activewear · Apparel
Vela Active
Bold, editorial, charged. Full-bleed hero with oversized type, seasonal drop showcase, squat-proof product storytelling with a sticky add-to-cart.
For Shopify brand owners who've outgrown their theme-store template but can't justify a five-figure agency build.
A store that looks unmistakably yours, guides every visitor toward checkout, and shows up where people search. Copy written for you. Photo direction included. Installed on your store and tested by an ecommerce expert with 12+ years behind growing brands.
$300 refundable deposit to start · 30-day money-back guarantee
Looks like every other store using it. Generic sections, placeholder copy you still have to write, no optimisation. You spend weekends fighting settings and it still doesn't look like your brand.
Custom, sure. Also months of back and forth, a five-figure invoice, and quality that depends entirely on which designer you got. Out of reach for most growing brands, and honestly, more than most need.
You shouldn't have to choose between a store that undersells your brand and a bill you can't justify. Now you don't have to.
Picture your store the way a top agency would build it: your colours, your type, your photography, your voice, and every section doing its job of turning a first-time visitor into a customer.
That's what you get, without the five-figure invoice. Every design decision is made deliberately for your brand by an ecommerce expert who has spent years building and optimising stores that sell.
The copy starter kit is written for you. The photo direction is done for you. It's installed and tested on your store for you. You never touch a line of code.
Every store starts with the brand, not a template. These three demo brands were designed and built exactly the way yours will be.
Bold, editorial, charged. Full-bleed hero with oversized type, seasonal drop showcase, squat-proof product storytelling with a sticky add-to-cart.
Warm, honest, wholesome. Colour-block hero with product cutout, "which oats?" selector, review-driven trust for a category where trust is everything.
Soft, minimal, premium calm. Split-screen hero, ritual bundle builder, a 30-day product trial showcased as the centrepiece of the page.
Vela Active, The Pure Oat Co. and Haven Movement are fictional demo brands created to show build quality.
Credited to your build. Refunded if you don't love any concept.
Not just a design file. A finished, optimised, installed store.
Built on Shopify's most robust, proven foundation: fast, future-proof, no app lock-in, fully editable in your Shopify admin.
Every section earns its place: hero, proof, offer, objection handling, email capture. The persuasion logic agencies charge thousands for.
Structured so Google ranks you and AI assistants like ChatGPT can find, quote, and recommend you. Headings, schema, and answer-shaped content baked in.
Starter copy written in your brand voice for every section: headlines, benefits, product descriptions. Fully editable, yours to refine.
A shot-by-shot brief for the photos your store needs, plus example imagery where gaps exist. Photography is what makes stores look expensive; we don't leave it to chance.
Most of your buyers are on their phone. Every page is designed mobile-first, meets accessibility standards, and stays fast.
We install the theme on your store, connect your products, and test everything on desktop and mobile before handover. Nothing goes live until you approve it.
A getting-started guide for your new store, plus a product-detail SEO/AEO guide so every product you add from now on pulls its weight.
| Theme-store template $200–$400 |
This offer $1,770 intro |
Agency build $5,000–$10,000+ |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Looks unique to your brand | No, shared with thousands of stores | Yes, custom feel | Yes |
| Built to convert | DIY | Yes, built in | Depends on the agency |
| Copy written for you | No | Yes, starter copy in your voice | Often extra |
| SEO + AI-search ready | No | Yes, throughout | Often extra |
| Photo direction | No | Yes, shot-by-shot brief | Sometimes |
| Installed + tested for you | No, you're on your own | Yes | Yes |
| Time to live | Weeks of your own evenings | ~2 weeks, done for you | 2–4 months |
You approve the design before the balance is due. No leap of faith required.
Name and email. That's it.
$300, fully refundable, credited to your build.
About 10 minutes on your brand, products and style. Prefer talking? Send voice notes on WhatsApp instead.
Up to 3 design concepts for your brand, within days.
Choose your favourite or give feedback. One full revision round included.
Only once you love the design. Deposit refunded instead if you don't.
Full theme built with your content, installed, QA'd, and reviewed with you. Live within about 2 weeks.
The first 5 stores get the introductory price in exchange for honest feedback and a testimonial. After that, the standard price is $2,950.
30-day money-back guarantee · 30-day warranty
Don't like any of the concepts? Your $300 comes straight back. No build happens until you're happy.
Don't love the finished store? Full refund, no questions asked. That's how confident we are in the output.
Anything broken or buggy in the first 30 days gets fixed, free. Your store works, guaranteed.
I'm Michelle Retzlaff, founder of Mermaid Devs. I've spent 12+ years as a full-stack developer and technical partner for ecommerce brands and agencies, specialising in Shopify, conversion optimisation, and SEO.
I've built and optimised stores and systems for brands like Deus Ex Machina, ESK Skincare, AG Lego Certified Stores, Thermosoft, and the She-Com community. Comparable custom builds have sold for $2,500 to $5,000, without the copy, photo direction, and optimisation included here.
When you work with me, you get me. Every design decision, every line of code, and every check before handover is mine, and I'm accountable for the result. If something isn't right, I'm here to own it and fix it.
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Brands and communities I've worked with
The build comes with everything you need to run your store yourself. And when you want more, you're not on your own.
An optional support plan keeps your store updated, compatible, and continuously improved, from $149/month, with a discounted annual option. No lock-in, and you can add it whenever you're ready, at launch or later.
Dreaming of something beyond the standard build? Subscriptions, bundles, a quiz, special functionality: tell me what you have in mind and you'll get a clear, separate quote. It never delays your build, and it's made by the same developer who knows your store inside out.
Three safety nets. You see up to 3 concepts and get a full revision round before any build starts. If none of the concepts land, your $300 deposit is refunded. And even after delivery, there's a 30-day money-back guarantee. You are never stuck paying for something you don't love.
Your brand is designed onto a structure that's already proven to convert, rather than a from-scratch experiment. Your palette, typography, photography treatment, signature sections, and voice make it unmistakably yours. Look at the three examples above: you'd never guess they have anything in common. For most growing brands this beats bespoke: lower risk, faster, and selling from day one.
Two reasons. You're not paying an agency to reinvent the wheel: the conversion and SEO thinking is already deep in how I build, so your money goes into what makes the store yours, the design, the copy, the photography direction. And the first 5 stores get an introductory price in exchange for feedback and a testimonial. The standard price is $2,950, and comparable past builds have sold for up to $5,000 with less included.
No. Everything is editable through the normal Shopify admin: text, images, sections, products. The theme is built on Shopify's own proven foundation, so it behaves exactly the way Shopify's documentation and tutorials expect. You also get a getting-started guide for your specific store.
If you have good photography (your site, your Instagram), we use it, and the store is designed around it. If there are gaps, you get a shot-by-shot photo direction brief telling you exactly what to shoot or brief a photographer with, plus example imagery as placeholders where needed. Photography is what makes a store look expensive, so it's treated as a first-class part of the design, not an afterthought.
Nothing, until you say so. The new theme is built and installed alongside your current one, previewed and QA'd without affecting your live store. Your products, customers, and orders are untouched. When you approve it, we publish. Your old theme stays in your library as a fallback.
Design concepts within a few days of your questionnaire. Once you approve a design, the finished store is typically installed, tested, and live within about 2 weeks. Compare that with 2 to 4 months for a typical agency build.
One full revision round on the design concepts, then a review pass together after installation to fix anything that isn't right. The 30-day warranty covers bugs and defects after handover. New features, extra pages, or new content requests beyond the agreed scope are quoted separately, so there are no surprise invoices and no scope creep in either direction.
Yes. Anything beyond the standard build (special functionality, integrations, unusual sections) gets its own clear quote, separate from your build price. That way your store never gets held up waiting on extras, and you never pay for things you didn't ask for. Mention it in the questionnaire, or bring it up whenever the idea strikes, even months after launch.
An optional support plan covers theme updates, compatibility fixes, and ongoing tweaks and improvements, from $149/month, with a discounted annual option. You can add it at launch or any time later. Plenty of store owners run everything themselves after handover, and the guides are written to make that easy.
A store that looks custom, converts, and is live in about 2 weeks. Protected by a refundable deposit and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Register + Claim Your SpotName and email first. Then a $300 refundable deposit, credited to your build.