Industries — who we serve

Arts & Crafts

Arts and crafts shoppers buy on inspiration — they need to picture the finished project, browse huge catalogs of colors and materials, and trust that what arrives matches the photo. We build Shopify stores for makers and craft retailers that turn deep catalogs into easy discovery, support education-led selling, and keep hobbyists coming back. We did exactly that for Maine textile retailer Halcyon Yarn.

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The challenges we solve

Selling considered products online isn’t like selling impulse buys. These are the headwinds the category throws at you — and a generic Shopify build doesn’t address any of them.

Huge, variant-heavy catalogs

Yarn, beads, kits, and supplies come in endless colors and sizes. Deep catalogs have to stay easy to browse and buy.

Inspiration-led buying

Customers buy the finished project, not just the parts. Content, patterns, and project ideas do much of the selling.

Seasonal & project spikes

Holidays, seasons, and viral projects drive demand surges your store and fulfillment have to absorb smoothly.

Thin margins, many small items

Small basket items and shipping sensitivity make AOV, bundling, and retention essential to profitability.

Community & repeat loyalty

Makers come back again and again. Email, rewards, and community keep hobbyists loyal for years.

How we grow your brand

Three levers that actually move the needle

01 · Convert

Convert the researcher

We turn dense product knowledge into buying confidence — PDPs that answer the real questions, comparison and finder tools, and CRO tested against your actual traffic, not best-practice guesswork.

02 · Acquire

Acquire efficiently

Paid search and paid social built around your margins and seasonality, not vanity ROAS — so growth is profitable, not just big.

03 · Retain

Grow lifetime value

Email, SMS, loyalty, and post-purchase experiences that turn a first-time buyer into a repeat customer and a referral source.

The First Pier method — how every engagement runs

Strategize

Tie every build to a growth outcome.

Integrate

Connect the tools and data that run the store.

Measure

Prove it in revenue, retention, and ROAS.

Iterate

Ship, learn, refine in fast sprints.

Results we’ve delivered

Performance Marketing for Halcyon Yarn

Paid campaigns delivering 20% lower cost per sale and 6x return on ad spend for Halcyon Yarn, while holding a 75% new-customer rate.

Shopify Migration for Halcyon Yarn

A four-month Shopify migration for a Maine textile retailer, with custom workflows for weighed goods, special orders, and in-store POS.

What we bring to your store

Shopify & Shopify Plus development

Stores built for technical, variant-heavy catalogs — fast and ready to scale.

Conversion rate optimization

Testing and buying-guide UX that converts high-consideration traffic.

Paid search & paid social

Google Ads and Meta built around your margins and seasonality.

Klaviyo email & SMS

Flows and campaigns that carry customers across seasons.

Retention & loyalty

Programs that reward repeat and referral-driven customers.

Migration to Shopify

Move off a legacy platform without losing SEO or sales.

Why brands choose First Pier

Senior team, no handoffs

You work directly with the people doing the work — senior Shopify specialists, not an account manager relaying to an offshore queue.

Shopify specialists

We build, optimize, and scale on Shopify and Shopify Plus every day — from technical catalogs to conversion and retention.

Maine-built, growth-obsessed

Headquartered in Portland, Maine, we partner with brands across the U.S. and measure our work in revenue, retention, and ROAS.

What clients say

Follow-through and communication were consistently excellent.

Halcyon Yarn

Craft retail · Shopify migration + growth

They really care about their clients.

Portland Museum of Art

Arts & culture · digital experience

Their team is incredibly easy to work with—responsive, professional, creative, and genuinely kind.

Sara Fitz

Website redesign + Klaviyo email marketing launch

“Everyone I've worked with at First Pier has been a joy to work with.”

Krovel Furniture Co.

140% Shopify sales YoY · +20% conversion

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you work with arts and crafts or maker brands specifically?

Yes. We build Shopify stores for makers and craft retailers — including Maine textile retailer Halcyon Yarn — and understand the category's core challenges: huge variant-heavy catalogs, inspiration-led buying, and thin per-item margins.

We have thousands of colors, sizes, and variants — can Shopify handle that?

Yes. Shopify manages deep, variant-heavy catalogs well when the store is built for it. We design filtering, swatch displays, and browsing paths that keep thousands of SKUs easy to find and buy.

How do you help customers picture the finished project, not just the raw materials?

We build content, patterns, and project-idea pages that do the selling for you — turning "what would I even make with this" into a confident add-to-cart.

Our margins are thin on small individual items — how do you help with that?

We focus on AOV-lifting bundles, kit merchandising, and retention programs, since small-basket categories like this depend on repeat purchases and larger baskets to be profitable — not just one-off sales.

Why First Pier for a craft or maker brand?

We're based in Portland, Maine, an active maker and craft community, and we've been building Shopify stores since 2016. First Pier is also a Clutch-recognized Top Design Co. and Top E-Commerce Developer in Portland and the U.S.

Book your free growth audit

Tell us where you want to grow. A senior First Pier strategist will review your store and send back a prioritized, no-obligation growth plan.

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