74% Faster Site Speed in Just 2 Months: How Branded Bills Built a Future-Proof Commerce Experience
Discover how Branded Bills achieved 74% faster load times in just 2 months by rebuilding their Shopify store with Pack + Hydrogen. Learn how they unified B2B and D2C commerce while improving performance.
What started as a novel leather patch application process—using just a branding iron and a knife—has become Branded Bills, a premium headwear and apparel sensation that’s dedicated to connecting people with their experiences.
The brand rapidly expanded far beyond their original 50-state patch collection, creating a thriving B2B and B2C business that offers customizable products to a wide variety of shoppers.
Challenge
From a custom site with design limitations to a slow Shopify theme: A journey of trade-offs
Branded Bills' website journey started with a custom-developed site that offered fairly fast page loads, but lacked visual appeal and limited their brand identity.
The team then moved to a Shopify theme to simplify site management and invest in their visual brand identity. However, this created new challenges:
"When we rolled everything onto a Shopify theme, the site was super heavy, and we started battling performance issues."
Given the state of the site, and recalling her past experience, Alicia knew that to achieve web experiences that were outside the box was extremely difficult on a Shopify theme—especially if you cared about site speed.
The brand had reached a turning point: "Do we invest in our site and build something that we can be confident is not going to slow us down over time?
The stakes were particularly high given Branded Bills' unique business model:
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A strong B2B and burgeoning D2C business model requiring different experiences
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A product customization experience that needed to evolve to meet customer needs
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Growing needs for product education and program support
They needed a solution that could support both sides of the business—and that would free them up to scale.
Goals
Build a scalable tech foundation that could support unique product customization and complex B2B needs
After evaluating their situation, Branded Bills identified several key objectives:
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Create a more flexible foundation for building unique product customization experiences
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Support both B2B and D2C needs from a single platform
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Improve site performance across all pages
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Attract high-quality development talent by using modern technologies like React instead of Liquid
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Maintain the ability to move quickly and iterate on the customer experience
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Build a platform that could scale with their future growth plans
With this in mind, the team partnered with eHouse, an experienced Shopify Plus agency, to tackle their challenges and help them achieve a tech stack that could support their next stage of growth.
Solution
Embrace a modern tech stack built for scale
As they evaluated ways to address their challenges, the Pack + Hydrogen approach—with its focus on forward-looking tech—appealed to the Branded Bills team:
"The general direction that Shopify is going is to support Hydrogen and headless, period. It's a good time to get in early. We wanted to stay on the cutting edge. And we could build in React, not Liquid, which would attract a different quality of developer. We knew we wanted to build really unique experiences to support our customization and different programs, and to move fast with a new team focused on front-end content."
Working with eHouse Studio, Branded Bills rebuilt their site on Pack + Shopify Hydrogen, completing the entire project in just two months. The solution included:
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Shopify Hydrogen storefront that maintains Shopify's commerce capabilities while improving frontend flexibility
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Pack as a digital experience platform to manage content quickly and easily
Results
Dramatic performance improvements across key pages, with new ways to repurpose and reuse content
The impact of moving to Pack has been significant, with dramatic improvements in site performance:
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74% faster homepage load time
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67% faster collection page load time
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30% faster product page load time
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Highly flexible section designs that can be quickly customized and reused across pages without developer support
And it wasn’t just site performance that shifted—content workflows did as well. Multi-use, customizable sections allowed them to move fast with minimal developer support, reusing content efficiently.
As Alicia explains:
"We've learned which sections are most flexible and have been able to iterate on those within Pack—changing alignment, copy, imagery. It's nice because we can use the same sections in different ways, and can adjust existing sections without a developer, which just makes it that much more valuable."
With a faster site and speedy content development, the team is primed to enter their next phase of growth.
Looking Forward
Build unique customization experiences and tailored shopping journeys
The right architecture is only the beginning. What really matters is what you do with it. Here's an exciting list of what's next for Branded Bills on Pack:
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Create more sophisticated landing pages for their custom program
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Implement a new "shop by design" experience to guide customers
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Build unique store experiences for different customer segments
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Reimagine their site design to move beyond "blocks on a page" to create a more premium experience
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Continue evolving their brand presence through a comprehensive redesign with eHouse
The Branded Bills team has found a sustainable way to grow their online presence while maintaining the flexibility to innovate. With faster page loads, better development workflows, and a foundation built for scale, they're ready to push the boundaries of what's possible in both B2B and D2C commerce.