How Nanoleaf Scaled DTC Profitability with Shopify Plus

Background

Nanoleaf launched in 2012 with a mission to redefine LED lighting in homes and offices. Their modular panels let customers craft custom light shapes and color patterns. Early growth relied on retail partnerships and third-party distributors, but low margins and hidden fees from customs and currency exchanges often left buyers frustrated.

Challenge

As sales climbed, the Nanoleaf team saw an opportunity to put commerce at the heart of their strategy. They needed a single platform to support multiple currencies, eliminate surprise duties, and speed delivery from warehouses around the world. Their existing solution led to manual data wrangling—spreadsheets in different formats, languages, and time zones—creating bottlenecks in order processing and reporting.

Solution

Nanoleaf upgraded to Shopify Plus to build a truly customer-centric buying flow. With multi-currency checkout and local tax calculations, shoppers paid the exact amount at checkout—no extra fees on delivery. The team tapped into Shopify’s app ecosystem instead of coding every feature from scratch. They also adopted Shopify Flow to automate email marketing and order routing, and they used Hydrogen for custom, media-rich storefronts that highlight product demos and user galleries.

To streamline back-end operations, Nanoleaf integrated Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as their ERP. Orders, inventory, and financial data now sync seamlessly, cutting manual data entry and accelerating fulfillment. The API-driven architecture let them layer custom workflows without a massive dev team, so updates roll out fast and downtime is nearly zero.

Results

Shopify Plus quickly became Nanoleaf’s highest revenue channel. Even after weighing fulfillment costs, the direct-to-consumer offering now outperforms retail partnerships by a wide margin. Key outcomes include:

• 2X conversion rates after moving to headless storefronts
• 375% faster page loads
• 25% quicker shipping thanks to ERP integration
• Elimination of unexpected duties and foreign-exchange fees

With global templates and multi-language pages, Nanoleaf expanded to the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia in record time. Their marketing team spends less effort on routine tasks and more on creative campaigns that drive repeat purchases. Overall, business intelligence processes now run in 82% less time, and item data management is 45% more efficient.