How Nocking Point Wines Slashed Costs & Tripled Conversion on Shopify Plus

Nocking Point Wines: Turning a Custom Platform into a Growth Engine

Nocking Point Wines started with a simple goal: bring the unique flavors of Walla Walla vineyards directly to wine lovers’ doorsteps. Co-founders Andrew Harding and Stephen Amell built an initial WordPress site, then upgraded to a custom solution when the audience grew. But customization demands piled up—each new feature took weeks of developer time and cost tens of thousands of dollars. Growth slowed, and the team lost sight of their customer-first mission.

The Custom Platform Trap

By 2015, the homegrown store felt clunky. Every sales channel addition, from pairing suggestions to loyalty features, required back-and-forth with engineers. Hosting fees climbed into the five figures per month. The marketing team found itself waiting on code reviews instead of crafting tasting notes and tours. Efficiency tanked, frustration soared, and the decision to chase growth with a rigid system became a bottleneck.

Why Shopify Plus?

Andrew Harding began vetting enterprise options. He sought an all-in-one platform with reliable hosting, a transparent roadmap, and built-in apps for email campaigns, subscription management, and analytics. Shopify Plus stood out—its out-of-the-box features meant the team could spin up new experiences without a heavy dev backlog. Plus, the annual plan turned unpredictable monthly charges into a clear, forecastable expense.

Seamless Migration and Setup

The transition took under three months. Data export from the old system flowed into Shopify’s importer tool. Then designers applied a custom theme that matched Nocking Point’s brand identity. Integrations with Klaviyo for email flows, Google Analytics for deeper traffic insights, and Shopify Shipping for streamlined fulfillment went live in parallel. Instead of hiring extra developers, a single Shopify Plus support rep guided the team through advanced features.

Results in Real Numbers

Within six months the impact was clear. Hosting costs dropped by half, from five figures to a fixed Plus subscription. The team avoided hiring two senior developers—each with six-figure salaries—by relying on the platform’s ecosystem. Most strikingly, conversion rates climbed 3X thanks to automated retargeting ads and email flows powered by Klaviyo. Marketing cycles shortened from weeks to days.

Refocusing on Customers

With tech worries behind them, Harding and Amell returned to their roots: crafting stories about vineyard visits, seasonal releases, and charity collaborations. The site now feels alive, with dynamic landing pages for each wine release and a loyalty program that rewards repeat customers. The team spends time on tastings and content, not debugging code.

Looking Ahead

Today Nocking Point Wines plans to expand into new markets and launch a virtual tasting series. The Shopify roadmap syncs with their calendar—platform updates around subscriptions and international duty calculations arrive just as the team needs them. Freed from code maintenance, the brand can invest in rare bottlings, customer events, and storytelling. That digital-first vision from 2013 finally feels fully realized.