How Ruggable Used Headless Shopify to Expand into 8 Global Markets

Overview

Ruggable revolutionized home decor with its patented two-piece, machine-washable rugs. When rapid growth exposed performance bottlenecks on their legacy storefront, the team turned to a headless Shopify architecture. By decoupling the front end from Shopify’s APIs, Ruggable slashed page load times, enabled dynamic personalization, and streamlined checkout into a single page. The result? Faster customer journeys, improved SEO, and the ability to launch eight new international markets in under 30 days—all while maintaining 100% uptime on peak traffic days.

Challenges

Before adopting headless, Ruggable’s site struggled under high traffic, especially during Black Friday and new product drops. A three-page checkout added drop-offs, and spinning up a new localized store took months due to manual translations, pricing updates, and template tweaks. As an omni-channel brand selling across Facebook, Google, and direct channels, they needed a stable, scalable platform that could support rapid international expansion, flexible content management, and consistent branding.

Solution

The engineering team rebuilt Ruggable’s storefront using a modern JAMstack approach. They powered content pages, navigation, and collections from a custom CMS and consumed Shopify’s Admin and Storefront APIs for product data and carts. Checkout extensibility let them collapse three steps into a single-page experience with visible payment options, including Shop Pay and Shop Pay Installments. For international launches, Shopify’s currency conversion and localized storefront features automated price adjustments and region-specific tax rules.

To keep shoppers engaged, Ruggable built aRug Quizthat matches design preferences to product recommendations, boosting conversion by four times among quiz takers. They also integrated simple AI for image uploads—letting customers snap a room photo and receive automated style suggestions. Augmented reality features, supported by Shopify’s native AR/3D model uploader, let buyers visualize rugs in their own living spaces before purchase.

Results

• Achieved 100% uptime on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
• Reduced checkout from three pages to one, improving completion rates
• Launched eight new international markets in under 30 days each
• Improved site speed and SEO, driving more organic traffic
• Quadrupled conversion rates for customers completing the Rug Quiz

Technology Stack

Ruggable’s headless stack blends a custom CMS with Shopify Plus, Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, AR/3D model rendering, AI image analysis, Klaviyo for email, and Google Analytics for performance tracking. This modular approach lets them swap or upgrade services without rebuilding the core storefront.