Born in Hawaii, OluKai began as a wholesale footwear brand for surf shops. Today, it’s a thriving omnichannel retailer with a loyal following across the globe. Guided by the principles of ‘Ohana (family), Aloha (selfless giving), and Quality, OluKai crafts footwear that honors Hawaiian culture. Each product name tells a story, every retail location reflects local heritage, and the company gives back by outfitting every Hawaiian lifeguard with OluKai footwear.
When OluKai left Magento for Shopify, their DTC sales soared. But as the brand began opening physical retail stores in Hawaii and across the mainland, disconnected systems threatened the seamless experience customers expected. OluKai needed a unified commerce platform that could support their ambitious retail expansion while maintaining operational efficiency with a lean team.
Since implementing Shopify's unified commerce platform, OluKai has:
- Opened 11 new retail stores, with continued expansion underway
- Added high-performing new sales channels including Shop app and Meta Shops
- Seen 70% of customers checking out with Shop Pay
- Achieved 12% higher average order value (AOV) from Shop Campaigns
- Gained 1,400 new customers through Shop Campaigns during Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM)
The Challenge: Legacy systems block growth
Prior to the switch to Shopify, routine website updates stalled for days as the team waited on outside help. “Back when we were on Magento, we wanted to change this image on our homepage and we'd have to email our developer and it took a long time,” says Senior Ecommerce Manager at OluKai.
The lack of built-in analytics left the team operating without crucial insights. "It felt like we were flying blind,” says Nick. “We were leaning on less flexible data sets to hunt for answers to our questions we were looking to solve. We were lacking a lot of the data that we have today that's out of the box with Shopify.” This data blindness prevented the team from fully understanding the habits and preferences of their customers.
The challenges multiplied as OluKai began opening retail stores. Without unified systems, the brand couldn't deliver the experience that embodied their 'Ohana values. Complex middleware requirements and manual processes made inventory management a nightmare. Customer data lived in silos, preventing staff from providing the personalized service central to Hawaiian hospitality.
Most concerning, the technical complexity threatened to derail OluKai's lean operational model. "Having explored what it looks like to pull in another POS platform and connect it to any of the other ecommerce platforms, it's a bit of an expense and challenge," says Nick. For a brand built on authentic connections and treating customers like family, these operational barriers were unacceptable.
The Solution: One platform, real connections
OluKai's migration to Shopify represented a fundamental shift in how they could operate and grow. "When we discovered Shopify, it unlocked so much capability for us without having to rely on anyone else," says Nick. The migration process from Magento to Shopify Plus exceeded their expectations as well. "It was relatively painless as these things go. We beat our deadline by a couple weeks.” The immediate impact was dramatic—site speed improvements and streamlined checkout processes drove measurable conversion rate increases, and the greater stability of the platform allowed the brand to collect sales when they experienced downtime before.
But the even greater transformation came later when OluKai deployed Shopify POS across their retail locations. "Shopify made it easy. I've been on other POS systems that don't speak with the ecommerce platform, and there's middleware, and it's kind of a nightmare for the backend operations and digital teams. With Shopify, everything is in one place so it’s easy. You basically just set up a new store on the backend, route it to your ERP system, and you’re ready to go once you get the devices."
This seamless unification enabled OluKai to deliver the personalized experiences core to their brand. "We have unified customer data. We know exactly what that person's purchased online, so our associates can recommend something in their size, or can better recommend how certain products relate to their interests using our first-party data," says Nick.
The omnichannel features of Shopify POS delivered unexpected benefits that improved the customer experience and helped boost sales: "That’s the superpower of Shopify,” says Nick. “If something’s unavailable at the store, we can quickly pull it up, complete the order, and ship it to the customer from our warehouse.”
Beyond retail unification, OluKai strategically used other Shopify solutions to scale more efficiently. As advertising costs on Meta and Google skyrocketed, Shop Campaigns emerged as a powerful alternative for customer acquisition. "We found it very efficient to not only get returning customers back, but find new eyes on our products and new customers," says Nick.
The Results: Data-driven global growth
Shopify has transformed OluKai's trajectory. Shop Pay adoption reached 70% of transactions and continues climbing. "We saw it really explode over the last year,” says Nick. “Sometimes if they're coming from another Shopify site, they're already logged in so they don't have to enter their credentials. They can just push a button and they're on their way.”
During Black Friday Cyber Monday, Shop Campaigns delivered exceptional results. The strategic product placement within the app and Shop Cash incentives created a powerful combination that encouraged larger purchases. "The Shop app was a big part of our holiday campaigns. We acquired 1,400 new customers just through four weeks," says Nick. "Our campaigns through the Shop app drove average order value up 12%. It was performing so well that we decided to shift our budgets deeper into Shop Campaigns from other ad platforms.”
Shopify’s unified commerce platform has fundamentally changed OluKai's operational capabilities. When asked what running their business without Shopify would require, Nick is direct: "I would need a lot more members of my team." This efficiency enables ambitious growth plans, with OluKai aiming to open five new stores annually in the US while managing international expansion across multiple markets.
Having a unified data architecture has become essential to OluKai's strategic planning, with Shopify Analytics now providing the insights OluKai lacked for years before making the switch. "It's nice being on a unified platform. We're capturing data in store and online. We can use that data to synthesize new product decisions or inform where we open stores," says Nick.
For a brand committed to sharing aloha worldwide, Shopify has become the foundation enabling authentic growth at scale.
Shopify helps OluKai grow by making things easy. It really makes life a lot easier for operations, product teams, ecommerce managers, and even our customer service team.