Cutler and Gross
View SiteCutler and Gross partnered with Eastside to execute a comprehensive migration from a failing Magento 2 platform to Shopify, transforming their digital presence to match the craftsmanship and heritage of their luxury eyewear brand. With an underperforming conversion rate and mounting platform costs limiting growth potential, they needed a partner who could deliver not just a technical migration, but a strategic rebuild designed for sustainable luxury commerce.
Eastside delivered a complete digital transformation that addressed every aspect of Cutler and Gross's complex requirements: from sophisticated multi-market functionality across the US, EU, and UK to advanced SEO migration protection. The result was a modern, conversion-focused Shopify store that reduced operational overhead while providing the technical foundation to properly showcase their aspirational brand identity and drive meaningful business growth.
The Brand
Cutler and Gross is a luxury British eyewear brand renowned for their distinctive frames and uncompromising craftsmanship. Since 1969, they have built their reputation on exceptional design and quality, serving customers through both online channels and premium retail locations. Their collections span iconic vintage-inspired frames to contemporary statement pieces, each reflecting decades of optical expertise and British heritage.
The Challenge
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Legacy Platform Limitations: Their 2020 Magento 2 website was nearing obsolescence, offering limited search and filtering capabilities that failed to serve customers effectively or showcase their premium product range.
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Poor Performance Metrics:: The site suffered from an extremely low conversion rate, indicating fundamental issues with user experience and customer journey optimisation.
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High Operational Costs: Maintaining the Magento platform had become both costly and time-intensive, creating a poor merchant experience that limited the team's ability to enhance the site and effectively communicate their luxury positioning.
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Multi-Market Complexity: The brand needed sophisticated localised shopping experiences for customers across the US, EU, and UK markets, with flexibility to expand into additional regions.
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SEO Dependency Risk: As a business heavily dependent on organic search traffic, protecting and improving SEO performance during the migration was critical to maintaining revenue.
Future-Proofing
The brief focused on creating a modern, scalable platform that would support Cutler and Gross's luxury positioning while delivering measurable performance improvements. This meant migrating from Magento 2 to Shopify with enhanced conversion optimisation, implementing sophisticated multi-market functionality, and building a platform designed to showcase their brand heritage effectively.
The project required careful SEO migration protection, integration with existing systems, and creating a future-ready foundation that would allow easy adoption of new technologies as the business evolved.
Key Deliverables:
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Complete Magento 2 to Shopify migration using Matrixify
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Multi-market setup for US, EU, and UK with localised experiences
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Comprehensive SEO migration strategy and implementation
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Third-party application integration and optimisation
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Future-ready platform architecture for seamless technology adoption
Our Focus
Strategic Migration Planning: Developed a comprehensive migration strategy with careful attention to preventing email notifications on historical order imports and ensuring data integrity throughout the process
Theme Selection & Customisation: Advised on the most accessible theme, ensuring optimal user experience while accommodating the brand's luxury positioning and complex product requirements
Multi-Market Implementation: Built sophisticated localised shopping experiences across target markets, with the technical flexibility to support future regional expansion as business requirements evolved
SEO Protection Strategy: Implemented a thorough SEO migration protection given the brand's heavy dependence on organic search traffic, ensuring continuity of search performance throughout the transition
The Impact
Eastside's partnership with Cutler and Gross delivered a complete digital transformation, addressing their platform limitations while establishing a foundation for sustained luxury commerce growth.
The Magento 2 to Shopify Plus migration repositioned Cutler and Gross with a technically advanced, scalable ecommerce operation, reducing operational complexity and giving them the agility to manage content, products, and market-specific requirements independently.
The new platform supports localised multi-market experiences, integrates seamlessly with recommended third-party applications, and lays the technical groundwork to improve conversion through optimised user journeys and richer brand storytelling. By reducing dependency on costly developer intervention, the transformation frees Cutler and Gross to focus on what they do best: creating exceptional luxury eyewear and sharing their heritage with customers worldwide.
Business Outcomes
The migration delivered strong organic search performance across key metrics. Organic impressions rose 3% post-migration, with notable gains on high-intent product terms.
Keyword coverage expanded significantly, with ranking keywords growing 29% and unlocking visibility for a range of relevant search terms. Over 4,000 existing keywords also improved in position following launch, and UK clicks grew 5%, driven by relevant category queries.
Underpinning these gains, the multi-market launch across the US, EU, and UK introduced localised experiences with tailored customer journeys for each region.
