How esmi Cut Maintenance Costs by 85% and Scaled Traffic 40x with Shopify

Introduction

esmi launched in 2013 on the Gold Coast, offering quick-apply skincare and makeup. As the labels PONi Cosmetics, Lip Heroes, and Sun Skills grew, five separate sites popped up—each with its own admin. The burden of fixes, maintenance and staging promos made day-to-day challenging.

The Challenge

Hosting hundreds of shoppers was a struggle. The old platform crashed under heavy traffic, so marketing emails had to be staggered. To handle consumer and wholesale sales, esmi spun up five independent sites: local brands, US channel, and wholesale. Each needed bug fixes, external agency support, and dev time—resources that couldn’t go toward adding new store features.

Without centralized data tools, esmi couldn’t personalize product gifts by region, resulting in missed sales and clunky manual processes. Growth velocity stalled as maintenance and support ate into budgets that should have funded innovation.

The Solution

In June 2022, esmi migrated to Shopify Plus and consolidated all five sites into a single platform with three storefronts—domestic consumer, US consumer, and wholesale—managed from one admin page. This shift slashed the resourcing needed for multi-site upkeep.

Next, the team deployed Shopify Flow to automate ecommerce tasks that once required manual effort. For example, Flow now selects the right free sample based on what shoppers order. Automations freed the team to focus on rolling out new features, rather than repeating routine tasks.

Results

On Black Friday–Cyber Monday 2022, esmi served 8,000 concurrent customers with zero downtime. Overall, the brand saw an 85% cut in website maintenance costs, a 40× jump in peak concurrent traffic, and a 19% rise in returning customer rate. With labor-saving automations, the ecommerce team redirected its energy toward new product launches and international growth.

Looking Ahead

With new brands, product categories, and market expansions on the roadmap, esmi plans to leverage the all-in-one Shopify ecosystem further—exploring headless integrations, personalized flows, and advanced reporting to support long-term growth.