How Saint Charles Boosted Sales by 20% with Shopify Plus

Background

Saint Charles Pharmacy in Vienna traces its history to 1886. Over four generations of pharmacists, the brand built a reputation for blending classical European remedies with natural ingredients. In 2015, leadership added an online shop on Adobe Commerce. That move aimed to reach a wider customer base beyond the walls of the apothecary and its attached spa, cosmetics shop, and organic restaurant. But after a few years, the team found the setup was a constant hurdle.

Challenges

The Adobe Commerce platform offered powerful features, but it came with a steep price. Every time the marketing team wanted a fresh landing page or a new promotion, they needed to call an agency. Custom coding was required for newsletter integration, which slowed down campaigns. During Black Friday or the holiday season, traffic spikes caused the checkout to crash or slow down, sending many visitors away without complete their orders. That instability pushed abandonment rates higher. Meanwhile, customer engagement goals sat on the to-do list because each change meant another round of development hours and extra costs.

Solution

Two years ago, the team chose Shopify Plus and teamed up with MSTAGE to handle the migration. The new platform cut out complex code and gave marketers direct control. Thanks to an intuitive page builder, landing pages and promotions could go live in hours instead of weeks. Email automation with Klaviyo went from a heroic project to a routine task—customer segments drove targeted flows through Shopify Flow, triggering personalized messages at key moments. On the tech side, Shopify Plus offered unlimited bandwidth and stable infrastructure. Even during peak days, the checkout remained swift and reliable, eliminating cart drop-offs tied to slowdowns. The addition of Shopify POS and a loyalty app like Smile.io created a single view of inventory, orders, and customer points, tying online actions and in-store visits together with no extra coding required.

Results

After the migration, Saint Charles saw a 20% lift in revenue almost immediately. Repeat buyers climbed to 55%, fuelled by post-purchase sequences and on-site promotions tailored to customer behaviors. Newsletter signups surged by 300%, feeding fresh leads into Klaviyo’s automated flows. A simple strategy—offering a targeted discount to first-timers after 100 days—pushed a further 5% uptick in conversion rates for new customers. Meanwhile, the marketing team now moves faster: what once took multiple agency calls now happens in minutes through Shopify’s back end or via apps from the Shopify App Store. Service inquiries about checkout errors dropped to zero, freeing support staff to focus on more strategic tasks.

Key Learnings

Choosing a flexible ecommerce platform can remove bottlenecks and cut operational costs. Automated email and on-site flows drive engagement without heavy IT overhead. Scaling infrastructure prevents wasted traffic and lost orders. And a unified system for online and offline sales ensures consistency in customer experiences. These changes combined to redefine how Saint Charles approaches marketing and growth.