The Challenge
Fika Swedish Kitchen had outgrown Squarespace. Their cafe and retail operation needed proper ecommerce capabilities - inventory management, shipping logic, multi-channel selling - that Squarespace simply couldn’t deliver. They’d tried to make it work with workarounds and plugins, but the limitations were costing them sales and creating operational friction.
The challenge wasn’t just technical. Fika’s brand identity was deeply considered - Scandinavian, warm, minimal. They needed a migration that preserved the feel of their existing site while unlocking real ecommerce power underneath.
The Approach
Artie treated this as a brand experience project first, an ecommerce build second. Before touching Shopify, he spent time understanding what made the Squarespace site feel like Fika: the typography choices, the photography treatment, the whitespace rhythm, the way products were presented as craft rather than commodity.
The migration plan was designed to be invisible to customers. Same URL structure. Same visual language. Same brand feeling. But with a fundamentally more capable platform underneath.
Content was audited, reorganised, and in many cases rewritten to better suit Shopify’s product-centric structure. Every page was mapped from old to new, with redirects set up to protect SEO value.
The Solution
A custom Shopify theme built from scratch to match Fika’s brand identity:
- Custom theme - built to reflect Fika’s Scandinavian aesthetic, not a modified template
- Content migration - every page, product, and blog post moved with SEO-safe redirects
- Product photography treatment - consistent image handling that respects the brand’s visual standards
- Shipping logic - tailored shipping rules for perishable and non-perishable items
- Multi-channel ready - structured for future expansion into wholesale and marketplace channels
The migration was completed within four weeks with zero downtime for the live store.
The Result
The migration earned a Shopify Commerce Award for Best Migration in 2020. Fika saw no traffic loss during the transition, and the new platform gave them the foundation to scale their online retail alongside their physical cafes. The store continues to run on the custom theme with minimal maintenance.