Polyvinyl Records has sold directly for 29 years. They started with mail-order forms in the mid-90s and never stopped. For the last 15 years, they ran their entire ecommerce business on a fully custom CMS, built and maintained by a rotating in-house developer.
When that developer stepped back, Polyvinyl had a choice: hire and ramp another engineer on a 15-year-old codebase, or finally make the move they had been considering for years. They picked Shopify Plus and partnered with Softlimit, a Shopify Premier Partner with deep roots in independent music, to make it happen.
In nine months, they replaced everything: D2C, B2B, digital downloads, bundles, artist pages, and pre-orders, all unified on one Shopify Plus instance, with the custom functionality their fans rely on preserved end to end.
Since moving to Shopify Plus, Polyvinyl Records has seen:
- +20% revenue increase year over year since launch
- 3.88% conversion rate, approximately 2x indie ecommerce average
- ”Unbelievably high” upsell conversion driving compounding incremental revenue weekly
- Unified D2C + B2B + digital downloads on a single platform
- Rapid replacement of a 15-year-old custom codebase
Direct-to-consumer sales have been a keystone of our way to connect directly with fans and generate revenue with as few middlemen as possible.
The Challenge: 15 years of custom code, and a moment to move
Polyvinyl built their own ecommerce platform from scratch and ran it for 15 years with a full-time in-house developer, a role most labels do not staff. Three in-house developers passed the codebase down over the years. It was their sandbox. It also became their ceiling.
Every feature, from payments and fraud protection to the bundle logic powering merch sales, was custom-built and maintained in-house. As Shopify’s native platform and app ecosystem matured, Polyvinyl began to notice that the trade-off was no longer in their favor. They were spending engineering cycles on infrastructure that had nothing to do with running a record label.
When Polyvinyl’s developer decided to step back into freelance work, Polyvinyl made the call. Hiring and onboarding another in-house engineer onto a 15-year-old codebase would have required another 6 to 12 months of ramp time before the team could move the platform forward. Instead, Polyvinyl decided it was time to migrate to Shopify Plus.
We had been thinking about switching for a couple years. When our developer decided to step back, it felt like the tipping point.
Polyvinyl needed a partner who understood Shopify, understood the operational complexity of a modern music label, and could bring 15 years of custom functionality to a modern platform without losing what made the store work for fans and record stores alike.
The Solution: A unified Shopify Plus migration, built around how a label actually sells
Polyvinyl found Softlimit on LinkedIn, reached out, and got a response the same day. The fit felt so strong that they never spoke with another agency.
Ben got back to us so fast and it seemed like such a great fit right away that we didn’t even end up talking to the other agency.
Softlimit’s founder is a former touring drummer with a decade-plus of experience inside Shopify and direct experience working with indie labels. That combination, Shopify depth and music industry fluency, was rare enough that Polyvinyl never seriously considered another partner.
Working with Softlimit has been phenomenal. We needed a really helpful guide who could show us all of the ins and outs of what Shopify is capable of. They delivered that, and they helped us replicate the custom functionality that mattered most to our fans.
Softlimit's plan was to replicate everything that worked on the legacy platform, modernize what didn't, and unlock Shopify's native capabilities on top. The migration moved fast for a project of this complexity, with both teams aligned on the realities of replatforming off 15 years of custom code.
We went from 'our developer is leaving' to a fully launched Shopify Plus store replacing 15 years of custom code. That felt fast.
What Softlimit built for Polyvinyl on Shopify Plus:
- Full migration off custom CMS, including 15 years of catalog, customer data, and order history
- Unified D2C and B2B on a single Shopify Plus store, including a custom B2B Quick Order tool for record store buyers
- Sophisticated bundle logic, preserving Polyvinyl’s signature ”buy this album + pick 2 of these 5 merch items” experience that fans expect
- Digital download fulfillment with parallel physical + digital purchases (fan buys a vinyl pre-order, gets the digital download immediately while waiting on the record)
- Artist pages built on Metaobjects, powering merch, tour dates, and music videos per artist
- Enhanced product filtering and mega menu navigation tuned for a deep, multi-format catalog
- Rebuy-powered upsells, generating compounding incremental revenue weekly
- Faster site performance, native checkout, Shop Pay, and Shopify Payments
- Native integrations with their existing newsletter and operational tools
Critically, Softlimit set the engagement up so Polyvinyl’s team could own day-to-day operations in Shopify post-launch, including product creation, promotions, and sales. Softlimit stays on retainer for customization, new features, and ongoing optimization. The result is a true partnership, not a dependency.
The Results: A year in, growth is compounding
Polyvinyl launched on Shopify Plus in January 2025. One year later, the gains are continuing to build.
With Shopify Plus, Polyvinyl Records is seeing:
- +20% revenue increase year over year
- 3.88% conversion rate, roughly 2x the indie ecommerce average
- Rebuy upsells converting at ”unbelievably high” rates, generating incremental revenue every week with zero added effort
- Unified D2C + B2B + digital on one platform, replacing a fragmented custom stack
- Engineering time reclaimed. Polyvinyl’s team no longer maintains credit card processing, fraud protection, or platform infrastructure
Softlimit chimed in to tell us the conversion rate we are getting on the upsell is unbelievably high. It is generating additional revenue every week, and all we had to do was set it up and let it sit there and run.
Beyond the metrics, the shift in operating mode has been the bigger story. Polyvinyl can now spin up a new feature in days that would have taken weeks of custom development on the old platform. They can test, iterate, and ship. The team is back to focusing on what they do best: signing artists, releasing records, and connecting directly with fans.
The speed of being able to add a new feature is significantly faster than what we had been used to.