A Horizon theme rebuild for Blueme's refillable candles

Blueme makes refillable ceramic candles and diffusers. Each vessel is handmade, and when the soy wax burns down it lifts out so a refill can go in. Eight core fragrances are each made for a different part of the day.

The Shopify store selling them had been worked on by several developers, and the code showed it. Blueme wanted a site that was easier to navigate, faster, and right on mobile, where most of its shoppers are. It wanted that without paying for a full custom redesign.

DYODE scoped two paths: a redesign with a style guide and mockups, or a rebuild on Shopify's Horizon Atelier theme styled from Blueme's own brand guide. Blueme chose the rebuild. Atelier gives the store Shopify's current theme architecture and a library of sections the team can reuse for launches and campaigns.

Before building, we agreed with Blueme on how the homepage, navigation, and sections would be laid out, and held type to two or three sizes. The new theme was scanned for accessibility issues and site speed before it went live.

Gifting matters to Blueme, and the old cart offered one gift bag size whatever was in it. We rebuilt the add-on so the cart offers the right bag: a small bag for a medium candle, a large bag for large and giant candles, a medium bag for diffusers, and bigger bags when the order holds two or more candles. Refills bought on their own get no bag option. Gift messages go in through the cart too.

Blueme's reviews ran on Judge.me and its rewards program on Joy. DYODE moved both to Stamped and rebuilt the rewards page. We then set up the VIP program Blueme had sketched out: the Ember Circle for customers who spend $500 within 365 days and the Luminary Circle at $2,000. Tier members earn points faster, and the top tier keeps every perk of the first.

Stamped can't tie a reward to one candle size, so points redeem for fixed dollar-off rewards instead. The reviews pop-up Blueme's shoppers found annoying did not make the move.

We rebuilt Our Story, Backed by Science, Sustainability, Recandle & Refill, the podcast and blog pages, contact, and wholesale on the new theme. Long blocks of copy became alternating image-and-text sections, and the Sustainability page got a proper mobile layout. The store locator moved to Stockist.

Once the new theme was live, Blueme kept DYODE on for follow-up work, each request scoped and approved before it started. The navigation gained a Scents menu listing each fragrance's top notes. Collection pages can show every size of a candle as its own product card. The footer and pop-up sign-up forms now collect phone numbers for SMS alongside email.

The homepage slideshow got its own mobile images, product pages got autoplaying video and a description tab, and the custom engraving page was refreshed. We also dug into why revenue wasn't reaching Google and Meta from the store.

Blueme's store now runs on a current Shopify theme instead of years of patched code. Its team builds banners, launches, and seasonal collections from the theme's own sections.

Reviews and rewards share one app, the gift bag in the cart matches the candles in it, and most requests since launch have been new features rather than fixes.