Case studyWooCommerce build and ecommerce management
An 870 product art store, built from nothing
SILVI is a contemporary painter exhibited at the Louvre. She needed to sell directly to collectors worldwide rather than through a marketplace, so we designed and built the whole platform and now run it daily.
★★★★★ 5.0 on Google from 10 reviews
See the WooCommerce work or tell us about the project. We work with brands worldwide, and a scoping call is turned around in about five working days.
The artist
Why this could not be a template
SILVI paints in acrylic and mixed media, with series running from the fluid abstraction of Liquid Bloom to the raw energy of Wild and the calm horizons of Sailing. Her work has been exhibited at the Louvre in Paris and The Holy Art Gallery in London, across seven solo and twenty group exhibitions in four countries, and featured on Nova TV and bTV in Bulgaria.
An artist at that level does not need a shop page. She needs a catalogue that presents each painting the way a gallery would, and a checkout that a collector in another country trusts with a four figure order. Those are different problems and a template solves neither.
- The taxonomy follows the art, not the softwareProducts are organised by series, so a collector browses by artistic narrative rather than by a generic category tree. Each series has its own page and its own story.
- Three formats per workOriginal, hand finished canvas print and fine art paper print, each with its own pricing, sizing and shipping configuration. That is where most of the 870 listings come from.
- Every listing individually configuredImagery, description, dimensions, medium, year, availability and shipping rules. Not imported from a spreadsheet and tidied afterwards.
- She owns the platformWordPress and WooCommerce, so the data, the customer relationships and the roadmap are hers. No marketplace commission and no third party that can change the rules.
Scope
What the build covered
| Area | What was delivered |
|---|---|
| Catalogue | 870 products across seven series and three formats, each configured individually |
| Series pages | Liquid Bloom, Sailing, Wild, Nature Instincts, Women Era, Fish Series and Mix, each with its own landing page and narrative |
| Shipping | Worldwide via DHL Express, fully insured, with rules per format because a rolled paper print and a stretched original do not ship the same way |
| Checkout | Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and local methods, optimised for mobile |
| Ongoing | New works added as they are completed, listings updated, orders processed, inventory and maintenance handled daily |
The gallery of finished artwork that previously sat here has been removed: those images were served from the artist's own domain rather than from our media library, which means they break the moment that site is reorganised. They return once the files are uploaded properly. See the case studies index the social media management plans and the reviews page in the meantime.
Questions
Answers about a build this size
The structure is templated and the content is not. Series, formats, sizing and shipping rules were designed once and applied consistently, so the repeated work is configuration rather than decision making. What was never automated is the writing: each painting carries its own description, because a collector reading nine identical paragraphs stops believing any of them.
A marketplace takes a commission on every sale, owns the customer relationship, and can change its rules without asking. On her own platform the artist keeps the margin, the customer list and the ability to decide how the work is presented. For someone selling a small number of high value items rather than a large number of cheap ones, that arithmetic is not close.
Yes, daily, under an ongoing retainer. New artworks are added as they are finished, listings are updated, orders are processed, inventory is managed and the site is maintained. Building a store and running one are different jobs, and an agency that has only ever done the first has never configured a shipping zone at eleven at night.
Yes. This is the largest build on the portfolio and the same approach scales down cleanly to a smaller catalogue, and the UGC portfolio covers the content side of a launch. What it needs from you is decisions rather than budget: how the range is structured, how it ships and what a product page has to prove before someone will buy.
Weeks rather than working days, and the catalogue is what sets the length rather than the design. Scoping comes back inside about five working days and tells you honestly which part of the timeline is us and which part is waiting on photography, copy and pricing decisions from your side.
Why it works
Presenting work you actually understand
A catalogue is an argument, not a database
Eight hundred and seventy listings could have been a filterable grid. Organising by series instead means a collector arrives through the narrative that drew them in, which is how people actually buy art. The structural decision was made before a single product was created, and it is the reason the store does not read like a stock system.
Ownership is the product
The artist owns the platform, the domain, the data and the customer relationships. No commission, no dependency, and no algorithm change that quietly removes half her traffic. That is worth more over a decade than any launch tactic.
What we would not claim
No revenue figure appears on this page. Sales data belongs to the client and is not ours to publish, and a build case study that quotes revenue without the client's numbers in front of it is inventing one. What we can show is the scope, the launch date and the fact that we still run it.
See the HoneyBee and Co. build for the same stack on our own brand, the Nikolov Nikola portfolio for the smallest version of it, the Purgatory Bar case study for what the content side looks like, or the shop for everything else.
Client reviews
What clients say, word for word
“Working with Velena and Dragos has been one of the best decisions I have made for my business. They built my entire ecommerce website from scratch, with over 870 products and worldwide shipping, and the result is exactly what I had hoped for.”
Silvi, SILVI The Artist. Client testimonial.“Velena Lifestyle have been a breath of fresh air for our social media accounts. Their professionalism and knowledge have supported us massively.”
Sean Thompson, Head of Marketing, Snaptrip Group. Google review, 5.0.“Velena is truly one of our standout creators at Picsart. She consistently brings fresh, innovative ideas to the table and is always tapped into the latest trends. What we especially love is how seamlessly she incorporates AI into her content in a way that feels natural and engaging.”
Kaline Tchamitchian, Senior Social Media Manager, Picsart. Google review, 5.0.Every review is reproduced word for word. Read them all on the reviews page.
Monthly plans
Social media management, done for you
Small Business Social Pack
£149 per month
12 static posts, 1 platform, content creation done for you
View Small Business Social Pack- Most chosen
Rolling monthly, 2 months notice, no setup fees. All plans on the social media management page.
Who you work with
One team, from the first brief to the last hand off
Velena Nikolova
Co-Founder and Creative Director
Velena leads the filming and the edit, so the idea and the execution never pass between strangers. A lifestyle creator with 13,000 Instagram followers, featured in Women's Health. More on the about page.
Dragos Nistor
Co-Founder and Business Strategist
Dragos runs the brief, the schedule and the delivery, and is on camera for couple and male led work. Named a LinkedIn Top Entrepreneurship Voice in 2024. More on the case studies.
Need a store this size, or a tenth of it?
Website and WooCommerce work is scoped individually rather than sold from a shelf, and nothing is committed until you approve the scope and the figure in writing. If a brief is not a fit for us we say so plainly rather than quoting a number nobody wants. Social media management, if you want the channels run too, starts at £399 a month.
Prices are in pounds sterling and no VAT is added. If you are ordering from outside the UK your card issuer sets the exchange rate, and anything due in your own country is outside our invoice.