Merch e-commerce store for internet star Stepan the Cat
A store built to absorb social-media traffic waves — with a fast variant-based catalog, a transparent checkout, and WayForPay online payments with crystal-clear statuses, so the team can process orders without manual payment confirmation or losses at the peak of attention.
About the Project
A full e-commerce launch for a media-driven merch brand. When a video goes viral, tens of thousands of viewers can arrive through a single social link, putting the store under instant load. The site had to become a comfortable sales channel where shoppers on mobile pick their merch, complete the order quickly, and pay online. The brand team, in turn, needed to see the real status of every order without burning time on manual payment reconciliation.
About Customer
Stepan the Cat is one of the most recognizable Ukrainian internet icons, with international reach built through TikTok and Instagram. The story carries an important charitable layer too: through the war, Stepan and his owner have used audience attention to drive fundraising and support animal-welfare initiatives across Ukraine.
Sales in waves
The store had to hold up under sudden traffic spikes from social media, where users arrive in sharp, concentrated bursts.
Variant-heavy merch
Sizes, colors, stock levels, availability, and variant-specific photos are the usual sources of catalog conflict. The variant logic had to be clear and orderly from day one.
Payment as a point of loss
The team needed a stable payment flow with unambiguous statuses — paid, unpaid, declined, incomplete — so no one had to detective-work their way through a problem order.
Mobile UX
For merch, mobile traffic dominates. If the product page is heavy, sizing is unclear, or the CTA gets lost, the shopper drops before payment.
Self-service operations
The team had to manage products, collections, prices, promo codes, content, and statuses on their own — fast, and without engineering involvement.
Proposed Solution
We built Shopify as the platform — it covers the e-commerce infrastructure end to end (catalog, variants, cart, orders, admin) — and WayForPay as the payment layer with transparent statuses. The whole store was designed around a short mobile purchase flow and operational clarity: every order carries a definite state, and the catalog stays structured and easy to manage.
Shopify store setup
We configured the store foundation so it would be ready for TikTok and Instagram traffic waves and wouldn't require engineering involvement for day-to-day operations.
Merch catalog
We structured products, sizes, and colors so the team could add new items without creating catalog chaos, and so shoppers wouldn't get confused on the product page.
WayForPay
We integrated payments so each order would display an unambiguous payment status, and the awkward cases — declines, abandoned attempts, retries — wouldn't need manual investigation.
1–2 minute purchase path
We tuned the product page and checkout around a short, obvious route: pick a variant, pay, get a confirmation.
Ready for promo waves
We built the collection structure and promo mechanics so the team could spin up themed selections, campaigns, and tracking links tied to specific viral moments without delay.
In a media-brand environment, traffic comes in waves, not steady streams. We defined one core principle up front: variant selection, add-to-cart, checkout, payment, and confirmation all had to stay stable under any load. We also aligned that the first release would be an MVP — but with the right foundation under it for scaling later.
+1 Resource
Results
The launch gave the brand a store that could ride attention spikes and convert them into paid orders without any manual payment work.
14 days to launch
the store in time for the campaign — no ground-up custom build needed
Zero payment errors
with no manual payment verification required
90 seconds
to place an order from a mobile phone
100% of orders
carry the correct payment status
15 minutes
to prep a campaign, without a developer
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