Rot-Weiss Essen - Case Study

To the website

Rot-Weiss Essen is more than just a football club – it is a piece of Ruhr area culture. With a moving history, loyal fans, and a clear identity, the club stands for genuine football passion, deeply rooted tradition, and the unmistakable charm of Western Germany.

To the website

27%

Higher conversion rate

19%

Higher AOV

11

New Features

68%

Fewer support requests

GROWTH BRAKE

Challenge

The traditional club Rot-Weiss Essen required a complete relaunch of its online shop to meet the increased demands of its fan base and professional brand management. In addition to a fresh design and improved usability, the focus was primarily on increasing the conversion rate and the technical implementation of a complex jersey designer. The customizability of fan articles – especially jerseys – was a central component of the concept; however, there were no suitable third-party apps in the Shopify ecosystem that met the specific requirements. The product structure in the background also presented a challenge, as the jersey variants referred to a central SKU and had to be managed synchronously.

Complete relaunch with new design & optimized UX

Focus on conversion optimization

Customizable jersey designer with live preview

Complex product structure with SKU synchronization between sizes

Implementation

Datora developed a completely new Shopify theme for Rot-Weiss Essen, which not only reflects the club's visual identity but also offers optimized user guidance – from the homepage to the checkout. At the center was the development of a bespoke jersey designer that allows for both player lettering – with a selection of all current regular players – and individual lettering with a custom back number and name of choice. All changes are visualized in real-time using canvas technology directly on the jersey, ensuring an emotional, interactive shopping experience.

Since Shopify offers no native way to synchronize multiple sizes of a product with a common base SKU, we additionally developed a custom Product-Syncer app. This ensures that all variants of a jersey are automatically linked to each other – with a central focus on the blank jersey as the main product. Here too, the priority was scalability, automation, and smooth handling in day-to-day business.

Solutions we implemented for Rot-Weiss Essen - Case Study:

Jersey Configurator

Variant-Synchronizer

PDP Cross-Sell

New theme in comparison

The new theme combines an airy, user-friendly design with the complete corporate design of Rot-Weiß Essen – for maximum brand recognition and trust. Products take center stage as emotional buying incentives, supported by an integrated cross-selling element to increase the average order value (AOV).

Before

After

Result

The new RWE shop impresses not only with a fresh, brand-appropriate appearance but also with a significantly optimized conversion rate. The jersey designer in particular has been very well received by fans and offers an intuitive way to personalize fan merchandise – without compromising on presentation or functionality. With the specially developed synchronization app, the backend is also ready for a growing range and increasing order volumes. In this way, Rot-Weiss Essen's online presence was raised to Bundesliga level, both technically and emotionally.