Why grüum evaluated Shopify and Magento — and chose to stay with WooCommerce

In January 2016, colleagues Simon Leonard, Andy Shaw, Bethanie Sleigh, and George Lagonikas left their jobs to build something together. They worked across the Netherlands and the UK, and launched grüum in September 2016 with around 10 products. 

While initially focused on male skincare and shaving, the range has expanded well beyond that. grüum now makes skincare, haircare, bodycare, and shaving products for all ages and genders, all manufactured in-house in Stockport. Their bestselling product is a shampoo bar, which has sold millions.

Sustainability sits at the center of everything they make: cardboard packaging wherever possible, waterless formulations, natural ingredients. Their cosmetic scientists, hired in-house so they wouldn’t have to rely on contract manufacturers, develop every formulation internally, which means faster iteration and tighter quality control.

By 2023, they were processing up to 80,000 orders a month with one full-time developer. That’s when they decided to check whether WooCommerce was still the right platform for where they were going. After four months, they chose to remain on the platform. Here’s what they learned.

grüum processes up to 80,000 orders monthly across approximately 300 SKUs. Customers can purchase single products, subscribe to regular deliveries, or buy bundles, some of which are configured in unique ways.

“We have lots of strange ways we set products up,” says co-founder Bethanie Sleigh. Their product bundles manage “the contents, the pricing, and stock management” as a single configurable unit.

For example, a customer can purchase a bundled soap set, and add other products onto their order. They can even subscribe to products individually to save even more.

They found that Shopify Plus couldn’t support this. 

“We were going to have to change our business to fit into that business,” says Leonard. “With WooCommerce, we can make WooCommerce fit around our business and make it work for us. We don’t have to change our principles.”

This flexibility is due to WooCommerce’s open-source foundation. grüum is not limited by the platform’s default features. If a bundle requires conditional logic, an extension is available, or a developer can create one. While most merchants may not need this, for businesses with unique catalog structures, it means they can sell without restructuring their operations.

Magento was the first to be eliminated.

Adobe Commerce — what Magento became after Adobe acquired it — is built for enterprise operations with the depth of customization to match. It also calls for considerable operational resources. Although it was robust, it wasn’t the right fit. It’d require dedicated technical staff for maintenance and performance, and, for grüum, the overhead was not economically viable.

And as Leonard puts it: “We weren’t going to employ a team of 20 people running our website.”

Shopify Plus presented a different cost challenge. Subscriptions are significant for grüum, now accounting for 10% of revenue, with the average subscriber staying 30 months. At this retention rate, subscription infrastructure costs are critical.

Shopify charges a percentage of subscription revenue. Leonard did the math: “When you’re doing £1 million or £10 million through subscriptions, that soon adds up. You’re instantly shelling out £100,000 a year.”

WooCommerce Subscriptions charges a flat fee, resulting in considerable cost savings at grüum’s scale. Payments followed the same logic. Leonard selected WooPayments because it’ i’s native to WooCommerce.

Speed is also a factor. According to Leonard, grüum’s CTO estimated that tasks which previously took a year could be completed in a month with WooCommerce. Faster time to market reduces expenses and complexity.

grüum operates its website with one full-time developer and a part-time QA tester. A small content team manages product setup, page creation, and daily content updates.

“We don’t often need development assistance,” says Sleigh.

The content team uses Gutenberg for page building, Max Mega Menu for navigation, and Yoast for SEO. Product listings, promotions, and seasonal updates can be managed without developer involvement.

This is possible because of WooCommerce’s design. The WordPress ecosystem delivers mature tools like these for non-technical users. grüum uses these tools as intended, rather than relying on workarounds. And the developer focuses on building improvements and enhancing the customer experience, rather than routine maintenance.

If grüum ever left WooCommerce — Leonard notes, “I don’t think we will,” — “The data is ours, which is quite different from other subscription platforms. It gives us control over our customers rather than giving them to a third party.”

With an average subscriber tenure of 30 months, grüum has developed strong customer relationships. Their purchase histories, preferences, and buying patterns stay with grüum. Depending on a system controlled by another party, especially one that restricts data access, creates a notable operational risk.

And not one that grüum is taking.

About

Christina Bevitori

Christina Bevitori is a content strategist with 15 years of experience helping brands connect with their audiences. She currently works at Woo, focusing on editorial storytelling, SEO, AEO, and AI-assisted content creation. Outside of work, she enjoys relaxing with her cat, Snacks, kayaking, and collecting rock records.