Valentina Akpan: Founder of Rellatech, providing administrative and operations support to executives, founders, business owners and teams. Her background combines technical support, customer success, administration and operations.
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Swift Racing Canada is the Canadian arm of a rowing shell manufacturer. They needed a website that reflected their own brand, and a catalogue that could handle configurable, freight-shipped sport equipment.
The brief was a storefront that matched the brand and gave Canadian buyers a way to browse, configure and inquire about the boats.
The Challenge
Rowing shells are oversized, configurable, expensive, and almost always shipped by freight, which makes them harder to sell online than most products. The audience is technical and loyal to specific models, so the product pages needed to include the detail they look for.
Variant-heavy catalog with rigging, sizing, and finish options
Oversized freight that needed different logic from accessories
Keeping the brand consistent for a specialist audience in a niche sport
Mobile browsing for athletes who shop on their phones
What I Built
Editorial product pages
I created long-form spec pages for each shell and oar, laid out like a printed catalog with the details buyers look for.
Variant-heavy ecommerce
Buyers configure boats by size, rigging, and finish. I set up the variants to match the combinations the manufacturer offers.
Inventory and shipping logic
Oversized freight is handled separately from accessories, and clear lead times are shown on the product page.
Consistent photography
I placed lifestyle and product images on a clean colour palette so the presentation stays consistent with the brand.
Fast loading on mobile
I compressed the media, added lazy loading and set up the layout for athletes browsing on a phone between sessions.
Structured SEO
I set up title tags, meta descriptions and product schema for each shell model.
Before and After
Before
- · No dedicated Canadian storefront
- · Buyers had to email for pricing and availability
- · No clear way to compare shells side by side
- · Brand identity scattered across PDFs and social
After
- A self-serve Canadian ecommerce site
- Configurable products with clear lead times
- Detailed product pages laid out like a catalog
- A consistent brand presence, on desktop and mobile
The Result
A Canadian storefront with the catalogue structured for configurable, freight-shipped products.
- A live Canadian storefront with full catalog and checkout
- Variants limited to the combinations the manufacturer offers
- Product pages with titles, metadata and schema for each shell model
- A mobile layout with compressed media and lazy loading
- A theme the client can maintain and extend
Live Site
swiftracingcanada.ca
Tools Used
Who This Is For
This case study is worth reading if you are:
- ●Niche brands selling configurable, variant-heavy, or oversized products on Shopify
- ●Businesses whose customers are technical and loyal, and expect detailed product information
- ●Sports, equipment, or premium consumer brands that need detailed product pages
- ●Businesses and startups that need freight and shipping logic that an out-of-the-box Shopify install can't handle
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