Dollar Shave Club Recaptures Revenue with Anatta’s Needle-Moving Optimization Program & Shopify Retheme

Transformation Milestones

Faster Website Performance

Following Anatta's Shopify theme rebuild, page loading speed improved, leading to better user experiences and SEO ranking.

Improved User Experience

Anatta's design work and UX research on both mobile and desktop experiences led to an 11% increase in conversions.

More Testing, Faster Results

Anatta transformed DSC’s ability to test ideas, going from one test per month to over four tests monthly.

Lower Bounce Rate

Anatta's redesign of DSC’s guest homepage reduced bounce rate by 24%, keeping more first-time visitors engaged.

Future-Ready Website

Created a custom system allowing DSC to receive updates automatically from Shopify's Dawn theme, ensuring long-term compatibility.

Revenue Recovery

Anatta’s strategic testing program fixed DSC’s purchase journey gaps, recovering significant lost revenue.

The Challenge

Shaving Off Outdated Technology

Dollar Shave Club (DSC) has established itself as a viral force in men's grooming, building a subscription-based, Direct-to-Consumer empire that disrupted traditional retail models. After more than a decade of success, however, dollarshaveclub.com lived on depreciating technology. Unable to launch optimization tests quickly, DSC knew money was being left on the table. On top of this, the Shopify theme they had migrated to was built using outdated tech, heavily relying on jQuery—an older javascript library—and inefficient coding practices.

DSC found itself facing:

Accumulating technical debt
Slow site speed affecting SEO and user experience
Inefficient script loading with product page scripts loading on homepage
Lack of optimization for Shopify 2.0
Limited testing capabilities with long development cycles

Aware of the situation’s urgency, Dollar Shave Club decided it was time for a closer shave. After an intense Request for Proposal process vetting top eCommerce agencies, Dollar Shave Club partnered with Anatta.

“Anatta knew their capabilities, and Anatta was very transparent about what they could do. Versus, as you can imagine, some of the earlier agencies that wanted to work with DSC that didn't make the cut. Other agencies were a little boastful—saying, ‘No, we can do this,’ and I think, maybe they were just looking at our project like, ‘If we can get Dollar Shave Club, that will elevate us to the next level.’ Anatta was the opposite.” — Kevin Sakamoto, Senior Director of Product Management, Dollar Shave Club

The Solution

Anatta Leads a Complete Digital Transformation

Understanding that Dollar Shave Club needed immediate wins alongside long-term solutions, Anatta developed a two-part roadmap for DSC’s digital transformation.

Strategic CRO Partnership

The first half of the roadmap focused on modernizing DSC's testing capabilities while working within their existing constraints. The Anatta team:

Re-engineered testing infrastructure
Optimized integration with A/B testing software, Optimizely
Launched a user research program to direct testing efforts
Systemized data collection and analysis methods

These sprints reworked DSC's ability to execute and measure optimization efforts, dramatically increasing their testing velocity.

“The transformation was that, where one test once took four weeks to run, we were able to run four tests in one month.” — Saras Arya, Technical Lead at Anatta

Shopify Theme Rebuild

After a consulting sprint that uncovered areas for improvement, Anatta began a theme rebuild of DSC’s Shopify site. The retheme would clean DSC’s code base, speed up development cycles, and future-proof dollarshaveclub.com.

The re-theme roadmap followed four sprints.

1. Discovery & Documentation

Documented all existing features
Conducted scoping sessions for all site sections
Created a roadmap for modernization while preserving user experience

2. Technical Modernization

Replaced jQuery with Alpine JS for better performance
Implemented Tailwind CSS for more efficient styling
Optimized for Shopify 2.0's "sections everywhere" feature
Created proper component structure for maintainability

3. Performance Optimization

Eliminated unnecessary code
Improved page loading speed
Increased search ranking and performance scores

4. Future-Proofing

Created custom workflow allowing DSC to pull updates from Shopify's Dawn theme
Documented best practices for the engineering team
Provided knowledge transfer to support team self-sufficiency

Anatta’s methodical yet agile approach enabled DSC to capture growth opportunities while maintaining the reliability DSC’s subscribers needed.

“Anatta is very thorough, very careful, very strategic in terms of introducing new features and thinking about the cascading effects of each experience. This partnership not only delivered on our original goals but left a lasting impression on the DSC team.” — Kevin Sakamoto, Senior Director of Product Management, Dollar Shave Club

The Results

Growth Through Renovated Tech & A New Testing Program

The partnership between Anatta and Dollar Shave Club illustrates how strategic CRO combined with tech modernization can drive major business impact.

Dollar Shave Club website shown on a laptop

Performance Improvements

With sharp attention to user behavior, Anatta discovered growth prospects in Dollar Shave Club’s digital experience.

11% increase in conversion rates across mobile and desktop
90% increase in voluntary user account registration
24% reduction in homepage bounce rate
Faster page loading speeds

Technical Achievements

Anatta’s thorough development work set new internal benchmarks for Dollar Shave Club.

Successfully launched 60+ high-value tests
Transformed testing capacity from 1 test per month to 4+ tests (a 400% increase)
Upgraded codebase with modern JavaScript frameworks
Created a component-based approach for easier future development
Implemented an Anatta-built solution allowing DSC’s custom theme to receive Shopify Dawn updates

Business Impact

Anatta’s digital experience and site performance improvements gave Dollar Shave Club a noticeable boost to short-term gains and future projections.

Recovered millions in revenue through thoughtful optimization
Improved customer acquisition efficiency
Enhanced customer experience across key touchpoints
Accelerated speed-to-market for new features
Reduced technical debt and maintenance costs
Empowered DSC's engineering team with modern best practices

Long-Term Impact

Dollar Shave Club Reaffirms Status As Industry Leader

Anatta not only helped Dollar Shave Club transform site metrics but also DSC’s fundamental ability to find and capture growth opportunities. Most importantly, the partnership showcased how legacy infrastructure could be updated to deliver modern capabilities without total replacement.

This progressive approach allowed DSC to evolve its platform in well-coordinated phases while maintaining stability. Above all else, Anatta’s approach supported DSC’s evolution to a new phase of industry leadership.

“Every touchpoint with Anatta has just been a pleasure. And I really do think that’s a testament to how Anatta runs their organization, and the values that Anatta has instilled within their team. Anatta is the agency that can do anything.” — Kevin Sakamoto, Senior Director of Product Management, Dollar Shave Club

“

There was a multiple times increase in terms of our output compared to the year prior to partnering with Anatta. We've never experienced this kind of output–ever–in the history of Dollar Shave Club. And that's all because of the working relationship we had with Anatta and the willingness of their team to get things done.

Kevin Sakamoto

Senior Director of Product Management, Dollar Shave Club