Client Overview

Al-Ittihad Club Company is a Saudi Closed Joint Stock Company representing one of the most decorated and historically significant institutions in Middle Eastern sports. Backed by a massive fanbase and a rich heritage, the club operates an online flagship storefront on Shopify to deliver official merchandise and gear directly to its global community of supporters.

Challenges

Prior to the partnership, the digital storefront suffered from critical operational bottlenecks. The platform experienced a low e-commerce conversion rate of 1.05%, heavily impacted by a 76% homepage bounce rate and a steep 75% checkout drop-off rate. These friction points were primarily driven by language translation and localization errors, misconfigured regional market settings within Shopify Markets, and a disruptive lack of integrated local payment gateways such as Mada and Apple Pay.

Phases

• Phase 1: Discovery & Validation – Comprehensive analysis of user behavior utilizing Microsoft Clarity to pinpoint precise UI/UX friction zones, alongside an audit of misconfigured regional profiles.
• Phase 2: Theme Development – Engineering a dedicated, mobile-first Shopify theme built on an isolated development environment to eliminate live storefront disruption.
• Phase 3: Checkout Integration & Optimization – Rectifying localization issues, establishing Right-to-Left (RTL) language protocols, and deploying native Saudi payment gateways.
• Phase 4: QA Testing – Executing cross-device functional validation checklists to guarantee an enterprise-grade customer experience.
• Phase 5: Growth Retainer Transition – Evolving the relationship into a long-term commercial partnership to oversee continuous iterative growth.

Functionalities Implemented

• Custom, mobile-first eCommerce Today built Shopify theme.
• Advanced Right-to-Left (RTL) localization and Arabic language sync.
• Integrated native payment gateways.
• Microsoft Clarity behavioral analytics integration.