Adult Ecommerce · United Kingdom
Shopify Plus adult store with a high-risk gateway and B2B wholesale
Migrated from WooCommerce on a hostile host to Shopify Plus. High-risk MCC 5967 routing wired in. B2B wholesale channel launched alongside DTC.
Outcomes
Measured against the pre-engagement baseline. Specifics verifiable on a call under NDA.
The challenge
Where the operator started and what actually made it hard.
The host had given thirty days. The mainstream gateway was declining one card in eight because the merchant category did not match the products. Wholesale orders were being handled by email and spreadsheet.
Shopify Plus was the right destination, but adult retail on Shopify means the payment gateway has to be chosen and configured for the category, and the Meta ad ban meant the store had to work harder on search and email from day one.
- Operator
- UK adult retailer, direct-to-consumer with a growing trade customer base
- Starting point
- WooCommerce on a host that had just served notice, card declines at 12%
- Brief
- A stable platform, a gateway that accepts the category, and a wholesale channel
What we built
Everything below shipped inside the fixed price. No add-ons.
Shopify Plus store build with catalogue migration and redirect map from WooCommerce
High-risk gateway with MCC 5967 routing and adult-appropriate statement descriptors
B2B wholesale channel with trade pricing, minimums and approval workflow
Klaviyo flows for abandoned cart and replenishment to offset lost paid social
Age gate that keeps category and product pages indexable
Zero-downtime cutover inside the host notice period
How it went
Staging from the first weeks, a written report every Friday, no surprises at the end.
-
1
Weeks 1–2
Discovery and gateway onboarding
Gateway application started on day two. Catalogue and redirect audit.
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2
Weeks 3–7
Store and wholesale build
Theme, catalogue, B2B channel and email flows on a preview store.
-
3
Weeks 8–10
Cutover and launch
DNS moved before the host deadline, redirects live, declines monitored daily.
Compliance handled
Built in from the start, not retrofitted.
- Age gate on explicit categories with non-gated pages left crawlable
- MCC 5967 gateway with discreet descriptors and refund policy to reduce chargebacks
- Consumer and trade terms separated for the B2B channel
Stack
What the platform runs on.
Related service · Development
Adult ecommerce
Shopify Plus and custom stores with high-risk gateways, age gating and B2B channels. Built to survive the ad bans.
See the serviceMore development work
Every engagement anonymised. Every outcome verifiable on request under NDA.
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30-minute confidential consultation. Once a mutual NDA is signed we walk through the real timeline, stack decisions and the numbers behind the outcomes.
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