16 of the Best Shopify Plus Stores in Australia
by Andrew Cox
There are a lot of amazing Shopify stores in Australia. As the world’s most popular platform, Shopify can transform a simple business idea into a great brand. When your store grows, you might be ready to scale to the next level, and you will need more features, functionality, and freedom to grow. You can do all that and more when you move to Shopify Plus.
This platform allows you to connect everything in one commerce operating system and manage multiple online stores, social commerce, and marketplaces with less friction across online and in-store operations.
Better yet, you can use Shopify Plus's expansion stores and start selling globally with flexible localisation features. The advanced features in Shopify Plus mean that your store is customisable from front-end to back-end, based on your brand growth needs.
In this article, we will look at some of the platform's standout performers. All of these stores have a unique story, and better yet, they follow it up with a memorable online shopping experience that makes people want to come back for more.
Which are the best Shopify Plus stores in Australia?
With captivating brand storytelling, visual design, and user experience in mind, here are the top 16 Shopify Plus stores in Australia.
1. Aje
Aje is a contemporary Australian fashion brand with over 18 retail stores across Australia and New Zealand dedicated to raw beauty, tough femininity and effortless cool. Established in 2008 by best friends Adrian Norris and Edwina Forest, Aje is renowned for unique design details, hand-painted prints, natural fabrications, use of volume and proportion, and raw-edged finishes.
What sets this Shopify Plus store apart?
Leveraging Shopify Plus expansion stores, Aje has three online stores to sell internationally. They offer localised pricing, currencies, and seasonal content and ship to over 75 countries.
Upon visiting their website, users are immediately immersed in the world of Aje. The online experience mirrors the brand's authenticity, seamlessly translating its in-store ambience to the digital realm. Through glamorous lifestyle photography, captivating videos and a minimalist layout, Aje maintains a luxurious feel throughout its online presence.
Video commerce is pivotal in enhancing the brand's customer shopping experience. On the homepage, there is a dedicated section of interactive, shoppable videos powered by Tolstoy.
The big takeaway: Video commerce has transitioned from a nice-to-have to a necessity, as short-form video content now constitutes 82% of online content. To maximise your online store's impact, ensure visitors can discover your products through video content, and leverage your TikTok videos and Instagram reel assets by repurposing user-generated content, unboxing videos, product demonstrations, and video reviews across your site.
2. Cultiver
Nicolle Sullivan had a vision of providing people with a curated collection of the best items for their homes, which would elevate routine rituals and make every day more enjoyable. That vision became her company, Cultiver. Its focus on elegant, premium-quality linens and textile products quickly took off in Australia.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
Like the very best ecommerce stores, Cultiver's website does a great job of selling an experience rather than selling products alone. From the copy and images to the customer reviews, every element on the site has been carefully considered to present the feel of luxury. The Inspiration section gives customers the chance to envision what these timeless products would look like in their own homes.
The big takeaway: Go beyond simple products and think about how you can add value to people’s lives. You aren’t just selling products - your site needs to convey the possibility of having a positive experience.
3. Who Gives A Crap
Who Gives A Crap is a sustainable toilet paper brand that has transformed how customers think about shopping for everyday products. After spending several years in Africa, Simon Griffiths wanted to create a product that would make it easy for people to do good with their money. His company sells toilet paper made from bamboo or 100% recycled paper and donates 50% of the profits to building toilets in underdeveloped countries.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
Who Gives A Crap uses vibrant imagery, memorable copy, and humorous branding throughout the website. This brand shows how a commonplace product like toilet paper can become interesting. Further to that, the company actively promotes sustainability both on its website and through its active blog.
The big takeaway: By incorporating fun elements into your branding, you can brighten people's lives and make your product stand out.
4. Knobby Underwear
Knobby is the ultimate go-to for vibrant, feel-good underwear! The brand is based on the Sunshine Coast and crafts remarkable underwear that celebrates your body like no other. Established in 2014 by Rob Rand, Knobby is Australia's pioneer subscription-based underwear label.
Diving deep into sustainability, Knobby offers an array of underwear crafted from Bamboo, Merino, and BottleBlend™ fabrics(Recycling up to five bottles per undie that could end otherwise in the ocean). Each pair boasts incredible comfort and is shipped with zero-single-use plastic packaging featuring custom-designed, certified kraft paper envelopes, sealed paper pouches, and postage bags made from cornstarch.
What is great about their Shopify Plus store?
Knobby’s online experience is as bold and creative as their underwear designs. Using unique illustrations, great copy, and strong UGC content across the site has changed the way people think and buy underwear. Knobby is one of the top Australian Shopify stores leveraging subscriptions with Recharge. Knobby’s undies club is built on the experience of a surprise, not knowing what design you're going to receive, plus additional member-only perks like priority access to product releases.
The big takeaway: Have you considered implementing subscriptions? Evaluate whether your brand has the potential to launch a subscription model and offer products on a recurring basis. Subscriptions are great for creating recurring revenue, improving cash flow and building long-lasting relationships with customers.
5.Culture Kings
Culture Kings is a premium streetwear retailer known for providing an exclusive in-store shopping experience. Their iconic stadium-shaped stores are hugely popular among music, sport, and fashion enthusiasts alike.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
This ecommerce store replicates the exclusive atmosphere of Culture Kings' brick-and-mortar stores through their website's design and functionality. Unlike many Shopify stores in Australia, this brand has bespoke, dynamic product listings of its apparel, which vary depending on the viewer's interests or location. Overall, the layout of the collection webpages looks as remarkable as their exciting in-store displays.
The big takeaway: Accurately present your brand values in your online store, and add a personal touch by tailoring the customer’s journey around their specific interests.
6. Frank Body
How much do you love coffee? Frank Body is a quirky, Melbourne-based skincare brand that is making natural skincare fun with coffee scrub products. The company is proof of how clever social media strategies can turn a small yet driven startup into a popular cosmetics giant.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
Frank Body has one of the best Shopify Plus stores in Australia with a headless architecture, making excellent use of user-generated content to achieve massive ecommerce success. The brand actively shares its clients' selfies, unedited Instagram photos, customer reviews, and hashtags to celebrate its audience. It also has a gamified loyalty system so that customers can collect points for discounts. This strategy nurtures a sense of community and spreads the word about their ecommerce store.
The big takeaway: You can leverage user-generated content to build your online brand. Step up your marketing game by finding ways to turn your customers into micro-influencers. When you throw loyalty incentives into the mix, it can cause your growth to skyrocket.
7. Coco & Lola
Since launching in 2010, Coco & Lola has proudly become the go-to destination for the best curation of premium Australian designer brands, with four retail boutiques across Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. The multi-retailer offers the Coco girl and her upcoming social calendar a curated selection of personalised stylish recommendations and dress code advice.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
Coco & Lola's Shopify Plus store offers the latest fashion, jewellery and accessories from designers including Alemais, Shona Joy, Camilla & Marc, SIR the label, Bec + Bridge and more. The site’s intuitive navigation lets you discover emerging designers, shop by dress code, and explore fashion trends. Coco’s homepage is designed to celebrate Australian fashion, offering customers a unique and special visual experience with video and rich lifestyle photography.
Product pages are crafted to provide stylish advice, showcasing a lifestyle video and multiple product photographs taken from various angles, letting you visualise yourself wearing the garments and accessorise your look effortlessly with the ‘complete the look’ feature, which provides tailored complementary product recommendations. The brand also excels in shipping flexibility, going beyond express shipping and click & collect, offering Uber Same Day Delivery.
The big takeaway: Are you encouraging customers to buy more than one product per transaction, increasing your average items per sale? Take advantage of opportunities to upsell and cross-sell to your customers and enhance their shopping journey offering complementary products on product pages and checkout.
8. The Memo
The Memo is a Melbourne brand co-founded in 2019 by Phoebe Simmonds and Kate Casey. It is reinventing the baby retail space, featuring top baby brands and essential tips for parents to feel ready and supported in their parenting journey.
The Memo was born from a list, “everything you need for a baby”, emailed from friend to friend, refined with each experience of pregnancy, birth and new parenthood.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
The Memo online store offers a personalised parenting experience for every stage: preconception, pregnancy, labour & birth, postpartum and breastfeeding. At The Memo, parents can find beyond a curated selection of products, tips, and services such as hospital bag packs, nursery planning, pram test drives, gift registries and resources to have a feel-good parenthood experience to help make big decisions, easy.
The big takeaway:
Having a solid understanding of your target market combined with a bold brand strategy will help your brand differentiate from competitors and build a genuine relationship with your customers. The most successful Shopify Plus brands have invested in brand strategy since its early beginnings, defining their brand’s personality and voice.
9. W. Titley & Co.
When bootmaker William Titley created W. Titley & Co in 1926, ecommerce wasn’t even a pipe dream. Almost 100 years on, the family-owned business continues to offer its premium-quality range of country and western clothing, footwear, and accessories.
As the business evolved, current owner Tony Titley recognised the need to switch to Shopify Plus to deliver a better customer experience.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
The new website has well-designed menus and makes good use of visual cues and highlights to direct visitors' attention. The custom mega menu and predictive search features make it a breeze to find any item you want within the store.
What’s more, the overall layout of the store’s product and category pages is easy on the eye, with key information on shipping and payment options made clear.
Another great addition is the alerts for out-of-stock items or sizes. Customers can opt to receive a notification when their desired size or item is available again.
The big takeaway: Make it easy for people to find what they want in your ecommerce store. If it’s out of stock now, use alerts to bring customers back again later.
10. Budgy Smuggler
When some mates decided to write “budgy smuggler” on a pair of speedo-style swimwear, a brand was born. Unaware of the spelling faux-pas, Adam Linforth launched Budgy Smuggler as a cheeky new Australian swimwear brand. By the time he realized the mistake, it was too late.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
The company’s cheeky yet attractive branding has always got people talking, and their website follows suit with colourful photos and funky designs.
Budgy Smuggler regularly holds photo and video competitions on its website, encouraging customers to engage with the brand. Their ecommerce store also allows users to customise their own swimwear and even create face mask designs during COVID-19.
The big takeaway: Engage your audience with fun competitions and interactive elements, such as a feature that allows them to customise the products. Remember, personalisation creates added value for customers.
11. LVLY
LVLY (pronounced lovely) is a playful Australian brand of stylish, thoughtful gifts and flowers. LVLY started in 2015 with a purpose rather than a product to help keep loved ones connected and spread a bit of joy in the world.
After years of working in advertising, Han and Vez were living away from home, missing friends and family, and saw a gap in the market to send affordable flowers and gifts that weren't the traditional red roses and fluffy teddy bears.
What's great about this Shopify Plus store?
LVLY's Shopify Plus store offers a thoughtful gifting experience for all occasions. Its personalisation and customisation options, paired with its cheeky tone of voice and same-day delivery options, make it Australians' go-destination for making someone's day.
Ensure your brand is constantly adapting, listening to your customers, and evolving your product offering. LVLY's team has spent nine years optimising its products, packaging, and pricing strategy to provide customers with a unique experience.
12. JB Hi-Fi
JB Hi-Fi is a major home entertainment retailer with a total revenue exceeding $7 billion annually. However, with the competition intensifying in the digital age, the company could no longer rely on offline sales. No worries, the team thought they’d go online. Now, it is one of the biggest Shopify stores in Australia.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
JB Hi-Fi is one of those Shopify stores in Australia that highlights its unique selling point right from the start. Simply put, they know how to showcase their competitive prices.
Customers visiting the ecommerce store are welcomed with deals, discounts, and exciting offers. The brand clearly understands that its users are looking for affordable prices.
The big takeaway: Emphasise your brand’s unique selling point. Once you've figured out what makes you special, ensure that you clearly (and loudly) let your customers know about it.
13.Koh
Koh is an eco-friendly multipurpose cleaning products & supplies brand. Founded in Bondi by two Dads who wanted an alternative to regular cleaning products that would be safer for their families and our planet. The brand offers a broad line of cleaning products free of unnecessary chemical nasties, fragrances and fumes.
These products are backed by research conducted at the University of New South Wales, are GECA certified and have won Canstar Blue Multipurpose of the Year in 2022 & 2023. Koh’s products are used in one in 10 Australian homes and in 2024 the brand is celebrating eight years in the market.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
Exploring Koh's Shopify Plus store is both enjoyable and educational. The site offers cleaning tips & tricks and effectively incorporates customer reviews across the site powered by reviews.io, showcasing the effectiveness of their products in maintaining a clean home while also emphasising the brand's commitment to sustainability and safety.
To further enhance the shopping experience, the brand utilises Rebuy, offering customised upselling, cross-selling, and a streamlined cart experience. As of April 2024, for every order placed Koh rescued the equivalent of 3 x 500ml ocean-bound plastic bottles through their partnership with Greenspark and Plastic Bank.
The big takeaway: More and more Australians have higher sustainability expectations from ecommerce brands, Gen Z is leading the charge in proactively seeking out sustainable brands and increasingly abandoning brands with questionable sustainability and ethical practices. Assess how your Shopify store can embrace sustainability practices across your business operations, a great start is switching from plastic to sustainable packaging, there is a new alternative, bamboo packaging.
14. Thankyou
Thankyou is a Melbourne-based social enterprise founded in 2008 with a mission to combat global poverty. Initially, it began by selling bottled water to finance water projects in developing countries and has since donated $17.9 million across projects to fight poverty. However, in 2020, Thankyou ceased the production of bottled water due to its environmental impact. Since then, the enterprise has shifted its product range towards a circular economy model, emphasising reuse and refill options to minimise plastic waste.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
Thankyou launched their ecommerce experience on Shopify Plus in late 2023, offering personal care and home cleaning ranges. Thankyou’s minimalist design layout is aligned with the brand ethos. It provides a simple, elegant and practical online shopping experience using storytelling elements to remind visitors that their purchase makes a difference. The brand highlights its mission and impact, creating multiple pages to disclose in detail its story, evolution, impact partners and how and where the dividends of Thankyou are distributed.
The big takeaway: Ensure you share your brand’s story, why you started, and your mission. Consumers demand more transparency and want to shop from brands they feel connected to that align with their values.
15. Kookai
Kookai is one of Australia’s leading women’s fashion retailers. It runs its Australian, UK, US, and New Zealand e-commerce stores from its base in Melbourne. The brand was born in Paris in 1983 and brought classic Parisian chic to Australians through a network of boutiques. Once it launched its excellent e-commerce store, it quickly became the highest revenue channel in Kookai’s ever-expanding portfolio.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
Kookai’s clean style with plenty of imagery communicates the elegant feel of the brand really well. The selection of sans-serif fonts for all main features contributes to the classy look. The store has no superfluous components, and Kookai ensured that all the elements on the site reflected the brand’s sophisticated nature. The purchase flow is clean and simple, staying consistent with the site's overall feel.
The big takeaway: Ecommerce design can be used to further enhance and communicate the classy image of your brand and product. Less is more when you ensure that all elements are chosen with purpose and complement one another.
16. Rollie Nation
Rollie Nation was born from founder Vince Lebon's desire to fill a gap he noticed after years of designing shoes for leading Australian brands. Dissatisfied with the options available, he set out to create the perfect travel shoe that would be light and comfortable. Their footwear combines comfort, style, and durability for all-day wear.
What’s great about this Shopify Plus store?
Rollie Nation migrated from BigCommerce to Shopify Plus in 2019 and, in late 2023, launched an immersive shopping experience with playful interactions that communicate their product innovations. This store’s design won the Australian Web Awards in 2023 in the Shopify category. One of the key site features is the Smart Styler Quiz, an interactive product recommendation quiz powered by Okendo that helps you find the perfect pair that fits your lifestyle.
The big takeaway: Product recommendation quizzes are a powerful tool for expanding your email list and driving sales. You can collect valuable insights into your customers' preferences, needs, and styles by utilising quizzes. This information enables you to customise product recommendations for each individual and create more effective email campaigns that ultimately drive revenue growth.
Conclusion
So, there you have it: 16 Shopify stores in Australia that are making waves in the ecommerce world. Each of these brands builds upon the intrigue of their origin story to deliver a user experience that customers love.
You can learn something from each one on our list. As a final takeaway, we can see that all of these ecommerce stores share something in common:
They truly understand what their consumers want.
When you know your audience and create a compelling brand experience, from your story to your website style, you can tap into the potential of Shopify Plus and become one of the best Shopify stores in Australia.
Are you ready to explore Shopify Plus? Let's talk