Natural stone is not a straightforward product to sell through a standard ecommerce template. The purchase is high-value, the quantities are calculated by area, the product comes in multiple formats and thicknesses, and getting the order wrong is expensive to fix once a delivery has landed on a pallet.

Stone Style was selling to two very different types of buyer from the same storefront. A homeowner researching crazy paving for a backyard renovation needs education, inspiration, and a way to visualise the product in a finished project before they commit. A builder or trade buyer needs format selectors, accurate m² pricing, bulk enquiry options, and a checkout that handles the logistics reality of heavy freight delivery to a construction site. A default Shopify setup handles neither of those well.

The product configuration problem was specific. Stone is sold by the square metre, not by units. A customer measuring a 28m² terrace needs to enter that area, select a format and thickness, factor in a wastage buffer for cuts, and get a price back in real time. Without that, buyers either called in or guessed. Guessing led to short orders, reorders, and refund requests for surplus stock.

Trade buyers needed a separate path entirely. Bulk pricing, trade applications, and project-scale enquiries do not belong in the same checkout flow as a homeowner ordering 12m² of bluestone paving. There was no structure to separate them.

Delivery was the final complication. Stone arrives on pallets. Some sites need a forklift. Residential addresses have different access requirements than trade yards. None of that was captured at checkout, which created post-order friction with every freight booking.

Tiles IT Solutions built Stone Style on Shopify with a fully custom theme and a product page architecture designed around how stone is actually specified and ordered, not how a generic ecommerce template expects a buyer to behave.

The catalogue was organised into a two-tier taxonomy: Walling and Flooring, each split into format-based collections. Walling covers Random, Random Ashlar, Ledger, Traditional, and Linear. Flooring covers Crazy Paving and the related stone categories. This mirrors how trade buyers shop for stone: by application and cut, not by colour. Each collection page carries its own hero image, editorial copy, an FAQ accordion, and cross-links to sibling collections. The FAQ blocks serve double duty as on-page SEO content for long-tail search queries about stone selection and installation.

The product page was the most technically involved part of the build. Every product carries a format and thickness selector, a live m² quantity input that recalculates the price as the buyer adjusts the area, and a one-click option to add a 30% wastage buffer for cuts. A backorder availability flag shows when stock is on order. A Get a Sample call to action sits alongside Add to Cart so an undecided buyer can request a physical sample before placing a full order. Specifications and quick tips are built into every product page, reducing pre-sale questions that would otherwise reach the support team.

Retail and trade buyers are separated before checkout. Retail shoppers go straight to self-serve purchasing. Trade buyers are directed to a Trade Application form and a Contact Us for Bulk Pricing prompt.

The checkout was configured for heavy freight. A Ship or Pickup toggle handles the difference between home delivery and Trade Centre collection. A residential delivery flag captures whether the site needs standard courier access or freight with forklift requirements. Shop Pay and Google Pay appear above the standard form for buyers ready to move fast. Address autocomplete reduces errors on freight delivery addresses.

The project portfolio runs as a dedicated section, each entry documented with full-width imagery, the product types used, and a project narrative. It connects project pages back to the relevant product collections for SEO and works as a credibility asset for buyers still in the research stage.

Before: A homeowner trying to price up a terrace had no way to enter their area and get a number back. Format and thickness options were not clearly presented. Trade buyers and retail buyers hit the same checkout with no differentiation. Delivery requirements for heavy freight were not captured until after an order was placed, creating back-and-forth with the logistics team on every large order.

After: A buyer enters their room dimensions, selects a format and thickness, adds a wastage buffer with one click, and sees a live price before adding to cart. Trade buyers have a direct route to bulk pricing and trade applications. The checkout asks whether the delivery address is residential and whether freight access requires special equipment. Shop Pay and Google Pay are available for buyers who want to move quickly. The project portfolio builds credibility and links directly back to the products used in each build.

• Live m² pricing and wastage calculator built into every product page, removing the manual calculation step that was generating incorrect orders and post-sale support calls
• Format and thickness selectors configured per product, giving trade buyers the specification control they need before adding to cart
• Sample ordering integrated on every product page, converting undecided retail buyers into leads rather than losing them
• Retail and trade buyer paths separated, with trade application and bulk pricing prompts keeping the retail checkout clean
• Freight delivery logic captured at checkout, with Ship or Pickup toggle and residential delivery flag reducing post-order logistics friction
• Project portfolio built as a dual-purpose asset: marketing content for retail buyers and internal SEO linking back to product collections

Stone Style sells a product that most buyers want to touch before they commit and measure carefully before they order. The platform handles both of those needs before the customer has to ask for help. That is what removes the friction between a browsing session and a completed order.