D2C Ecommerce

Barestep: monthly store sales doubled in two months with paid, email and CRM run as one system

Shopify sales 2.1x from June to August 2026, 41 percent of orders from returning customers, and the cost of every paid order falling week after week.

2.1x
Monthly store sales
41%
Orders from returning customers
34.1%
Email open rate
barestep.com
Barestep website

Results

The numbers

  • 2.1x

    Monthly store sales

    Shopify total sales from June to August 2026: up 60 percent, then another 29 percent.

  • 41%

    Orders from returning customers

    August 2026 returning customer rate, with the last week converting 1.78 percent of sessions.

  • 34.1%

    Email open rate

    24 campaigns and 1.12 million emails in August 2026, with an 18.7 percent click rate.

  • 2.56x

    Google Ads ROAS, best week

    Week 4 of August 2026, up from 1.53x in week 1, with cost per order down 33 percent.

  • -60%

    Meta cost per purchase

    Week 1 to week 4 of August 2026, while weekly purchases went from 6 to 28.

  • 2,536

    Trustpilot reviews answered

    Customer support on Trustpilot, comments and DMs handled by the same team in August 2026.

Starting point

Where we started

The business

Barestep sells barefoot shoes (Active, Active 2.0, Active 3.0, Stride, Float and Summit) to customers in the United States and worldwide through a Shopify store.

Brainito took over marketing in June 2026. This case study covers June to August 2026 and uses data through 30 August.

The challenge

By early 2026 the store had slowed sharply, with monthly sales in March and April at a fraction of the previous year and fewer than 7,500 sessions a month. A large email list sat in Klaviyo with no active flows, more than 2,500 Trustpilot reviews were unanswered, and paid media had no account structure.

Barestep needed demand rebuilt quickly across paid, email and social, with one team accountable for the monthly number.

Month by month

What we did, in order

June was setup, July turned every channel on, and August was spent cutting the cost of each order while volume grew.

  1. June 2026

    Setup and plans

    • Accounts, business understanding and a social calendar; 18 posts across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest and YouTube.
    • Product alt text; Google Ads plan (all-product Performance Max and brand search); Meta plan (50-plus audience and retargeting).
    • 2 newsletters; welcome, post-purchase and abandoned cart funnel templates; Shopify to Klaviyo integration with triggers and flows.

  2. July 2026

    Every channel on

    • Homepage and supporting pages redesigned, new product imagery, product names, meta titles and descriptions, alt text and Search Console fixes.
    • Barestep set up in Brainito CRM with Klaviyo connected and the audience transferred; 30, 60, 90, 180 and 365-day dormant segments and re-engagement templates; a 90,000-profile Saturday campaign.
    • A 4-email abandoned cart retargeting flow and a 3-email browse abandoned flow; UTM tracking corrected on 6 emails.
    • 31 posts and 2 influencer reels; Google Performance Max live with 1.38 million impressions and 13,901 clicks; Meta catalog and retargeting campaigns; 30 Trustpilot replies.

  3. August 2026

    Cutting the cost of every order

    • Google Ads optimized week by week: ROAS from 1.53x in week 1 to 2.56x in week 4, cost per order down 33 percent.
    • Meta sales campaigns scaled from 6 to 28 purchases a week while cost per purchase fell 60 percent; an awareness campaign reached 619,514 people.
    • 24 email campaigns to 40 audiences, 1.12 million emails in the month.
    • 31 posts, a giveaway with 5 winners, 6 influencer collaborations and a feature article, 'The Quiet Luxury of Walking Well', on Luxury Lifestyle; 10 guest blogs.
    • 2,536 Trustpilot replies; TikTok Ads account set up; new website theme started.

Today

What runs now

Store
Total Shopify sales grew 60 percent from June to July and a further 29 percent in August, 2.1x in two months, with orders 2.1x and sessions 2.3x over the same period. In August 41.23 percent of orders came from returning customers, and the last week of the month (23 to 31 August) was the strongest on every measure, converting 1.78 percent of sessions.
Email
In August, 24 campaigns went to 40 audiences: 1,120,018 emails sent, 96.6 percent delivered, 34.1 percent opened and 18.7 percent clicked (54.9 percent click to open), with revenue attributed to email every week. In July the 90-day dormant campaign recorded a 61 percent open rate and a 70 percent click rate across 5,161 recipients, the 60-day campaign a 70.83 percent open rate, and the first abandoned cart email a 40.6 percent open rate.
Paid media
Google Ads in August improved every week, from 1.53x ROAS and EUR 43.99 per order in week 1 to 2.56x and EUR 29.60 in week 4, for 1.72x across the month; July's Performance Max campaign returned 1.76x. Meta sales campaigns went from 6 purchases a week at $102.45 each to 28 a week at $40.94, with week 4 at 2.18x. The Meta awareness campaign delivered 839,702 impressions and 28,150 recall-lift results.
Search and content
Search Console recorded 4,097 clicks and 115,436 impressions from 11 April to 31 August, steady month to month while the site work and 10 guest blogs a month went in. The brand feature on Luxury Lifestyle was published in August, with a second article on Metapress in progress.
Social and support
31 posts a month, 280 new Instagram and 100 new Facebook followers in August, a five-winner giveaway, six influencer collaborations with product deliveries managed end to end, and 2,536 Trustpilot reviews answered.

Figures come from Brainito's monthly reports to Barestep, Shopify analytics, Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager and Google Search Console, through 30 August 2026. Sales are shown as growth multiples, not amounts.

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