About the Project
About SOU・SOU
SOU・SOU is a Japanese lifestyle and apparel brand known for its bold patterns and modern take on traditional craftsmanship. With a strong e-commerce presence and a growing international audience, performance and visual experience matter a lot.
But China was a different story.
SOU・SOU's website on Shopify Plus
The challenge: fast outside China, frustrating inside
SOU・SOU’s website was already well-built:
Shopify Plus for e-commerce
Cloudflare for CDN and security
WOVN for multilingual support
The performance outside China? Solid. Inside China? Not so much.
After the site was launched globally, China-based visitors faced:
Slow initial loading
Pages that felt stuck halfway
Visual elements loading late or not at all
For an e-commerce brand, that gap directly impacts trust, engagement, and conversions.
Why the usual fixes weren’t enough
The site wasn’t “broken.” It was loading to some extent just not China-optimized.
The key blockers included:
Third-party resources that are slow or blocked in China
Assets that technically load, but too slowly to feel usable
A page that eventually loads, but loses users before it gets there
Rebuilding the site for China wasn’t an option. Maintaining a separate China stack wasn’t ideal either. They needed a way to fix web performance in China without overhauling their core setup.
Its cloud agency, Object Ventures, reached out to collaborate with Chinafy. That’s where things started to turn around.
The Chinafy approach: optimize, don’t rebuild
Chinafy generated a China-friendly version of the site that works alongside SOU・SOU’s existing stack, not against it.
No replatforming.
No duplicate site.
No China-only rebuild.
In 1.5 weeks…
Chinafy scanned the site to identify slow or inaccessible resources for China users
Slow assets were re-engineered using China-optimized alternatives if applicable
China traffic was routed to a fully optimized version of the same site, under the same domain
This is all achieved while keeping Shopify Plus, Cloudflare, and WOVN exactly as they were.
The results: faster, complete, and usable in China
After Chinafy:
The site visually loads in 2 seconds in China (see metric and findings below)
Pages now load fully, a contrast from their previously broken state
China-based visitors now experience SOU・SOU the way it was intended to be seen
Over 80 data points were collected to run a 4-hour time series analysis that compares the original site and the Chinafy version in Beijing.
Why Chinafy mattered for SOU・SOU
For a design-driven brand, performance isn’t just a technical metric. It’s part of the brand experience.
With Chinafy, SOU・SOU:
Kept its global tech stack
Avoided costly rebuilds in China and operational complexity
Delivered a complete, visually reliable experience in China
Key takeaways
Shopify Plus sites can be “fast” globally and still struggle in China
China optimization doesn’t require rebuilding your site
Visual completeness matters as much as load time
Don’t just take our words, take theirs…
Click Get Started to speed up your Shopify Plus website with Chinafy
