CASE STUDY · 2026
The Cat & The Moon.
The Cat & The Moon — Sligo's beloved retail store on the main shopping strip, owned by renowned Irish jewellery designer Martina Hamilton — migrated to Shopify with Milk Bottle Labs.
THE CHALLENGE
A beloved Sligo store let down by a bespoke platform.
The Cat & The Moon is a fixture on Sligo's main shopping street, but its bespoke platform had become more constraint than asset — and its online experience no longer matched the in-store one.
Having already worked with owner Martina Hamilton on her jewellery brand, we were trusted to migrate the store to Shopify while protecting its hard-won search rankings and sales.
WHAT WE DELIVERED
A retail brand brought online, properly.
- 01
Overview
The Cat & The Moon is one of Sligo town's most loved retail destinations, sitting on the main shopping strip in the heart of the west of Ireland. The store is owned by Martina Hamilton — a renowned Irish jewellery designer and artist whose work is recognised and collected across Ireland and beyond. Having already worked with Martina on her jewellery brand, Milk Bottle Labs was the natural choice when it came to bringing The Cat & The Moon onto Shopify.
- 02
The challenge
The store had been running on a bespoke platform that, over time, had become more of a constraint than an asset. For a retail business with Martina's reputation — and a customer base that expects a seamless online experience to match the in-store one — the platform simply wasn't keeping pace. The move to Shopify needed to be handled carefully: protecting hard-won search rankings, maintaining sales through the transition, and delivering a storefront worthy of the brand.
- 03
What we did
We migrated The Cat & The Moon from their bespoke platform to Shopify, handling the full store design and build alongside the migration. Preserving SEO equity was a priority throughout — ensuring that the visibility the store had built up in search didn't take a hit during the switch. The result is a Shopify store that reflects the quality and character of one of Sligo's most distinctive retail brands, and that gives Martina's team a platform that's genuinely easy to manage and built to grow.
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