For contemporary bedding brand Parachute, the customer is at the heart of the business, and relationships come before the sale of pillowcases, bath towels and duvet covers. Launching from Los Angeles as the premier direct-to-consumer bed linens label in 2014, the brand brought its independent spirit to every aspect of its operations—including a custom website. But in short order, Parachute founder and board chair Ariel Kaye realized that too much of her team’s attention was being taken up by tech maintenance. Quickly course-correcting, she joined forces with Shopify, and the back-end support of the e-commerce platform has helped grow her company into a full-fledged lifestyle line ever since. “The vision was always to move beyond the bedroom and build a multicategory brand with a retail presence,” says Kaye.
Now, after keeping its online product presentation and web design separate from its back-end functionality, Kaye and Parachute are unifying the two, along with point-of-sale operations across the brand’s site and 20-plus brick-and-mortar stores, by migrating from its existing “headless” approach to Shopify themes: settings for everything from typography, colors and page templates to social media links and checkout screens. With an eye on the big picture—which encompasses a new circularity program as well as community-focused in-store events—Kaye discusses Parachute’s long-term partnership with Shopify and how the platform empowers the brand to put customers first.
When did Parachute first partner with Shopify?
We had built a custom website, which was an early mistake. We were getting so much information from the customer in those startup days and wanted to make so many improvements, but we quickly realized that we weren’t able to keep up with the rapid pace of change. We transitioned to the Shopify CMS [content management system] just a few months after we launched in 2014, and have been on the platform ever since.
So, Parachute has grown in tandem with Shopify?
From the beginning, we’ve had a partnership in which we’ve been able to provide feedback and let Shopify know what we need to continue to evolve. And we have been met every step of the way. There have been times when we’ve had to build other features independently to address various needs, but we’ve continuously returned to Shopify as it has expanded its features. And now, after managing our front end separately for a few years, we’re in the process of converting to Shopify themes for our product templates and overall site design.
How did that initial switch from your self-made site to Shopify help shift your focus from technology to customer service?
As a first-time founder, there was a lot I didn’t know, and I thought that a custom solution would allow us to provide a very specific user experience. We had several different size and color variants, and our data management became really complicated. We’d built this custom site but didn’t have a technical team to maintain it, just a third-party person helping us out. And the CMS was just so complex and required so much manual attention that it took away from other important tasks. Moving to Shopify unlocked this situation where we had skilled people helping with our user experience and simplifying our back end. As a customer-centric brand focused on creating stories around our products, partnering with Shopify separated our success from our technical capabilities, allowing us to put our energy where it belonged.
What changed in Parachute’s product offering once you moved to Shopify?
Before Parachute, if you went to a store to buy a sheet set, you got a top sheet, a fitted sheet and two pillowcases—no substitutions. From day one, it was important to us that we offered shoppers lots of options to customize their order, but on our initial site the logistics of such bundling were a huge hurdle. We also wanted to educate customers about what a perfect sleep experience could look like, emphasizing all the variants we make—we’ve got endless colors per fabric. Shopify allows our customers to add a top sheet, take away a top sheet, and so on. Once we were able to include those choices, it also created upsell opportunities: If someone is buying sheets, for example, there’s a chance they might want a duvet as well. Whether it’s through upsell, product information, imagery or video, Shopify lets us itemize our products in a way that empowers visitors to tailor their purchases. Not everyone can be in-store, so we’re always thinking of new ways to adapt the on-site retail experience to our e-commerce.
How will Parachute’s pending migration to Shopify themes benefit that offline-online integration and the website’s overall usability?
Going from headless to full Shopify is such a major headline for Parachute in 2025—a testament to the growth and flexibility the platform can provide. In terms of the front-end experience on the site, we don’t expect any noticeable difference on the part of our customers, but on the back end, it will be easier for us to continuously upgrade. Making sure that the Parachute team, which is lean and has a lot on their plates, is not distracted by maintaining and upgrading complex custom solutions and manual updates is going to save us a lot of time. And by using Shopify themes, we’ll also save a good amount of money on software development.
How does consolidating Parachute’s operational functions and online presence under the Shopify umbrella unify the brand’s approach to commerce?
Once we’d opened a few brick-and-mortar stores, we began seeing things break down. We had multiple POS systems, and it was hard to manage inventory. People buying product that was in stock at their particular store checked out from one POS. And if there were out-of-stock items they wanted, they had to order those online through another POS. Two checkouts for one order, multiplied by hundreds of different customers, was a clunky way to complete sales. Streamlining those separate checkouts into one unified system where all the information is brought into a single platform creates a much quicker, more seamless experience for our customers and our store associates.
With Shopify POS, Parachute is able to offer buy online, pick up in-store; ship from store; and curbside pickup—all of which customers greatly appreciate. They can check inventory levels and see what’s available. We have customers who want to spend 45 minutes touching and feeling every product and asking questions. They’re there to hang out for a while. And then we have people who want to get in and out as quickly as possible. Our primary goal is to meet customers where they are so that they have full flexibility. As Parachute’s single source of truth, Shopify enables transparency and accuracy about inventory levels, shipping options, returns management and more. And the customer data Shopify aggregates through this unified system allows us to follow up with highly personalized service, because we have a comprehensive picture of who purchased what, where and when.
Have you found that Shopify’s functionality in Parachute’s brick-and-mortar stores is a gateway to e-commerce?
We’ve got around 24 stores right now, and they’re designed to feel like a home, with a bedding area, a bath area and a living space. The idea from the outset, even when we were only doing little pop-ups, was that we never wanted to be a strictly transactional bedsheet brand. We wanted to be a relationship-building lifestyle brand that adds value beyond product and doesn’t feel forcibly salesy. These worlds within our stores invite people in, whether for a speaker series, a workshop or a class. Some are ticketed events; some are open to the public. Some are intended for shopping; others are just to create memorable moments. We’ve hosted book signings. We’ve had a dog party. We’ve done it all in our stores, and it allows us to connect with the customer, the neighborhood and nearby retailers. We want to inspire and educate, and in-store events give people a reason to come in, learn about the brand, and have a positive experience without feeling pressured to purchase.
I was in New York a few weeks ago speaking on a panel about Parachute’s circularity program. About half the people in attendance had been into one of our stores before and were customers, while the other half weren’t. These were people passionate about sustainability, and by the end of the discussion, having learned about Parachute’s commitment to giving back, so many told me that they would be lifelong customers. Such events foster a dialogue and encourage brand loyalty. Immediately following them, we see a spike in the metrics—an uptick of 40, 50 percent in sales.
And those participatory real-world events feed back into Parachute’s website?
We definitely see a halo effect. People come into a store, then they shop online. A lot of people want to engage with the product before they buy it: I’ve seen them open their Notes app to make a list of the items they like. Some come in with a whole online shopping cart preloaded, and others prefer to make their selections in the privacy of their own home following their visit. There’s so much correlation between what happens in-store and online, and lots of ways we can slice and dice the sales figures and customer data that Shopify helps us aggregate.
We like to know where the customer started their journey with Parachute. We look at life cycles: From a product perspective, did this person start with sheets and move to bath towels? In terms of POS, did they first buy online and then buy in-store? Or buy in-store once and subsequently order multiple times online? We gather a lot of anecdotal information through the post-purchase customer surveys and focus groups we conduct, in addition to the comprehensive reports our fleet of stores generate. Analyzing this combination of hard and soft data is a way for us to learn as much as possible about the customer experience and prioritize our response to the commentary, whether that entails changes to product design, visual merchandising, retail, or even technology.
It sounds as if Parachute’s partnership with Shopify is as much about the holistic experience as it is the individual features of the platform.
Through Shopify, we’re able to manage the customer experience from end to end. We can update them in real time on their order-in-progress, tracking where it is and when it will arrive. We have insight on inventory across stores, so we’re not taken by surprise with out-of-stock items. We work with Klaviyo, another Shopify partner, to personalize our marketing and email outreach based on the customer profiles we’ve built, so that we can keep in touch with special promotions and new product debuts. If even one of those stages in a sale doesn’t work, it can negatively impact customer loyalty—the decision to come back and buy more. That Parachute can depend on Shopify for the full package on both the front and back end, online and in stores, is just so valuable. And the fact that it’s seamless and easy is an added perk. Parachute can provide the best possible experience because we have Shopify as our singular source of truth.
This story is a paid promotion and was created in partnership with Shopify.
Homepage image: With Shopify themes and templates, Parachute customers can tailor their purchases, choosing from the brand’s infinte array of colors | Courtesy of Parachute
