In the fast-evolving landscape of direct-to-consumer (D2C) e-commerce, scaling a business often forces founders into a difficult compromise: adapt your operations to fit rigid, off-the-shelf enterprise platforms, or invest heavily in bespoke infrastructure that drains resources.
For grüum, a UK-based sustainable skincare and personal care brand, that compromise was never an option. Facing rapid growth that pushed order volumes to 80,000 per month, the company evaluated major enterprise alternatives—including Adobe Commerce (Magento) and Shopify Plus—before deciding to double down on WooCommerce.
This in-depth case study explores grüum’s journey from a small startup launched by four corporate colleagues in 2016 to a thriving international brand. It examines the operational mechanics, financial implications, and strategic advantages that led them to stick with an open-source e-commerce model.
Main Facts: The grüum Story at a Glance
Founding: Launched in September 2016 by co-founders Simon Leonard, Andy Shaw, Bethanie Sleigh, and George Lagonikas after leaving their previous corporate roles across the UK and the Netherlands.
Product Line: Initially focused on men’s shaving and skincare, grüum has since expanded into universal skincare, haircare, bodycare, and candles. Its bestselling item—a waterless, natural shampoo bar—has sold millions of units.
Manufacturing & Operations: All products are formulated in-house by dedicated cosmetic scientists in Stockport, UK, utilizing natural ingredients, minimal cardboard packaging, and waterless technology.
E-commerce Scale: Processes up to 80,000 orders monthly across approximately 300 SKUs, balancing single-product sales, complex product bundles, and recurring subscriptions.
Lean Team: The website is managed by just one full-time developer, a part-time QA tester, and a small content team, leveraging WooCommerce’s ecosystem to maintain high operational efficiency without a massive technical overhead.
Chronology: From Corporate Breakaway to E-Commerce Scale
The 2016 Genesis
In January 2016, four colleagues decided to break away from conventional corporate structures to build a brand centered on honest, sustainable, and accessible personal care. Operating across borders in the UK and the Netherlands, they spent months developing formulations before launching grüum in September 2016 with a modest lineup of roughly 10 products.
Expanding Beyond the Shaving Niche
While the company’s early market traction stemmed from men’s shaving kits, consumer demand quickly pushed the brand to broaden its horizons. Grüum transitioned into a gender-neutral, all-ages personal care brand. By bringing cosmetic scientists in-house rather than outsourcing to contract manufacturers, the company gained complete control over its product pipeline. This setup allowed for rapid iteration, ensuring that customer feedback could be directly integrated into new formulations within weeks rather than months.
The 2023 Infrastructure Audit
By 2023, grüum was experiencing a massive surge in digital traffic and transaction volumes, processing up to 80,000 orders a month. Operating with a lean technical team—including just a single full-time developer—leadership recognized the need to audit their e-commerce architecture. They embarked on a rigorous four-month evaluation to determine whether WooCommerce could sustainably support their next phase of international growth, or if they needed to migrate to a heavily marketed enterprise platform.
Supporting Data: Why Alternative Platforms Didn’t Fit
During their evaluation window, grüum stress-tested their operational requirements against two of the market’s biggest enterprise contenders: Adobe Commerce (Magento) and Shopify Plus.
1. Eliminating Adobe Commerce (Magento)
Magento, following its acquisition by Adobe and rebranding as Adobe Commerce, is built for massive enterprise operations requiring deep customization. However, it demands substantial technical infrastructure and ongoing maintenance.
The Resource Burden: Grüum calculated that maintaining an Adobe Commerce store at their scale would require hiring a dedicated team of engineers.
The Verdict: As co-founder Simon Leonard bluntly put it, "We weren’t going to employ a team of 20 people running our website." For a lean, agile brand, the operational overhead was economically unviable.
2. The Shopify Plus Cost Model and Subscription Dilemma
Shopify Plus is a dominant force in D2C e-commerce, but its pricing structure created severe friction for grüum’s business model—particularly regarding recurring subscriptions.
Subscription Retention Economics: Subscriptions account for 10% of grüum’s total revenue, with the average subscriber maintaining an active account for an impressive 30 months.
The Percentage Fee Trap: Shopify charges a percentage fee on subscription revenue processed through its ecosystem. Leonard ran the numbers: "When you’re doing £1 million or £10 million through subscriptions, that soon adds up. You’re instantly shelling out £100,000 a year."
The WooCommerce Alternative: By utilizing WooCommerce Subscriptions, grüum pays a flat fee rather than giving up a cut of their recurring revenue. Combined with WooPayments for native transaction processing, the financial savings at scale were staggering.
3. Handling Complex Product Bundling
Grüum’s catalog features roughly 300 SKUs that customers can mix, match, bundle, or subscribe to in unique combinations.
Co-founder Bethanie Sleigh noted: "We have lots of strange ways we set products up." Grüum’s bundles manage contents, dynamic pricing, and stock inventory as a single configurable unit while allowing customers to add standalone items or subscribe independently.
Shopify Plus struggled to accommodate these non-standard workflows natively. As Leonard observed, migration would have forced them to change their core business model to fit the platform’s limitations: "With WooCommerce, we can make WooCommerce fit around our business and make it work for us. We don’t have to change our principles."
Official Responses and Leadership Insights
The decision to remain on WooCommerce was driven by a philosophy of ownership, agility, and uncompromising brand identity.
"We were going to have to change our business to fit into that business. With WooCommerce, we can make WooCommerce fit around our business and make it work for us. We don’t have to change our principles."
— Simon Leonard, Co-Founder
The open-source architecture of WooCommerce allows grüum to implement custom conditional logic for product bundles through tailored extensions or custom developer scripts, bypassing the restrictions imposed by closed SaaS platforms.
Furthermore, development velocity increased dramatically. According to Leonard, grüum’s Chief Technology Officer estimated that complex technical projects that previously took a year on legacy setups could be executed within a single month using WooCommerce.
This agility trickles down to non-technical departments. The content team manages daily promotions, seasonal updates, and page building independently using Gutenberg, navigation via Max Mega Menu, and search optimization through Yoast SEO.
"We don’t often need development assistance. The content team can manage product setups and page creation seamlessly, allowing our developer to focus purely on customer experience enhancements."
— Bethanie Sleigh, Co-Founder
Implications: Data Sovereignty and the Future of D2C
Beyond immediate cost savings and structural flexibility, grüum’s case study highlights a critical strategic advantage that many modern e-commerce brands overlook: data ownership.
Many hosted subscription platforms obscure customer data or restrict direct access, tying merchant success to proprietary ecosystems. Because grüum utilizes WooCommerce, all customer data, purchase histories, and behavioural analytics remain entirely in-house.
With an average subscriber lifetime value spanning 30 months, holding absolute control over this first-party data shields grüum from platform lock-in and unexpected policy changes.
Key Takeaways for Scaling Merchants
Evaluate Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): Percentage-based fees on recurring subscriptions can quickly eclipse the flat-fee structures of open-source plugins as transaction volume grows.
Never Compromise Operations for Software: If an e-commerce platform forces your business model to change to accommodate its limitations, it is the wrong platform.
Empower Non-Technical Teams: Choosing an ecosystem with mature, intuitive publishing tools (like Gutenberg and Yoast) frees up valuable developer hours for high-impact innovation rather than routine content updates.
Protect Your Data: True open-source infrastructure ensures that customer relationships and historical data belong exclusively to the brand, not a third-party intermediary.
As grüum continues to scale its sustainable product line across international markets, its partnership with WooCommerce proves that open-source flexibility can comfortably support high-volume enterprise demands without sacrificing corporate autonomy or financial efficiency.
