Tifosi Sports

Challenge

Tifosi Sports was the official South African distributor for On running shoes. The brief wasn't a single project. It grew over nine years.

It started with a brand identity and a basic website. As On's local following grew, Tifosi needed to keep pace. The work expanded into a full Shopify e-commerce build, SEO strategy, print campaigns and custom development.

The challenge: build a platform that could carry a large product catalogue, rank in search and convert traffic into sales. All while holding its own next to a premium international brand.

Approach

Brand identity

Logo, typography, colour palette, visual language. Built from scratch. Applied across print advertising, digital campaigns, social media and event materials. The identity needed to sit alongside On without imitating it.

Shopify build

The first site was WordPress. I designed and built it, then iterated as the range grew. WordPress stopped being the right tool for a catalogue that size. I rebuilt everything on Shopify. Not a port. A ground-up rebuild.

I introduced a colour-coding system across footwear categories to simplify navigation. Road Running: Red. Training: Purple. Sneakers: Turquoise. Trail: Brown. Hiking: Green. Each section had its own visual identity within the same brand. It made a large catalogue feel manageable.

Custom development

Where the theme fell short, I designed and coded custom sections. Product comparison layouts, category landing pages and a custom product finder. When Shopify's native Google Merchant Center feed couldn't give us the control we needed, I built custom scripts using Shopify's tagging system to pass product data that off-the-shelf apps could not handle.

SEO

Built into the site from day one. Keyword research, on-page optimisation, structured data and product content written with search visibility in mind. On's global copy was rewritten for the South African market.

Result

The rebuilt Shopify site launched 1 July 2025. From launch through December:

• 403,000+ sessions
• 71% year-on-year traffic growth
• 1,500 visitors per day
• R300,000+ monthly turnover

That came from solid SEO foundations, a well-structured product catalogue and a Shopify site refined through years of real use.

Tifosi's distribution agreement with On ended 31 December 2025. The site closed with it. Nine years of building, learning and adapting as a business grew. Brand identity. Shopify development. E-commerce SEO. Campaign design. Not a handoff. One person, the entire time.