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WooCommerceWooCommerce · Food & Drink

Site performance and UX/UI improvement for Emporio Italia’s WooCommerce store.

Client
Emporio Italia
Sector
Italian Food Imports
Rebuild
Broken build → WooCommerce
Timeline
~8 Weeks
— About the client

Italy’s Finest, Delivered To The Iberian Peninsula.

Emporio Italia is a premium Italian food importer and online delicatessen, bringing artisan produce from Italy’s best regions directly to customers across Portugal. From hand-selected charcuterie and aged cheeses to regional pastries and specialist pantry staples, the business has built its reputation on provenance, quality and a genuine love of Italian culinary culture.

The name captures the idea precisely — an emporium of Italy, transplanted to the Iberian Peninsula. The brand is warm, distinctive and confidently positioned as a premium food destination. Their digital experience needed to match that ambition.

Market
Portugal & the Iberian Peninsula
Range
Charcuterie, cheese, pastries, pantry & specialty imports
Engagement
Rebuild + ongoing retainer with ITQ
×
ITQ Commerce

Italian provenance meets commerce.

A premium food brand, rebuilt for the digital experience it always deserved.

— The brief

A stalled build and a brand that deserved better.

Emporio Italia came to us mid-project, stranded by a previous agency: deadlines had passed, the store wasn’t functional, and mobile PageSpeed sat at a critical 19/100. They needed a clean break, an honest diagnosis, and a team they could trust to rebuild it properly.

Full audit, clean slate

A structured discovery workshop and complete technical and UX audit — every issue, risk and opportunity documented before a single line of new code was written.

Performance that couldn’t stay broken

A mobile PageSpeed score of 19/100 was costing real revenue every session. Core Web Vitals needed a full overhaul across homepage, category, product and checkout.

A store worthy of the brand

The old UX didn’t reflect the premium, artisan positioning. Navigation, responsive design and the full visual experience were rebuilt to convert browsers and earn trust on arrival.

— Driving results

Engagement, conversion and revenue, all up.

By meticulously enhancing their site performance and UX, we boosted website engagement, converted more visitors into loyal customers, and drove continuous growth for Emporio.

+40%
Organic traffic
Non-paid visits growing as SEO fixes and content improvements take effect.
+18%
Rise in sessions
Overall session volume as SEO, campaigns and on-site improvements drive more visits.
+52%
Revenue growth
Online revenue growth tracked across a full trading window of optimisation work.
— What we delivered

A complete rebuild, start to finish.

Fourteen workstreams, organised into five tightly-run delivery groups, executed in eight weeks.

01

Audit & Strategy

2 workstreams

Workshop & comprehensive site audit

Structured discovery with the Emporio Italia team, then a full technical and UX audit — every issue, risk and opportunity documented before any build work began.

Strategic delivery roadmap

A phased plan sequencing critical performance fixes first, with design and integration workstreams running in parallel to hit the eight-week launch window.

02

Design & User Experience

4 workstreams

Redesign of all key page types

Homepage, category, product and checkout — each rebuilt around Emporio Italia’s premium Italian food brand and optimised for conversion on desktop and mobile.

Mobile-first responsive rebuild

Every template rebuilt to a mobile-first standard — the primary driver of the jump from 19/100 to 80/100 on mobile PageSpeed.

Navigation architecture restructure

Category taxonomy and site navigation reworked to reduce friction — faster, more intuitive paths to product across the Italian food catalogue.

WordPress / WooCommerce on Razzi theme

A clean environment configured from scratch — a stable, performant and extendable WooCommerce foundation ready for long-term growth.

03

Performance & Infrastructure

2 workstreams

Full-site Core Web Vitals overhaul

Desktop homepage from 49/100 to 95/100. Category and product pages — previously “Very Poor” — brought to 91 and 95 respectively.

Kinsta infrastructure setup

Enterprise-grade managed WordPress hosting via Kinsta — underpinning the performance gains with faster page loads and scalable infrastructure.

04

Integrations

4 workstreams

Stripe & MBWay payment integration

Both configured at checkout — meeting the Portuguese market’s payment expectations and removing a key conversion barrier at the most critical point in the journey.

Mailchimp integration

WooCommerce connected to Mailchimp — post-purchase automations, abandoned-cart sequences and segmented campaigns to build repeat revenue.

Google Analytics 4 ecommerce setup

GA4 configured with full ecommerce tracking — clean, reliable data from launch day for measuring performance and informing growth decisions.

Shipping, tax & manual translations

Shipping rules and tax logic configured for Portugal, with manual translations completed to serve Emporio Italia’s multilingual customer base.

05

Data Migration, Testing & Go-Live

2 workstreams

Product & customer data migration

Full product catalogue and customer records migrated cleanly — preserving structure and continuity for returning customers from go-live day.

QA, testing & go-live management

Structured testing across all key journeys, payment flows and device types. Go-live managed end-to-end by ITQ — zero downtime, everything working from the first session.

— Before & after

From broken build, to modern WooCommerce.

A side-by-side look at the journeys customers walk every day — rebuilt for clarity, speed and confidence at every step.

     
— Our approach

UX-led improvements that showcase the brand.

Enhancing the user experience to boost conversion rates was a key focus in our project with Emporio Italia. Improvements in navigation, responsive design, and engaging visuals were critical components of this effort.

Our ongoing collaborative efforts with Emporio Italia ensured transparency and alignment, resulting in the successful launch of a user-friendly WooCommerce store that showcases the luxury and sophistication of the Emporio Italia brand.

  • WooCommerce theme customisation
  • Site performance enhancements
  • Strategic consultations
Visit Emporio Italia
“ITQ Digital significantly improved our original store, quickly identifying areas for enhancement. We recently launched a modern version of our WooCommerce store with faster loading times and a better user experience. Within a week, we’ve seen remarkable benefits. ITQ Digital’s attention to detail has taken our online store to the next level, offering a refreshing change from previous agencies.”
Roberto Solimene — Founder, Emporio Italia
— The stack

Built on best-in-class commerce tooling.

WooCommercePressableStripeMBWayMailchimpGoogle Analytics 4
— Partners

Delivered with best-in-class partners.

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