Merch Control: a Shopify site built to win the quote, not the cart
Merch Control is a Perth custom merchandise business. They develop, source, decorate and deliver branded apparel for other businesses, and nobody buys that through a checkout. When we started, their domain was a parked page. We designed and built the Shopify site around three things: the work, the services and the quote request.
merchcontrol.com.au
9
Pages designed and built on Shopify, public since 10/09/2026, on a domain that was showing a parked page two weeks earlier.
25 MB
Per artwork file, any file type, attached straight to the quote form. Shopify's own contact form cannot carry a file at all.
81
Page and screen width combinations tested before launch, from 360 to 1920 pixels wide, with no sideways scrolling on any of them.
The situation
Custom merch is sold on a conversation. A business comes with a deadline, a quantity and a logo, and it wants to know two things: can you make this well, and what will it cost. A product grid and a cart answer neither.
Merch Control had the work to show and no website to show it on. So the brief was simple to say and specific to build: show real jobs for real brands, explain the three services plainly, and make asking for a quote the easiest thing on every page.
That is why the cart and the account icon are switched off in the header and a Get a Quote button sits there instead. Shopify runs the site. It is not being used as a shop.
merchcontrol.com.au as it stands today, captured 08/10/2026.
What we built
Nine pages, each with one job.
Page
The job it does
Home
Says what they do in one line, shows the work, the brands they have made merch for and the four step process.
Our Work
A gallery of real runs, laid out so each photo keeps its own shape.
Services
Custom collaborations, event merchandise and corporate branding, each explained with its own photography.
Get a Quote
One form: quantity, deadline, product type and the artwork itself.
Our Story, FAQ, Contact, Privacy, Terms
Who they are, the answers people ask for before they enquire, and the legal pages, all in the site design.
The part we are proudest of is the quote form. A merch quote is only as good as the artwork that comes with it, and Shopify's contact form cannot accept an attachment. So we built an upload route that sits in Merch Control's own Cloudflare account. A customer can attach design files of any type, up to 25 MB each, and the quote email arrives with a private link to them.
The photography needed the same care. The shoot was mostly portrait and the first frames were landscape, so people were being cut in half. We gave every frame its own shape and focal point and rebuilt Our Work as a masonry grid. The worst crop went from keeping half the photo to keeping 83% of it, and most frames now keep between 91% and all of it.
Any file type, up to 25 MB each
What a customer can attach to a quote request. The files are stored privately, the link in the quote email is signed and expires, and the upload is locked to their own domain.
The quote form on merchcontrol.com.au, captured 08/10/2026.
The site has one job: turn a visit into a quote request with the artwork already attached.
The build, in numbers
These are our own measurements of our own work, taken on the dates shown. They describe the build, not the business.
What we checked
When
Result
Pages tested at nine screen widths, 360 to 1920 pixels
24/08/2026
81 of 81 with no sideways scrolling
Errors in the browser console on desktop
24/08/2026
9 down to 0
Contrast of the form field borders
23/08/2026
1.33:1 up to 3.42:1
Header logo file served on desktop
23/08/2026
2,480 pixels wide down to 300
Brand logo bar, 25 logos
04/09/2026
643 KB down to 133 KB
Worst photo crop in the work gallery
03/09/2026
50% of the photo kept, up to 83%
Images the owners can swap without touching code
10/09/2026
42 of 42
Source and method. Our pre-launch test log and build notes for merchcontrol.com.au, 23/08/2026 to 10/09/2026. Contrast was read from the styles the browser applied on the live page. The site has been published again since, so anything stated as a current fact on this page was checked against the live site on 08/10/2026.
Handed over to be edited
A custom site is no use to the people running the business if every photo change needs a developer. Before handover we moved all 42 images out of the code and into normal Shopify image pickers, turned the logo bar into blocks that drag to reorder, and wrote a plain language manual for the two founders.
The foundations went in at the same time. Every page has its own title and description, one main heading and the right structured data. Analytics records quote requests and contact clicks. Their domain is set up so quote and store emails send from their own address, and the move from the parked page to the new site kept their existing email running.
The brand mark does some work too. It replaces the cursor across the site, and on the first visit of a session it flies across the screen for about two and a half seconds before the homepage appears. Visitors who have asked their device for less motion get a plain fade instead.
What this page does not claim
There is no enquiry count, speed score or ranking on this page, and that is deliberate. The site went public on 10/09/2026. A few weeks of data on a brand new domain proves nothing, and we would sooner publish no number than a flattering early one.
The opening animation is a choice with a cost. It makes the first load of a session slower than it would otherwise be, in exchange for a first impression that suits a business selling brand work. We made that trade knowingly, and it is why we have not put a speed score on this page.
We also did not design the logo. Merch Control came with their mark. We documented how to use it, drew the production files from their artwork and built the site around it.
