A working proposal, not a brochure

The next two years of Living By Design, on one page.

Prepared by Sonder for Tim Bowring. This page is live: the clock is real, the checklist is real, and the full proposal lands the moment the audit and the six items below are in.

Full proposal due: Friday 24 July 2026, 5:00pm AEST
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Proposal delivered.

Waiting on six things

0 of 6 received

Tick items off as you send them. The state saves on this device. Once all six are in and the audit is done, the finished proposal with full figures lands: later this week if they arrive quickly, otherwise early next week.

01

What we heard

The real deadline is not a website. It is the agency contract ending in August. Whatever happens next has to be decided before then, and it has to be decided once.

You are not replacing one vendor. Four relationships are being rebuilt at the same time: paid media, creative volume, search, and the site itself. Getting those four to pull in the same direction is the actual job.

The target is 20% topline growth, two years running, from $17M toward $25M. Growth has been flat for a couple of years, and the current numbers say the fastest lever is conversion, not more traffic.

Underneath all of it: less dependency on agencies, more capability inside the building. The right engagement leaves Edwina and Anna running things we used to run. That is the point.

02

The two numbers

Number one: conversion

Moving from 1.0% to 1.4% is a 40% lift in online revenue. Same traffic. Same ad spend. Same warehouse.

Living By Design converts at 1.0%. Shopify's own 2026 benchmark puts home and furniture at 1.41%, and the all-industry median at 1.4%. That is roughly 30% below category, before a single extra dollar is spent on ads.

Run it yourself

1.40%

Leave blank and it shows the percentage lift only. We are not putting a dollar figure here until you give us the real one.

+40.0%
Revenue lift vs 1.0%

Number two: attribution

The platforms are claiming $6.4M more revenue than exists.

Meta at $50k a month claiming 25x is $15M a year. Google at $100k a month claiming 7x is $8.4M a year. That is $23.4M of attributed revenue inside a $17M business that also includes three physical stores. This is normal. Most of it is branded search and email counted twice. It matters because the current advice is to double Meta spend on the strength of that number. That is roughly $600k a year.

03

What we found

Audit pending

The live store audit starts the moment read only access lands. Findings drop into this page.

Read only. Nothing touched, no code anywhere near the theme. We are looking at speed, theme debt, app bloat, mobile checkout friction and the shipping experience.

Whatever we find, the list is yours. Take it to any agency you like, including the incumbent. If someone else fixes it faster, that is a good outcome for you and a useful signal for us.

04

Why Horizon, not another patch

The current theme is five years old and carrying five years of patches. Horizon replaces the Online Store 2.0 framework with a fully block-based system: up to eight levels of nested blocks, against roughly two in Dawn-era themes, rebuilt for speed with leaner delivery.

The commercial translation is the point. Eight levels of nesting plus AI block generation is what lets Edwina build campaign pages without calling us. Your stated goal is autonomy. This is the architecture that delivers it, and patching Dawn is not.

The honest caveat: Horizon's built-in sections can feel generic, and the framework does not replace real design work. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling the demo, not the outcome.

05

What we are actually selling you

  1. Site rebuild and integrations

    Horizon migration, shipping calculator rebuilt and owned by you, inventory sync fixed. Designed, built, tested, launched.

    Ours
  2. Continuous improvement and monitoring

    The Living Website model. The store gets measurably better every month instead of decaying between redesigns. Reporting you can check against Shopify's own numbers.

    Ours
  3. Paid media

    Referred to Matt at Scale Digital. We take no commission on that referral, and the attribution maths above is why.

    Not ours
  4. Creative production

    Not ours, but we have a view on volume and format, and we will share it whenever useful.

    Not ours
  5. Search

    Not a vendor problem. A documented workflow handed to Edwina, run in-house, reviewed quarterly with us.

    Handed over

A technology partner, not a fifth agency.

06

Three pathways

The shape of each path is settled. The figures are not published here, because quoting before the audit would be guessing. Full pricing lands with the finished proposal: later this week if the six items arrive quickly, otherwise early next week.

Foundation

Figure with proposal
  • Horizon migrationHomepage, product, collection, cart.
  • TrainingEdwina and Anna on the block system.
Recommended

Growth

Figure with proposal
  • Full rebuildEvery template, migration of content and integrations.
  • Shipping calculatorRebuilt properly, owned by you.
  • Inventory sync fixedStores and online telling the same truth.
  • Conversion programTargeting 1.4% against Shopify's benchmark.
  • Edwina trainedCampaign pages, search workflow, AI blocks.
  • Twelve months monitoringIncluded, then month to month.

Phase 1: Audit, architecture, shipping calc. Weeks 1 to 4.
Phase 2: Rebuild and integrations. Weeks 5 to 12.
Phase 3: Conversion program and training. Weeks 13 to 20.

Platform

Figure with proposal
  • Everything in Growth
  • Competitor and pricing intelligence
  • Retail and online unification
  • AI operations layer
  • Quarterly strategic review
The shipping calculatorPromised, and included at no cost regardless of which path you choose.
Included: $0
Per month, with proposal Ongoing monitoring after the included period, month to month. Cancel the moment it stops making you more than it costs.

07

One thing left

Everything on this page is ready to move except the six items at the top. Send them through, the audit runs, and the finished proposal with full figures lands before the clock above runs out.

Send the six items