Case Study: Gymshark achieves 197% holiday revenue growth and global multi‑channel scale with Shopify Plus

Holiday Disaster to a $128M Global Brand: Behind Gymshark’s Multi-Channel Empire

Gymshark, the U.K. fitness apparel brand founded by Ben Francis in a garage, grew into a global business with millions of fans but suffered a high‑profile failure when its Magento site crashed for hours on Black Friday, costing the company sales and customer trust. The outage exposed the need for a more reliable, scalable platform and better support for international, mobile‑first commerce and event-driven campaigns.

Gymshark replatformed to Shopify Plus, using Shopify Scripts, a customized mobile checkout and Shopify POS to power global pop‑ups and omnichannel experiences, while running highly targeted social campaigns like its “Blackout” Black Friday push. The move helped deliver a 9.3× ROI on Facebook/Instagram ads, a 197% year‑over‑year jump in holiday revenue and growth to $128M in FY2018.

Gymshark

Ben Francis

Founder Chief Brand Officer