ClearBags - Hyvä Showcase

$1.2 Million reasons to migrate: How ClearBags turned a broken checkout into profit with Hyvä

A performance-first migration to Hyvä Theme & Hyvä Checkout on Adobe Commerce unlocked $1.2–1.3M in measurable revenue and transformed the customer experience for a 34-year-old B2B/B2C eCommerce leader.

• Website - clearbags.com
• Country - USA
• Industry - Flexible Packaging
• Business model - B2B and B2C (Family-Owned)
• Annual Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) - $40–50 million
• Platform - Adobe Commerce
• Hyvä Products used - Hyvä Theme, Hyvä Checkout
• Agency Partner - IronPlane & Snowdog
• Number of SKUs - over 5.300

34 years of listening: how ClearBags built a category-defining packaging business

In a global flexible packaging market worth nearly $200 billion and growing, standing out requires more than a broad catalogue — it requires conviction. ClearBags was named "World's Greatest Flexible Packaging Company" for precisely that: its innovation, family culture, and relentless customer focus. 

It is a philosophy that runs through the entire ClearBags family — and one that Amy Hughes, who leads Sales, Marketing, and eCommerce and sits on the company's Innovations team, carries to industry stages as a recognised thought leader, making the case that a business built on trust, people, and purpose can also be one that leads on performance.

Merchant profile & Adobe Commerce project snapshot

ClearBags is a Tennessee-headquartered, family-owned flexible packaging company with offices across California, Nevada, and Tennessee. Founded in 1992 as an offshoot of a poster business, the company made an early and pivotal decision: listen to customers, follow the data, and pivot. That instinct hasn't changed in over three decades. 

As ClearBags approaches its 34th year of operation and its second generation of family ownership, it is the company culture and collaborative team efforts that are shaping both its commercial ambition and its digital future. Amy Hughes, Chief Marketing, Ecommerce & Sales Leader, and Jamie Harkins Peterson, eCommerce Leader, together form the backbone of ClearBags' customer experience and eCommerce strategy. 

Amy championed the migration to Hyvä and held the agency partnership to the highest standards; Jamie ensured the day-to-day eCommerce operation kept pace with the transformation — and then some. It is the kind of leadership that doesn't just oversee change; it demands it.

ClearBags serves a remarkably broad audience — proud to help businesses of all sizes small-to buying in bulk, eCommerce merchants, and brands requiring compliant, specialist packaging solutions — and managing that scale requires both strategic clarity and operational precision. 

Their catalogue has grown to over 5.300 SKUs, each developed in close collaboration with customers and an in-house team. Behind that growth is a team that exemplifies what happens when customer obsession and commercial rigour are led with conviction.

Scope of work & key results

Scope of work

When ClearBags committed to another three years on Adobe Commerce, they chose to move away from the complexities of the legacy Luma frontend. The goal was simple, build a store that performs as well as it functions.

This migration wasn't just a visual refresh. It was a complete architectural shift to Hyvä Theme, paired with a performance-first redesign. By removing years of frontend bloat, the team focused on speed, clean code, and a much better developer experience.

The checkout received the same treatment. By implementing Hyvä Checkout, ClearBags replaced the standard Magento checkout with a version built for split-second conversion and a frictionless customer flow.

Accessibility was a priority from the start. The project involved a deep audit to ensure both the design and the underlying code meet modern standards, making the site more inclusive for every visitor.

The project touched every layer of the customer-facing experience:

• Full frontend migration from the legacy Luma theme to Hyvä Theme.
• Replacement of the native Magento checkout with Hyvä Checkout.
• Comprehensive UX/UI audit and performance-first redesign.
• Accessibility improvements across both code and design.
• Integration with: NetSuite ERP (via Celigo), SearchSpring, Braintree, Avalara/AvaTax, ShipperHQ, Klaviyo, and New Relic monitoring.
• Architecture designed to support future multi-store and microsite expansion.

Improvements across all key metrics

The results from this project are among the most well-documented in recent Hyvä deployments — with revenue attribution tracked at a granular level across individual site improvements.

Page Speed & Core Web Vitals

By moving away from the heavy JavaScript requirements of the legacy frontend, ClearBags saw an immediate shift in how the site feels and functions. 

• JavaScript files loaded were slashed by 85%. 

• Desktop load times dropped from over 6 seconds to a crisp 1.83 seconds. 

• Mobile speeds improved by 73%, bringing the average load time down to just 2.34 seconds. 

• The site now consistently passes Core Web Vitals, with a permanent target of sub-2.5 second loading across the board.

Conversion & Revenue

The technical cleanup translated directly into customer confidence and higher conversion rates. When a site responds instantly, people buy more. 

• Overall conversion grew by 11.8%, climbing from 70% to 79%. 

• The streamlined flow led to an 8% increase in add-to-cart rates. 

• Hyvä Checkout proved its worth with a 10% lift in checkout conversion across both desktop and mobile.

• Search autocomplete users—those with the highest intent—converted 6.3% more often thanks to the faster, more responsive UI.

The numbers tell a clear story of sustainable growth. Comparing 2025 to 2024, the web Average Order Value (AOV) rose by 6.67%. All told, these improvements have driven an attributed revenue growth of between $1.2M and $1.3M.

ClearBags' payment step now provides a reliable, smooth experience for users — a marked contrast to the checkout customers once described as 'horribly broken', and a direct driver of the $472,000 in annual revenue attributed to checkout speed improvements.

The shipping step shows strong, consistent performance across desktop and mobile, with Core Web Vitals firmly in the good range — laying a solid foundation for SEO and usability while the team continues to pursue further backend gains.

The ClearBags migration shows exactly how frontend performance translates into revenue. By breaking down the $1.2M+ growth, we can see the direct impact of a leaner, faster store.

$472K – Checkout speed upgrade. By using Hyvä Checkout, the team removed the friction often found in standard Magento checkouts. A faster path to purchase directly reduced abandonment, proving that every second saved at the final hurdle has a clear value.

$350K – PDP improvements. The Product Detail Page (PDP) is where the final decision happens. A cleaner layout and instant loading helped customers focus on the product without distractions, significantly lifting conversions.

$489K – Search Autocomplete. This is the "search-as-you-type" feature. When customers find what they need instantly, they are far more likely to buy. For ClearBags, these high-intent users drove nearly half a million dollars in new revenue.

$484K – PLP & SRP improvements Product Listing Pages (PLP) – your categories – and Search Results Pages (SRP) are the digital aisles of the store. Making these high-traffic areas faster and easier to navigate made browsing effortless and encouraged larger baskets. 

Challenge: when growth outpaces the platform

Before the Hyvä migration, ClearBags' digital experience was struggling under the weight of its own success. The legacy Luma frontend (default Magento 2) was loading over 400 JavaScript files on every single page — a staggering technical debt that manifested in slow load times, poor Core Web Vitals scores, and a checkout experience that customers regularly described as 'broken' or 'horribly broken.'

On mobile — where an increasing portion of the B2B and B2C audience was shopping — load times approached 9 seconds. For a company whose ethos is built on listening to customers and removing friction from their buying journey, this was simply unacceptable.

Beyond raw performance, ClearBags also needed a platform capable of managing genuine complexity: 5,000+ SKUs, custom and tiered pricing structures, shared catalogues and accounts, and the infrastructure to support future micro-sites and ERP integration with NetSuite.

Solution: performance-first with Hyvä Theme and Checkout

IronPlane & Snowdog approached this project with a clear philosophy: performance first, at the architectural level. The choice of Hyvä Theme and Hyvä Checkout wasn't just a frontend swap — it was a foundational decision that determined how every subsequent improvement would be built.

Hyvä's Alpine.js and Tailwind CSS stack dramatically simplified the frontend, eliminating the JavaScript bloat that had been ClearBags' biggest performance liability. The result was an 85% reduction in JS files loaded — a change that cascades into faster Time to First Byte (TTFB), better Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores, and a checkout that no longer frustrates customers.

The team also conducted a thorough UX/UI review, improving accessibility across the site and creating a cleaner, more intuitive navigation experience for both B2B buyers managing bulk orders and B2C customers browsing a 5,300-SKU catalogue.

As Kuba Zwoliński, CXO of IronPlane & Snowdog, reflected:

Reflections & key takeaways

What the agency would do differently

Introduce performance monitoring even earlier in the project lifecycle — enabling more granular baseline data capture and making revenue attribution even more precise from day one.

Advice from ClearBags to other merchants

"Don't hesitate. Make the switch."

ClearBags' message to merchants still on Luma or legacy frontends is unambiguous. The performance gains are real, the revenue impact is measurable, and the checkout experience improvement alone paid significant dividends.

What the agency learned

The ClearBags project reinforced that a performance-first architecture is not a nice-to-have — it is a direct driver of business outcomes. Migrating to Hyvä Theme and Hyvä Checkout reduced frontend complexity, improved Core Web Vitals, and unlocked conversion improvements that translated directly into seven-figure revenue attribution. Frontend simplicity and reduced technical debt are not engineering abstractions; they are business strategy.

About IronPlane & Snowdog

IronPlane (Portland, Maine) and Snowdog (Poznań, Poland) share a common heritage built around deep Magento expertise and a commitment to exceptional talent. Following their merger in 2024, the combined agency operates a fully distributed team of 50+ specialists across the US and Europe — serving merchants who demand both technical depth and commercial impact from their eCommerce partnerships.

Website: https://www.snow.dog/