Home improvement giant MR DIY has grown from a single Kuala Lumpur store to a retail powerhouse with more than 1,400 outlets across Malaysia and a presence in 14 countries. Yet despite their scale, MR DIY was operating on a legacy ecommerce platform that struggled to keep up with their scale and ambition. Feature development was slow, costly, and required technical expertise at every step.
With their ambitions growing, particularly around B2B ecommerce and cross-border selling, MR DIY knew it was time to replatform. Partnering with digital agency Sweetmag, MR DIY migrated to Shopify, improving operational efficiency and streamlining operations, preparing to launch B2B ecommerce at scale, supporting a growing international footprint, and empowering their marketing team.
Since moving to Shopify, MR DIY has seen:
- 16% growth in revenue
- 113% increase in daily order fulfilment, to 1,000–1,500 orders
- 41% reduction in platform maintenance costs
The challenge: Complexity, cost, and growing beyond legacy limitations
MR DIY’s ecommerce operations in Malaysia were previously managed via a combination of Adobe Commerce (Magento) and in-house custom platforms. While this setup had served the business for several years, it became a bottleneck to innovation due to the developer-heavy resources needed to make even minor changes, and was increasingly unable to meet the needs of a fast-growing retailer looking to innovate.
For instance, adding new features required lengthy development cycles, large budgets, and significant technical oversight. Routine updates could take weeks, and even simple promotions demanded back-end support. The technical burden meant internal teams spent more time fixing problems than planning new growth strategies.
We faced many challenges with our previous platform. Developing new features was slow, costly, and highly resource-intensive. Every change request meant pulling in developers, testing, debugging. It just wasn’t sustainable for the scale we needed. With Shopify, we don’t have to worry about those things.
Alongside these limitations, MR DIY was also grappling with inefficiencies in their B2B ecommerce processes. Previously, business customers had no way to easily place bulk orders or access custom pricing tiers. Meanwhile, the company's international ecommerce efforts were constrained by the platform’s lack of agility and integration tools. The need for a more flexible, scalable, and unified solution became impossible to ignore.
The solution: Simplicity, scale, and a strong partner in Sweetmag
After a careful audit of their existing systems, conducted with agency partner Sweetmag, MR DIY made the decision to replatform to Shopify. The shift to Shopify’s Plus plan marked a strategic turning point, offering MR DIY a stable and modern platform that put more control in the hands of internal teams. In turn, this allowed them to get more done without needing extensive external resources.
One of the most immediate gains came from Shopify’s streamlined back end, which made it dramatically easier for MR DIY’s marketing and ecommerce teams to manage site content and promotions. Using Shopify’s theme editor functionality, teams could now create landing pages and campaigns, such as buy-one-get-one offers, without needing developer support. Time previously spent debugging or clearing cache files was now freed up for strategic planning.
Sweetmag’s technical audit for MR DIY made it clear we were dealing with underperforming infrastructure. Shopify made sense as the answer to our problems because it's fast, intuitive, and puts control back in the hands of the marketing and ecommerce teams.
MR DIY is also set to fully launch their B2B ecommerce offering using B2B on Shopify, empowering them to offer tiered pricing, volume discounts, and bulk purchasing options for corporate and wholesale buyers. These capabilities will make it easier to serve high-volume customers, ranging from businesses purchasing for daily operations to full-scale distributors, and provide a more seamless online buying experience with integrated delivery options.
For a company that fulfils up to 1,500 online orders daily, Shopify’s robust infrastructure also delivered the stability needed to match operational scale. The replatforming process, while a major project, was made smooth and manageable thanks to Sweetmag’s experience and support.
Shopify is simple, stable, and fast. Those are the three things we needed most. The platform lets us scale our ecommerce ambitions efficiently.
The results: Future-ready ecommerce, built for scale
The move to Shopify has had a transformative effect on MR DIY’s digital commerce operations. The new platform significantly reduced the time and effort spent on technical troubleshooting, allowing the business to redirect their energy toward growth. Teams now launch marketing campaigns and site features at speed, and the business is well-positioned to scale their online presence across both consumer and wholesale channels.
Everything on Shopify is faster, such as setting up landing pages and promotions. MR DIY now runs smarter, not just faster, with less debugging and the ability to focus on customer experience and business growth.
MR DIY’s customers now benefit from a seamless omnichannel experience, with online availability supporting in-store stock gaps, and B2B buyers enjoy streamlined order management and scalable pricing. By simplifying the tech stack and empowering internal teams, Shopify has helped MR DIY reclaim time, reduce cost, and build a platform for sustainable growth. This means the business can do more with fewer resources.
With Shopify, we’re focused on what matters—growth, customers, and innovation. We finally have the flexibility to scale at our own pace.
MR DIY’s ecommerce team is already planning deeper integration of Shopify’s international sales tools. With support from logistics provider GDEX and Sweetmag’s continued guidance, MR DIY intends to expand their global ecommerce presence beyond Asia.