Pro eMarketing LLC
Case study — Live — sneakerbinge.com {{TODO: confirm primary domain}}

SneakerBinge

Multi-channel sneaker and apparel commerce plus content brand — a live Shopify store, a 22K Instagram audience, an affiliate engine, and a headless Next.js migration in flight.

Role
Pro eMarketing — design, build, ops
Timeline
Ongoing — {{TODO: SneakerBinge founding year}}
Stack
Shopify (Dawn fork)Next.js 16SupabaseStripeExpo / React NativeAmazon Associates + CJMDX content
01Problem

Sneaker commerce is a margin knife-fight on platforms you don't control: marketplace fees, algorithm changes, and zero customer ownership. The brands that survive own an audience and monetize it more than one way.

SneakerBinge is the audience-first version of that playbook: a content brand with 22K Instagram followers and six figures of yearly pageviews, monetized through owned inventory, affiliate commerce, and — as the platform migrates off stock Shopify onto a headless Next.js stack — whatever the audience wants next, without replatforming pain.

02What it does

SneakerBinge runs as one brand across four codebases — the live store, its automation layer, the headless replacement being built, and a native app. What exists today:

  1. Live storefront & brand system

    A customized Dawn fork carries the brand today: custom brand-grid and content sections, neon color schemes, sell/consign and real-vs-fake editorial sections, and a dedicated brand stylesheet — targeted surgery on a proven theme rather than a risky rebuild.

    ▸ Shopify Dawn fork · 53 sections · 770-line brand CSS

  2. Catalog automation

    Thirty-five Shopify Admin API scripts run the merchandising a store this size would otherwise need staff for: product categorization, metafield population, collection creation, release-calendar building, and audits that catch products with missing images or bad data before customers do.

    ▸ 35 Admin API scripts · categorize / fill-metafields / audit / release-calendar

  3. Affiliate monetization engine

    Content traffic converts even when the product isn't in stock: every outbound retailer link routes through a single API endpoint that applies the right network tag (Amazon Associates, plus four CJ advertisers including DICK'S and Sneakersnstuff), logs the click for attribution, and SSRF-guards the redirect.

    ▸ /api/affiliate — tag governance + click logging + SSRF-guarded redirects

  4. Content & SEO system

    MDX-driven blog, news, and release-date coverage feed the organic engine that produces 200K+ yearly pageviews {{TODO: confirm current pageview figure}} — the audience asset the whole model sits on.

    ▸ MDX · blog/news/releases route groups · dynamic slugs

  5. Headless migration, redirect-map first

    The Next.js 16 monorepo (web app, shared packages, database package with migrations) replaces the Shopify frontend while keeping Shopify as the commerce backend. The migration started with traffic analysis, not code: a full URL-mapping plan weighted by real session data — the top legacy URL alone carries ~25K sessions — so SEO equity survives the cutover.

    ▸ pnpm monorepo · Shopify Storefront API headless · 301 map from session-weighted traffic analysis

  6. Native companion app

    An Expo app scaffold extends the brand toward marketplace and community: release tracking, an AI photo scanner for identification and legit-checking, peer marketplace with Stripe Connect, and forums — with all AI keys held server-side in Supabase Edge Functions.

    ▸ Expo SDK 57 · 31 routes · 6 edge functions (ai-identify, ai-smart-list, stripe-webhook…)

Asset pending

{{TODO: sneakerbinge.com homepage (current Shopify storefront)}}

Asset pending

{{TODO: Instagram grid / audience proof (22K followers)}}

Asset pending

{{TODO: Next.js migration preview — releases or blog surface}}

03Technical decisions

Headless with owned checkout kept on Shopify

The migration keeps Shopify as the commerce engine (inventory, checkout, PCI surface) and replaces only the customer-facing frontend. Full replatforms die in the payment edge cases; this one moves the experience without touching the money path.

One door for every affiliate link

Affiliate links are never pasted inline. A single API route owns network-tag application, click logging, and redirect validation — which means attribution is complete, tags can't drift stale across hundreds of posts, and a user-supplied destination can't turn the redirect into an SSRF vector.

Redirect map before code

The migration plan started as a traffic study of the legacy store — which URLs actually carry sessions — and produced a 301 strategy before the first page was built. For a site whose value is organic traffic, the redirect map is the product; the frontend is an implementation detail.

Native app as a deliberate stack exception

The companion app breaks the house Next.js-only rule, documented as a deliberate exception: release alerts, camera-based legit-checking, and marketplace push notifications are native jobs. AI calls run in Supabase Edge Functions so the Anthropic key never ships in the app binary.

04Traction
22K
Instagram followers
200K+
yearly pageviews {{TODO: confirm/update}}
35
catalog automation scripts
5
affiliate programs (Amazon + 4 CJ advertisers)
4
codebases: store, scripts, web migration, native app
{{TODO: yearly revenue band or order count}}
commerce volume
{{TODO: affiliate revenue or click volume}}
affiliate performance
31
app routes scaffolded (Expo)
05Status & next
  • Ship the Next.js migration behind the session-weighted redirect map
  • Mobile app phases 1–7: Shopify surfaces, discovery, AI scanner, marketplace with Stripe Connect, community, membership
  • {{TODO: confirm near-term priority — migration cutover vs app vs affiliate expansion}}