Custom WordPress + WooCommerce rebuild for The Dog Outlet (trading as Feed Um Raw) — a Wigan-based raw dog food specialist. Replaced an off-the-shelf Petio theme with Elementor with a properly fast, custom-coded shop. Faster, cleaner, owned outright.
The Dog Outlet (trading as Feed Um Raw) is a raw dog food specialist based in Wigan — a proper independent pet retailer with a strong local following and a growing online customer base. The old shop ran on the off-the-shelf Petio theme with Elementor powering the pages, and it was starting to creak.
Page speeds were slow, the layout felt like every other Petio store on the internet, and the Elementor stack was making routine updates harder than they needed to be. The brief: rebuild the whole shop on a properly custom WordPress + WooCommerce theme, no page builder, no off-the-shelf template. Make it fast, make it distinctive, make it theirs.
On top of that: preserve the existing product catalogue, the existing customer accounts, the existing order history, and ensure zero downtime through the migration. A working e-commerce shop can't go offline mid-rebuild — the rebuild had to ship cleanly, ready to take orders from launch day.
Every Mako Digital case study includes a complete build specification — the actual technical decisions that made the project what it is.
Every Mako Digital build follows a documented approach — consistent across every project, calibrated to each client’s industry, brand, and customer journey.
The previous setup used the Petio theme with Elementor — a stack that prioritises drag-and-drop convenience over performance and distinctiveness. We rebuilt the entire shop on a custom WordPress + WooCommerce theme, hand-coded from scratch. No page builder, no template starting point, no plugin-driven layout. The result is faster, cleaner, and unmistakably The Dog Outlet rather than another Petio clone.
The Petio + Elementor stack was loading slowly — particularly on mobile, where most pet customers research before they buy. The custom rebuild measures at the high end of green for Core Web Vitals. Hand-coded PHP, optimised image delivery, no plugin bloat. The shop loads as fast as a modern e-commerce site should.
WooCommerce is the right e-commerce platform for an independent retailer — flexible, self-hosted, and free of marketplace fees. We preserved the existing product catalogue, customer accounts, order history, and inventory through the migration. Zero data loss, zero customer disruption. Customers logging in after launch saw their order history intact, their saved addresses, their previous purchases.
Most pet shop websites look identical — same Petio theme, same generic stock photography, same templated product grids. We built The Dog Outlet a distinct visual identity that signals independent, knowledgeable, and confident in the product. Custom typography, real product photography, a layout that puts the products front and centre without burying them under hero sliders and stock testimonials.
Hosted on Hostinger, built on WordPress + WooCommerce, no proprietary platform. The Dog Outlet own the shop outright after handover — no monthly Petio subscription, no Elementor licence renewal, no platform lock-in. As the product range grows and the customer base expands, the shop scales with them through the WordPress admin.
If we wouldn’t put it on our own business, we wouldn’t put it on yours.The Mako Digital Standard
The Dog Outlet Case Study: Mako Digital designed and built a custom WordPress website for The Dog Outlet, raw dog food specialist (trading as feed um raw) based in Wigan. The build delivered a bespoke theme coded from scratch, full schema markup, complete local SEO setup, and a Google Search Console-verified launch.
The The Dog Outlet project sits within Mako Digital’s portfolio of bespoke WordPress builds — the same standards-led approach we apply to every client across Wigan borough and the wider North West. See our Ecommerce Website Design Wigan page for the full service breakdown, or visit the case study archive for more examples.
Custom WooCommerce rebuilds at Mako Digital sit in our higher-tier pricing — typically £999+ given the scope of e-commerce migrations. The Dog Outlet rebuild covered theme replacement, full data preservation, custom WooCommerce templates, and Petio + Elementor removal. No add-on fees, no monthly retainer.
Five weeks from brief to live. WooCommerce migrations take longer than standard 5-page WordPress builds because the data layer needs careful preservation — products, customers, order history, and inventory all need to migrate cleanly without disrupting live operations.
Off-the-shelf themes like Petio prioritise drag-and-drop convenience over performance and distinctiveness. Elementor adds a layer of visual builder bloat that hurts page speed and locks the site into a specific tooling stack. A hand-coded custom theme is faster, cleaner, more distinctive, and has no plugin licence renewals or platform fees.
No — full data preservation throughout. The product catalogue, customer accounts, saved addresses, and complete order history all migrated cleanly. Customers logging in after launch saw everything as it was before. Zero data loss, zero customer disruption.
Significantly improved. The Petio + Elementor stack was loading slowly, particularly on mobile. The custom rebuild measures at the high end of green for Core Web Vitals — hand-coded PHP, optimised image delivery, no plugin bloat. Faster pages mean better SEO and better conversion rates.
Yes — pet shops, food retailers, gift shops, hobby retailers, and any independent business with an online sales channel. The Dog Outlet is the worked example for WooCommerce rebuilds; we approach every e-commerce build with the same custom-theme principles — no page builders, no template starting points, fully owned outright.
Across Wigan borough and the wider North West. The cluster network covers 19 towns — see the full coverage map at /web-design-near-me/. Other recent builds include Whittles Bakery (Pemberton), The Dog Outlet (Wigan), and JS Boutique (Atherton).
Yes — visit thedogoutlet.co.uk to browse the raw dog food range, treats, and natural pet products. Local delivery and collection available, plus national shipping options.
If the The Dog Outlet build is the kind of work that fits your business, these are the closest peers in our portfolio — same custom-WordPress approach, different industries.
Custom WooCommerce rebuilds from £999+. Same approach as the The Dog Outlet build — zero downtime, full data preservation, faster pages, fully owned outright.
