Voordeelgordijnen sells curtains and window coverings online, made to measure in the Netherlands from fabric collections the company designs itself. What began in 2011 as a graduation project has grown into a team of around 16 people, built on a family curtain business that dates back to 1979.
In 2025, the business began moving off the custom-built platform it had used since launch, testing the change in Belgium before switching its Dutch store in January 2026. In 2026, it also opened in Germany under a second brand, Gardinenmeister.
- Two to three months of live testing in Belgium before the Dutch store moved to Shopify
- Product-page changes that once took 18 development hours and weeks of planning are now done within days
- Conversion rate and average order value up since the move and redesign
The challenge: a platform too slow to change
Voordeelgordijnen grew out of a family trade. Hennie Dost started selling curtain fabric on Amsterdam’s Albert Cuyp market in 1979, then opened shops and a wholesale business. In 2011, his son Robin Dost needed a graduation assignment, and his father agreed to host it on one condition: it had to be a real project, not an exercise. So he wrote a plan to take the shops online, built the store with a web developer, and taught himself Google Ads from YouTube tutorials while still working at the family’s market stall two days a week.
Selling made-to-measure curtains online means every order needs a price calculated from the customer’s own measurements. Back in 2011, a custom-built platform was the only way the team could see to handle those calculations, and the business stayed on it until 2025. As sales grew, the platform struggled to keep up. Changes meant to lift conversion, such as reworking a product page or the shopping cart, took a long time just to schedule, and the development hours needed to deliver them kept rising.
“If we want to change a product page, we want it done next week, not ‘we can plan it next month and it’ll take 18 development hours for a minor change,’” says Robin Dost, founder and CEO.
The platform also lacked the API connections the team needed to plug in marketing tools such as Klaviyo for email. Customers had no profiles, so the store could not recognise them when they came back. By 2025, the team had decided it was time to move.
“We say, if you have a boat as large as a container ship, it’s very hard to turn,” says Robin Dost.
The solution: a Belgian test before the Dutch switch
The business needed a platform that could change as quickly as the team wanted to, and that would connect to the tools it already relied on, from email marketing to the carriers that ship its parcels.
“Shopify develops really quickly. It’s easy to use, and it has marketing plugins from every major software-as-a-service company… They all have a Shopify plugin,” says Robin Dost.
He then drew up a shortlist of three Shopify partners in the Netherlands. “We had a meeting with all three, and we had a second meeting with all three, and then we had the best feeling with Strix,” says Robin Dost.
Rather than switch everything at once, the team launched on Shopify in Belgium first. Belgium is a smaller market for the business, which made it a sensible place to run the new store with real customers and real orders before touching the Dutch site, its largest.
I think two, three months in Belgium, and then we had enough confidence to go with the Netherlands as well.
The Dutch store moved to Shopify in January 2026, within about a year of the project starting. Shopify’s default checkout now recognises returning customers.
The result: a store the team keeps improving
Asked what changed, Robin Dost points first to development: the store is now much easier to keep developing.
Conversion rate and average order value have both risen since the move. Robin Dost credits the new web shop design alongside the platform, and rates Shopify’s default checkout highly.
Sidekick, Shopify’s AI assistant, has also become part of how the team reads its sales. Several people use it to compare how fabrics are selling against similar products, see which colours perform best, produce analyses, and test sales predictions. Robin Dost is candid that the team is still learning how far it can take the tool.
“With every change in the world with AI right now, my feeling is that Shopify is on top of it. That’s also a confirmation for us that we made the right decision,” says Robin Dost.
I cannot even imagine going back… We’re so used to it now.
The next test is abroad. In 2026, the company launched in Germany as Gardinenmeister, because the Dutch name means little to German shoppers. The store itself works the same way. Only the brand had to start again, with new reviews and new social media accounts.
“The look and feel is the same, only a different name,” says Robin Dost.
Germany is the next market where the team is applying the same test-and-learn approach that worked in Belgium, alongside continued growth in the Netherlands.