AverageRob
“The main goal will always be to make people laugh. How I’m achieving this doesn’t matter.” AverageRob makes videos, drops merch, and runs a growing family of brands. Buy a hoodie and you’re helping fund the next video.
The Client
A creator who turned merch into a brand
- Belgian content creator and merch brand
- Industry: Retail
- Webdesign, Shopify development, e-commerce, ongoing support
- Custom Shopify theme with configurable sections
A Content Creator
AverageRob is a Belgian content creator with a YouTube channel, big social following, and a clear mission: make people laugh. Merch started as drops for the fans. Over the years it grew into a real collection, with its own label “haha.”.
Today the shop carries t-shirts, hoodies, crewnecks, knitwear, sportswear, headwear, and accessories. The collections are as Belgian as they are absurd: a Belgian Food Club with Koffiekoeken and Frietkot designs, a Baby Animals Club, cycling jerseys, chillwear sets, and personalized football jerseys for the 2026 World Cup.
Strategy
Our approach
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From merch drop to proper store
We’ve been working with Rob for a while. Earlier work on the existing Shopify store included filters, cross-sells at checkout, and the newsletter connection with Brevo. By late 2024 the brief changed. Rob wanted to take his merch to a more professional level. He pointed us to nude-project.com as a reference: clean product cards, color and size options right on the card, and a quick-add popup that doesn’t make you leave the page. The weird twist had to stay, though. This is still the shop that once had Rob’s head in the header. So the challenge was a balance: make the products the hero, make buying fast, and keep enough personality that it never feels like a generic clothing store.
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Platform choice
Shopify stayed the right platform. Rob’s team already managed products, stock, and orders there, and the store needed to grow without a migration. What it needed was a theme built for this brand rather than a template bent into shape. We set up a new Shopify development template and built the theme from scratch on top of it.
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Webdesign
We designed the new shop around the products. Clean product grids, consistent spacing, and straight-edged buttons give the collections room to breathe, while the playful details (the animated GIF at the top of the homepage, the marquee bar, the sub-brand logos) keep it unmistakably AverageRob. The design covers every step of the journey: homepage, collection and shop pages, product page, cart, newsletter popup, About, FAQ, and Contact.
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Development
We built the theme as a set of flexible sections that Rob’s team can arrange themselves: a hero slider with video support, collection blocks in two variants, a collection products block, an exclusive product block, content blocks, a marquee announcement bar, a YouTube video list, and dedicated About, FAQ, and Contact layouts. Every block got its own top and bottom spacing controls, so the team can shape a page without calling us. The product card got the most attention, because that’s where people decide. Color variants are visible on the card and swap the product image on hover. A quick-add shows the available sizes directly, with kid sizes only appearing when a product actually has them. Sale prices get a strike-through, sold-out products are handled clearly, and custom labels let the team flag new drops or limited items.
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Launch and iteration
A store like this doesn’t stop at launch. Rob’s team keeps launching collections, and the shop keeps evolving with them. Since launch we’ve added a newsletter popup with a 10% welcome discount and a floating button to reopen it, an upsell right under the products in the slide-out cart, countdown timers in the header and on product shots for limited drops, a sizing chart modal on the product page, and a Universe section that brings Tout Bien, Turbo, and La Patate together under one roof. When AverageRob rolled out new branding colors, fonts, and a new logo in 2026, the theme absorbed it without a rebuild.
[IMAGE: design overview, homepage and product page side by side]
[IMAGE: product grid with color swatches and quick-add]
Behind the scenes
Quick-add with smart sizes
Nobody wants to open a product page just to pick a size. The quick-add on each product card shows the sizes that are actually available for that product, including kid sizes only when they exist. One tap and it’s in the cart. It’s a small thing that removes a lot of friction, especially on a phone.
[IMAGE: quick-add on a product card, mobile]
Color variants that change the photo
A hoodie that comes in five colors should show five colors. On the product card and the product page, choosing a color updates the product image, so customers see exactly what they’re buying. For a merch brand with lots of colorways per design, this was one of the first things on Rob’s wishlist.
[IMAGE: product card hover showing a color variant]
Countdown timers for drops
Merch drops live on timing. We added countdown timers in the header and on product images, so a limited collection can build anticipation before it opens and create a clear moment when it closes. The team switches them on per drop, without touching code.
[IMAGE: header countdown timer during a drop]
Upsell in the cart
Socks with the hoodie, a cap with the jersey. We placed upsell products directly under the items in the slide-out cart instead of at the bottom, where nobody scrolls. It’s a quiet nudge that fits the shop rather than a pop-up that interrupts it.
[IMAGE: slide-out cart with upsell under the products]
The AverageRob universe
Rob’s world is bigger than one brand. The Universe section and the menu bring haha., Tout Bien, Turbo, and La Patate together, each with its own logo and collection, so fans can find their way around everything Rob makes from one store.
[IMAGE: Universe menu or page with sub-brand logos]
Technologies used
- Shopify
- Custom Shopify theme with configurable sections
- Brevo (newsletter)
- [MISSING: extra apps and integrations]
What it means for AverageRob
The shop now looks like a brand instead of a merch table, and it still sounds like Rob. Products come first, buying takes fewer clicks, and the team can launch a new collection, a drop, or a sale on their own. We stay on as the partner in the background, fixing, extending, and building whatever the next idea turns out to be.
Client quote
“I wanted the shop to feel as professional as the merch, without losing the fun.”
The next step
The store keeps moving. Right now we’re working with the team on a more product-focused structure: fewer clicks and less scrolling before you see products, tighter spacing in the grid, and a size chart that adapts to the fit (loose or regular).
After that, we’re exploring an AI shopping assistant with the team. Think of a “How average am I?” quiz, smarter upsells, and answers to questions about an order. Nothing is decided yet, but it fits a shop that runs on personality.
