The Challenge.
Rockmolds makes texture stamps and tools for stamped concrete. The catalog is 143 products across 34 nested categories, and many of those products are close variations of each other: the same stamp in different sizes and styles, and liquids that come as either premix or concentrate. A standard WooCommerce store handles that badly. Variable products collapse into long dropdowns, near-identical items pile up in one flat loop, and a shopper has to already know exactly what they want before they can find it. I wanted the size and style differences to be visible and browsable, and I wanted the multi-part kits people actually buy to take one click instead of several.
What I Built.
Everything here is custom-coded. There is no page builder on the site. The theme is a lean functions.php that loads 22 single-concern modules on a locked theme.json design system, so the brand palette and type scale stay consistent across every template. On top of that I overrode WooCommerce where its defaults got in the way, and I wrote three custom plugins for the parts WooCommerce does not do on its own.
The center of the work is the shop page. Instead of the default product grid, I built a fully sectioned shop that breaks variable products out into browsable size and style sub-sections, and splits liquids into premix and concentrate. A shopper can see the range at a glance and go straight to the variation they need. Product pages carry a size and swatch grid plus “also available in” cross-links, so related stamps connect to each other instead of being dead ends. I also fixed the product image and zoom fidelity, which matters when the whole purchase decision is about surface texture.
The cart and checkout are custom too. I overrode the WooCommerce templates so quantity changes, removals, and undo happen over AJAX with no page reload, moved the coupon form somewhere sensible, hid shipping until checkout, and grouped multi-item kits together in the cart. Kits are their own admin-built content type with a one-click “add all to cart,” so a customer buying a set does not have to add each piece by hand.
The Custom Pieces.
- A custom theme: a lean functions.php loading 22 single-concern modules on a locked theme.json design system. No page builder.
- A sectioned shop page that replaces the default product loop, exploding variable products into browsable size and style sub-sections and splitting liquids into premix and concentrate.
- A custom product page with a size and swatch grid and “also available in” cross-links between related stamps.
- A custom cart and checkout: overridden WooCommerce templates with AJAX quantity, remove, and undo (no reload), a relocated coupon form, shipping hidden until checkout, and multi-item kits grouped in the cart.
- An Engagement plugin: cron-driven abandoned-cart recovery email, plus a customer-photo flywheel that auto-generates a reward coupon when a customer shares a project photo.
- A Forms plugin: unified AJAX contact, newsletter, and shipping-quote forms with honeypot and math-captcha spam control, submissions stored in a versioned custom database table, review moderation, and a newsletter broadcast composer.
- A first-party Cookie Consent plugin with granular GDPR and CCPA category toggles.
- Four custom post types (project gallery, admin-built Kits with one-click “add all to cart,” customer submissions, and FAQs) and a custom mega-menu for the 34 categories.
Built In-House, Not Bought.
Several of these pieces would normally be a stack of paid plugins or a monthly service bill. On Rockmolds they run as custom code, so the site does the work without subscriptions behind it.
| Need | Built in-house |
|---|---|
| Store front end | Custom-coded theme, no page builder |
| Cart recovery and rewards | Custom Engagement plugin, no paid service |
| Forms and spam control | Custom Forms plugin, honeypot and math-captcha |
| Cookie consent | First-party GDPR and CCPA plugin |
The Result.
Rockmolds runs on a store built specifically for what it sells. A catalog that would have been a wall of near-duplicate listings is organized into sections a person can browse, kits buy in one click, and the checkout behaves without full-page reloads. The retention and spam-control pieces run in-house on custom plugins rather than paid services, so the site carries its own weight. It is a genuinely custom, technical build, and it holds together because the theme, the store, and the plugins were all written for this one business.
