A neighborhood boutique, online
Mint Julep is a women’s boutique founded in 2004, with shops in Brookline and Cambridge, Massachusetts. They carry clothing, jewelry, handbags and accessories from American and European designers, and their Shopify store brings that same curation online.
Text Connects has been their development partner since 2021. The work has grown from small fixes, like showing size availability on collection pages, to a site audit, a new theme and, most recently, a rebuilt gift card experience.
Starting with an audit
In 2024 we reviewed the whole store for user experience problems, bugs and accessibility issues, and wrote it up as a plan the Mint Julep team could prioritize. That audit shaped the theme work that followed.
A new theme in 2025
We kicked off a theme rebuild in February 2025 and launched it in May. Highlights:
- A desktop mega menu with promo image blocks, so new arrivals and featured designers get room to show.
- A refreshed homepage with a new slideshow, featured collections and an Instagram feed, and fixes for mobile.
- Store locations front and center, with a map and linked addresses for both shops in the footer.
- Clearer shopping details: final-sale messaging and a working gift message in the cart, better sort options and sale badges.
Gift cards, rebuilt
Gift certificates are a big part of a boutique’s business, and Mint Julep’s weren’t Shopify gift cards at all. In September 2026 we moved them to Shopify’s native gift cards and made them personal:
- Send it to someone. Shoppers enter the recipient’s email (required and checked), their name and a message of up to 200 characters.
- Schedule it. Pick a send date up to 90 days out, so a birthday gift arrives on the birthday.
- Nothing breaks. Gift certificates bought under the old setup keep working.
- Easy to update. The gift card page is now an editable section, and we wrote documentation so the team can manage it themselves.
Still going
Five years in, we’re still the team Mint Julep calls for the next improvement, from header updates and order confirmation emails to the next round of product and collection page work.
