March 2020. The world was shutting down. Toilet paper was the new Bitcoin. And I got a Slack message that would change my life: "We need Dior online. In the Middle East. Yesterday."

This is the story of how we launched the first digital Dior e-commerce site in MENA during a global pandemic, armed with nothing but Shopify Plus, excessive amounts of Arabic coffee, and the unshakeable belief that luxury brands and rapid deployment could somehow coexist.

Chapter 1: "It's Just Shopify, How Hard Could It Be?"

Famous last words.

The project manager approached me with a smile that said "I'm about to ruin your next three months."

"We need to migrate Dior from their current platform to Shopify Plus. Oh, and they want custom everything. And it needs to feel more luxurious than their Paris boutique. And support Arabic. And handle their 47-step approval process for a single product image. Simple, right?"

I nodded confidently while mentally calculating how much coffee I'd need to survive this.

Chapter 2: The Liquid Template Nightmare

For those blessed souls who've never worked with Shopify's Liquid templating language, imagine if HTML and a programming language had a baby, and that baby was raised by wolves who only spoke in curly brackets.

{% unless customer.tags contains 'VIP' %}
  {% if product.price > 10000 %}
    {% assign luxury_level = 'You need a mortgage' %}
  {% elsif product.price > 5000 %}
    {% assign luxury_level = 'Start saving now' %}
  {% else %}
    {% assign luxury_level = 'This is probably a keychain' %}
  {% endif %}
{% endunless %}

The Dior team wanted animations. Not just any animations – we're talking about animations that would make Pixar jealous. On every. Single. Product. Card.

"Can you make the perfume bottle rotate in 3D when someone hovers?" they asked.

"This is Shopify, not the Matrix," I wanted to say. Instead, I said, "Let me see what I can do," and proceeded to write JavaScript that would make my computer science professor cry.

Chapter 3: The Great Cart Abandonment Crisis

Two weeks into development, analytics showed our cart abandonment rate was 92%. NINETY-TWO PERCENT.

Turns out, luxury shoppers in the Middle East have very specific expectations:

• They want to feel special (implemented VIP tiers)
• They want exclusive access (created invitation-only collections)
• They want the checkout to feel like entering a boutique (added so many animations the page load time cried)
• They want Arabic that reads right-to-left (my CSS had an existential crisis)

The solution? Custom checkout. If you've never customized Shopify Plus checkout, imagine performing brain surgery while wearing oven mitts. Blindfolded. During an earthquake.

Chapter 4: The Arabic RTL Adventure

Making a luxury site work in Arabic is like teaching a French poodle to walk backwards while maintaining its dignity.

/* My CSS file by the end */
.product-card {
  float: left;
}

html[dir="rtl"] .product-card {
  float: right;
  /* no wait */
  float: left;
  /* actually... */
  transform: scaleX(-1);
  /* WHAT HAVE I DONE */
}

The best part? Dior's logo couldn't be flipped. So we had a right-to-left site with a left-to-right logo. It was like parallel parking in two dimensions simultaneously.

Chapter 5: The Launch Day That Almost Wasn't

Launch day. 11 PM Dubai time (because of course we're launching at night). The entire Chalhoub C-suite is watching. The Dior team in Paris is connected via Zoom. My palms are sweating. Mom's spaghetti.

T-minus 5 minutes: "The payment gateway isn't working."

T-minus 4 minutes: Frantically debugging in production (I know, I know).

T-minus 3 minutes: Discovered someone forgot to switch from test mode.

T-minus 2 minutes: Fixed it.

T-minus 1 minute: "Why is everything in Comic Sans?"

T-minus 0: Someone's kid had been playing with the theme editor. Changed it back. Site goes live.

The crowd goes wild. Orders start flowing. The site doesn't crash. I age 10 years in 5 minutes.

Chapter 6: The Unexpected Success

Plot twist: The site was a massive success. Within the first month:

• Cart abandonment dropped to 45% (still high, but hey, it's luxury)
• Mobile conversion rate exceeded desktop (those animations worked!)
• The Arabic version outperformed English by 30%
• Someone actually bought a $15,000 handbag at 3 AM

The Dior team was so happy they sent us actual Dior products. I now own a cologne that costs more than my monthly rent. I'm too scared to use it.

The Custom Features That Made It Work

Looking back, here's what actually made the difference:

// The VIP Detection System
if (customer.total_spent > 50000) {
  enableHelicopterDelivery();
  assignPersonalShopper();
  customer.status = 'Basically Royalty';
}

Virtual Try-On: We integrated AR for perfumes. Yes, you read that right. Customers could "smell" perfumes through their screen. (It was actually just pretty visuals with scent descriptions, but the placebo effect is real.)

The Guilt-Trip Cart Recovery: Instead of "You left items in your cart," we went with "Your carefully curated selection awaits your distinguished attention." Cart recovery increased by 23%.

The Instagram Integration: Rich kids love flexing. We added a "Share your Dior" feature that automatically generated Instagram-worthy product shots with Arabic calligraphy overlays.

Lessons Learned (The Hard Way)

1. Luxury brands don't understand "MVP" - They want "Maximum Viable Product"
2. Shopify Plus can do anything - If you're willing to sacrifice your sanity
3. Arabic RTL will humble you - No matter how good you think your CSS is
4. Test the payment gateway - For the love of all that is holy, test it twice
5. Luxury customers buy at weird hours - 3 AM purchases are surprisingly common

The Plot Twist Ending

Six months later, other luxury brands saw Dior's success. Suddenly, we were the "luxury Shopify experts." Chanel wanted in. Givenchy was interested. My LinkedIn exploded with recruiters offering me jobs I wasn't qualified for.

The funniest part? The site we built in pandemic panic mode, fueled by anxiety and Arabic coffee, became the template for luxury e-commerce in the region. Sometimes the best solutions come from having no other choice but to make it work.

"When life gives you a pandemic, a luxury brand, and Shopify Plus, you make digital magic. Or have a mental breakdown. Sometimes both."

The Real MVP

Shoutout to Shopify's Liquid documentation, Stack Overflow, and that one guy on the Shopify forums who answered my question about nested liquid loops at 2 AM. You're the real heroes.

And to my team at Chalhoub who believed we could pull this off: We did it. We actually did it. Now let's never do it again.

P.S. - If you're reading this and thinking about launching a luxury brand on Shopify during a global crisis, my advice is simple: Don't. But if you do, make sure you have good coffee, better teammates, and the phone number of a good therapist.

The site is still live, still selling, and still occasionally haunts my dreams in Liquid syntax. 🛍