Jalapa Jar: From a Crowded Shelf to a Build-Your-Box Store
Jalapa Jar was getting ready to run ads before the holiday season, on a store that made shoppers work to buy. We rebuilt it around conversions: prices up front, a shop that leads with the classics, and a box you fill yourself.
About the client
From selling at Smorgasburg in 2015 to its own Brooklyn Navy Yard kitchen, now sold through retailers and online.
Company:
Jalapa Jar
Location:
Brooklyn, New York
Industry:
Food & Beverage (fresh salsa, DTC and retail)
Timeline:
Start Date:
October 2026
Live Site:
Visit the siteAbout the collaboration
Services:
Shopify design and development
Platform & Apps:
Shopify, custom Liquid sections, Recharge, Klaviyo, Storemapper
Challenge:
Ads were coming before the holidays, and the store hid prices, led with sold-out jars and kept its shipping rule off the product page.
Solution:
A redesigned Shopify store with prices under the hero, six shop filters, a six-jar bundle builder on every salsa page and much shorter pages on mobile.
Impact:
Built on an unpublished theme so the live store kept selling throughout the redesign.
Jalapa Jar makes small-batch, fire-roasted salsa in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, from a recipe first crafted in an Austin kitchen in the early 2000s. Fresh is the whole point, with no additives or preservatives. It's also what makes selling online hard: orders ship chilled, to the continental US only, in boxes of 2 to 6 jars.
By October 2026, founder Tommy Byrnes's team was getting ready to run ads before the holiday season. Paid traffic only pays off if the store converts, and 60% of the store's traffic comes from mobile. The range had also outgrown the store: six core salsas now sat beside seasonal drops, a tasting flight, merch and a Monthly Salsa Club, all in one flat grid on a Dawn theme.
Why did Jalapa Jar redesign its store now?
They were getting ready to run ads before the holiday season, so the store needed to turn more of that paid traffic into orders. That made conversions the focus of the redesign.
How does the bundle builder work?
Every salsa page has six jar slots. Shoppers tap a flavor to fill a slot, tap twice for two of the same and tap a jar to remove it. The button asks for more jars until there are two, which matches the store's 2-jar minimum.
What happens to sold-out flavors in the new shop?
Sold-out jars move to the end of Shop All, so the six core salsas come first. Seasonal flavors carry a pill showing their drop month.
Was the live store affected during the redesign?
No. We built on an unpublished copy of the theme, so the current store kept taking orders the whole time.
Can Jalapa Jar's team update the store without a developer?
Yes. The new pages are custom Shopify sections with settings in the theme editor, including the shop's filter groups and the jar limits in the bundle builder.
The Problem
- A Homepage With No Prices: Under the hero, five flavors appeared with names and heat levels but no prices. Seven more sections followed, on process, story, the kitchen and retailers, before the page ended.
- A Shop Page That Led With Sold-Out Jars: Shop All mixed everything into one grid. Shoppers passed nine products, several of them sold out, before reaching the first everyday salsa.
- A Shipping Rule Off the Product Page: Each product page had one Add to Cart button and no mention of the 2-jar minimum. The rule lived on a separate Shipping page, so a shopper could add one jar without knowing it couldn't ship alone.
- A Stock Layout for a Handmade Brand: The store ran on Shopify's Dawn theme with its standard layouts. A brand built on small batches and fire-roasting looked much like any other Dawn store.
Asking the right questions
Turning a shipping limit into a reason to buy more
Fresh salsa has to ship in boxes of 2 to 6 jars, and the old product page never said so. Hiding the rule risked a surprise at the cart, and a warning would have felt like a penalty. So the rule became the feature: six jar slots on every salsa page, starting with the flavor you're viewing. The button says how many more jars you need until you reach two, and shoppers can open another flavor's page without losing their box. The limit is now the thing people play with.
The GamePlan
Work on a copy of the store
Pull the live theme into version control and build on an unpublished copy, so the current store keeps selling.
Rebuild the homepage around the jars
Design it in Figma, then build new sections with salsas and prices directly under the hero.
Build the bundle builder
Redesign the product page around six jar slots that match the shipping rule.
Reorganize the shop
Group a growing range into OG, Extra Heat, Seasonal Drop, Subscriptions, Gifts and Merch, with sold-out jars last.
Work through a feedback round
Refine filters, card labels, jar cut-outs and the bundle's memory across pages.
Carry the system across the store
Redesign Our Story, Salsa Kitchen, Where to Buy and the remaining pages so nothing looks left behind.
Polish before launch
Cut out the product photos, hide retired products and tighten the details ahead of launch.
The Solution
We rebuilt Jalapa Jar's store around one job: turning holiday ad traffic into boxes of fresh salsa.
A Homepage That Sells First
Five flavors with names but no prices, then seven more sections before the page ended.
Salsas and prices now sit directly under the hero, next to the press logos. The page is 39% shorter, and ingredients, subscriptions and the retailer locator support the sale.
A Shelf That Makes Sense
Shoppers passed nine products, several of them sold out, before the first everyday salsa.
Shop All opens with the six core salsas and six filters. Cards show price and heat level, seasonal flavors carry their drop month, hovering a card scrolls its key ingredients, and sold-out jars move to the end.
Build Your Box on the Product Page
One Add to Cart button, and a 2-jar minimum that wasn't on the page.
A six-slot bundle builder lets shoppers mix flavors into a box before they reach the cart. Description, Delivery and Ingredients tabs keep the shipping details next to the price.
A Store Built for the Phone
60% of traffic comes from mobile, and on a phone the old homepage ran to nearly nine screens with no prices.
The phone homepage is now 54% shorter, with salsas and prices about one screen down. On product pages the price moved into the first screen, and the bundle builder sets its six slots in two rows of three, easy to tap.
A Store With Its Own Look
A brand built on small batches, on Shopify's standard Dawn layouts.
Full-bleed food photography, big "freshly roasted" type and cut-out jars replace the stock look. Our Story, Salsa Kitchen and Where to Buy are rebuilt in the same system, so every page feels like one brand.
The Results
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