Sota Fuel - Custom Shopify Theme Development

What is Sota Fuel?

Sota Fuel is a healthier electrolyte drink designed for action sports athletes who need a hydration solution that actually works, without all the junk in regular sports drinks.

The brand needed a website that felt just as high-performance as the product - engaging, smooth, and packed with animations to make it feel alive.

Sota Fuel homepage product-collection section with animated bottle reveal for the electrolyte range

Fully Custom Theme – Built From Scratch

I built this Shopify theme completely from scratch - no templates, no shortcuts. Everything is custom-coded using Tailwind CSS, GSAP, and vanilla JavaScript to get the best performance and flexibility.

Everything is Super Editable

One of the biggest priorities for this build was making sure everything could be changed easily. The entire theme is editable through the Shopify theme editor, so the client can tweak layouts, colors, text, and more without needing a developer.

For the few things that aren’t possible to edit directly in the theme editor, I used metafields to keep it flexible. The level of customization here is way beyond what most Shopify themes offer.

Editing a section of the website - they are all this customizable, if not more

Animations – Making the Site Feel Alive

Animations were a huge part of the project. The goal was to make the site feel dynamic without slowing it down. I used GSAP to create smooth, scroll-based effects that help guide the user’s attention and make the experience more engaging.

Scroll effects bring content to life without feeling overdone
Subtle motion makes interactions feel smooth and polished
Everything is optimized for performance, so animations don’t slow the site down

Sota Fuel homepage scroll animation — bottles falling into a glass on scroll

Sota Fuel animated stats section with scroll-triggered counters

Sota Fuel scroll-animated image-with-text section pairing product photography with brand copy

Purchase Flow & Upsells

The checkout process needed to be as smooth as possible while also encouraging bigger orders.

Upsells are built into the cart, so customers get recommendations before checkout
There’s a fully custom bundle builder, letting users mix and match products using Simple Bundles under the hood
The entire flow is clean and easy to use, making the purchase experience seamless

Sota Fuel slide-out cart and checkout flow with in-cart upsells and a custom bundle builder

Page Speed

As with any of my builds speed and performance were a big focus. The site loads in under 1.5 seconds for over 75% of users, which is fast even with all the animations and visuals.

Here’s what I did to keep it quick:

✅ Properly sized images & videos
✅ Lazy loaded images and assets (smart lazy loading using javascript)
✅ Bundled and optimized assets to reduce load times
✅ Made sure animations run smoothly without affecting speed

Sota Fuel PageSpeed Insights score — under 1.5 seconds for 75%+ of users after theme optimization

Final Thoughts

This was a fun project to work on. Everything is built from the ground up, fully customizable, and optimized to perform well. The animations make the site feel alive, and the checkout experience is smooth and optimized for sales.

If you need a fully custom Shopify theme that’s super editable, fast, and actually built for your brand, let’s talk. 🚀