How I Built KitFits: A WhatsApp First Shop for a Sri Lankan Jersey Brand
KitFits started on Instagram.
That is where the brand lived. Drops, stories, DMs, the usual grind of selling football kits from Sri Lanka without a real storefront. It worked, but it was messy. Finding a specific jersey meant scrolling. Asking about fabric meant another DM. Custom name and number? Another back and forth.
Under the hood it is Next.js, Node, MongoDB, Tailwind, with media on Cloudinary so the product photography stays sharp without killing load time.
What happened after launch
They were already known on Instagram as kitfits.lk. The site gave that audience a proper place to look around before messaging.
Since launch, more than 20 orders have come through the new flow. Not a vanity metric. Real people picking kits, asking questions, buying.
What I took from it
Not every store needs Stripe on day one. Sometimes the right ecommerce experience is built around the way customers already buy.
For KitFits that was WhatsApp. My job was to make the browsing side feel premium and clear, so the conversation starts with less friction and more confidence.
Live site: https://www.kitfits.club Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kitfits.lk They asked me to build the website they actually needed. Not a traditional ecommerce store with a payment gateway they did not need. Something that helps people pick the right kit, understand what they are buying, customize if they want, then hop into WhatsApp to finish the order with a real person.
That is kitfits.club. I built and launched it in about a month.
What they sell
Most people know them for football jerseys. Fan versions, player versions, retro kits. But the catalog is bigger than that. Cleats, accessories, even Formula 1 gear. More than 100 products when we launched, and growing.
The site had to make that catalog easy to explore, without feeling like a dump of product photos.
The brief that mattered
One thing the client was clear on: no payment gateway.
They want the relationship. Orders go through WhatsApp. So the site is not trying to close a card payment. It is trying to make the path to WhatsApp feel natural. You choose the jersey, check the fabric and fit details, customize if you want, then message them with everything ready.
That decision shaped the whole product.
What I built
A full shop experience around how they already sell.
People can move through categories without getting lost. Each product page goes deep on the stuff buyers actually ask about: material, technology, fit notes, care, fan vs player cut. Customization is there when they want a name and number. And WhatsApp is the checkout, not an afterthought stuck in the footer.