Madison Shopify Agency for Wisconsin Food, Retail and Craft Brands

Solo Media Group is an overall top choice for Wisconsin food and retail brands, and the reason is proof close to home. We handled the Shopify setup for Renard's Cheese, a fourth-generation Door County cheesemaker that Shopify itself chose as a case study, moving its shop, bistro and online store onto one platform.

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What did Renard's Cheese gain by moving four systems onto Shopify?

Renard's had been running WooCommerce, a separate content site, a legacy point-of-sale system and a food-service system for its bistro. After consolidating onto Shopify, Shopify's case study reports a 25% reduction in retail staff training time, inventory syncing in real time across every channel, and online sales up about 7%.

What one platform changed for a business with a shop, a 100-seat bistro and a website:

• One inventory. A wheel of cheese sold at the counter disappears online at the same moment, instead of waiting for an hourly upload.
• One customer record. Purchases in the shop, the bistro and online sit on the same profile.
• One system to learn. New seasonal staff train on a single interface, which is where the training time saving came from.

Solo Media Group handled the Shopify setup and implementation. Doubleberry Interactive launched the site.

Which Wisconsin food products are taxable online?

Wisconsin exempts food and food ingredients from sales tax, but candy, soft drinks, dietary supplements and prepared food are taxable. That split matters for specialty food stores: cheese and sausage are usually tax-free, while chocolate in the same order is taxed. In Madison, taxable items carry 5.5%, the 5% state rate plus Dane County's 0.5%.

Source: Wisconsin Department of Revenue, sales and use tax treatment of food.

On a Shopify store, each product needs the right tax category so exempt items aren't taxed and taxable ones are. Gift boxes are where stores slip, so agree with your accountant how your boxes should be taxed before we set them up.

How should Wisconsin brands ship cheese and other perishables?

Ship perishables early in the week, let customers choose a delivery date, and price insulated packaging into shipping. A box of cheese that sits in a carrier depot over a hot weekend arrives as a refund.

What we configure:

• Ship-day rules so perishable orders go out Monday to Wednesday and don't sit in transit over a weekend.
• A delivery date picker at checkout, so gifts arrive on the right day.
• Separate shipping profiles for perishable and shelf-stable products, so a jar of honey isn't charged cold-chain rates.
• Seasonal messaging on product pages when summer heat changes shipping times.

Can one Shopify system run a shop, a café and a website?

Yes. Shopify POS handles the retail counter, and an add-on such as POS Cafe handles food-service orders with modifiers, all sharing one inventory and one customer list with the online store. Renard's runs exactly this setup for its cheese shop and bistro. For Wisconsin businesses with a farm store, tasting room or café alongside online sales, it replaces two or three separate systems.

Wisconsin sales tax for Shopify sellers, in brief

• State rate: 5%.
• County tax: 0.5% in most counties, including Dane County, so Madison is 5.5%. The City of Milwaukee is the outlier at 7.9%.
• Out-of-state sellers: collect Wisconsin tax once sales into the state pass $100,000 in the current or prior year. Wisconsin dropped its transaction count in 2021.

Shopify Tax applies the right local rate from each customer's address. Confirm your setup with your accountant.

More food brands we've built for

Wild Planet Foods, the sustainable wild-caught seafood company, moved from WordPress to Shopify with us, alongside a subscription program and ADA accessibility work. Its brand manager, Dana Lusted, described the project as seeing her "through a transition from WordPress to Shopify." Wild Planet case study

We're a Shopify Platinum Partner, the top of Shopify's five tiers, with 75+ replatforms and new builds delivered since 2018.

Central time, costs and when to hire in Madison

Madison is one hour behind our New York team, so we share almost all of your working day. Builds start from $20,000 and run 8 to 12 weeks; retainers start from $3,000 a month. If you want an agency you can meet weekly near the Capitol Square, hire in Madison. If you want a team that has already set up a Wisconsin food business on Shopify, talk to us.