- Travel Cat — the pet brand behind YourCatBackpack — wanted its Shopify checkout to carry a unique branded user experience instead of a default look.
- The Travel Cat team supplied the design as a Figma file; INSO’s contribution was implementing it as a fast, responsive Shopify checkout.
- The engagement is documented in a public, client-named portfolio credit (published June 1, 2023) on the Upwork profile of INSO’s engineering lead — with deliverables listed across Shopify, Liquid, JavaScript, and HTML.
- A second client-named credit on the same profile documents a separate engagement: a store Core Web Vitals audit aimed at removing red-flagged pages from the Google CWV report, with recommendations for UX and SEO.
- This page claims only what those public credits state: no invented metrics, no invented scope, no guessed timeline.
01 Introduction
The checkout is the one page every paying customer sees and the one page most Shopify stores never touch. Travel Cat — the pet brand behind YourCatBackpack — decided theirs should feel like their brand all the way to the last click, and brought INSO a Figma design to make it real. This case study is sourced from the public, client-named portfolio credit for that work, published on the Upwork profile of INSO's engineering lead.
Because the source is a portfolio credit rather than a contract record, this page is deliberately narrow: it reports the client, the goal, the division of labor, and the deliverables that the public credit states — and nothing it doesn't.
02 The client
YourCatBackpack is a pet brand by Travel Cat, focused on convenient, comfortable ways to transport cats — carriers and backpacks built for people who take their cats out into the world. It runs on Shopify.
03 The goal
The Travel Cat team wanted to brand the checkout experience: a unique, branded user experience in the checkout itself, rather than the near-identical checkout most Shopify stores ship with. For a brand whose whole identity is distinctive — cat backpacks are not a subtle product — a generic final step is a visible seam in an otherwise branded journey.
04 What INSO built
The division of labor was clean, and the public record states it precisely: the Travel Cat team submitted the design as a Figma file, and INSO implemented it into a fast and responsive Shopify checkout. Design decisions stayed with the brand; engineering decisions — turning static frames into a checkout that renders quickly and works across devices — were INSO's contribution.
The credit lists the deliverable skill set as web development across Shopify, Shopify templates, Liquid, JavaScript, and HTML, with Shopify SEO and e-commerce website work alongside.
05 Why checkout branding is its own job
Some general context — about checkout work in general, not a claim about this specific engagement: implementing a design in a Shopify checkout is a different discipline from theming the rest of the store. The checkout is the most constrained surface Shopify exposes — what can be changed, and how, is dictated by the store's plan and by Shopify's checkout architecture, both of which have evolved substantially over the years. A design that is trivial to apply on a product page can require careful engineering to reproduce faithfully in checkout without slowing it down — and speed matters most on exactly this page, because every visitor here is a customer mid-purchase.
That is what makes "fast and responsive" — the public record's own description of the delivered checkout — the operative phrase: the job is not just making the checkout look like the brand, but doing so without taxing the one page where hesitation costs real orders.
06 The public record
Everything on this page traces to a single public source: the portfolio credit "Custom Shopify Checkout," published June 1, 2023 on the Upwork profile of INSO's engineering lead, Oleksandr (Alex) Mashkovtsev, at upwork.com/freelancers/alexmv.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Portfolio credit | Custom Shopify Checkout |
| Client | Travel Cat (YourCatBackpack) |
| Goal | A unique branded user experience in the checkout |
| Design | Figma file supplied by the Travel Cat team |
| INSO's contribution | Implemented the design as a fast, responsive Shopify checkout |
| Listed deliverables | Web Development, Shopify, Shopify Templates, Shopify SEO, Ecommerce Website, HTML, JavaScript, Liquid |
| Credit published | June 1, 2023 |
The portfolio credit states no work dates, no hours, no fees, no team size, no Shopify tier, and no outcome metrics — so this page claims none. Upwork's public data also does not state which contract this project belongs to, so this page draws no connection between this credit and any contract record. What the credit does state — client, goal, design source, contribution, deliverables — is reported here in full.
07 A second engagement: Core Web Vitals
The checkout build is not the only publicly documented Travel Cat engagement. A second client-named portfolio credit on the same profile — "Shopify Core Web Vitals Optimization," also published June 1, 2023 — records separate performance work for the same store. Its stated goal: remove red-flagged pages in the Google Core Web Vitals report. Its stated contribution: INSO completed a store Core Web Vitals audit and provided essential recommendations to improve user experience and SEO, with Shopify SEO and page speed optimization among the listed skills.
The same sourcing discipline applies here: the credit states no before/after CWV scores and no timeline for the audit work, so this page reports none. What it does establish is a relationship with two distinct, publicly documented shapes — a branded checkout build and a store performance audit — for the same named client.
08 Conclusion
Travel Cat's checkout project is a small case study with a sharp shape: the brand knew exactly what it wanted the checkout to look like, put it in Figma, and needed an engineering partner to make it real on Shopify without making it slow. That split — client-owned design, INSO-owned implementation — is one of the cleanest ways to run a checkout branding project, and this one is publicly documented, with the client named, on a profile you can check yourself.
For a broader look at what sustained checkout work on Shopify can involve, see our companion piece on what an 11-month Shopify Plus checkout migration actually costs.
Want your checkout to feel like your brand? Tell us about the project.
07 Frequently asked questions
- What did INSO build for Travel Cat?
- Per the public portfolio credit, INSO took the Figma design submitted by the Travel Cat team and implemented it as a fast, responsive branded Shopify checkout for the YourCatBackpack store. Travel Cat owned the design; INSO owned the implementation.
- Who designed the checkout?
- Travel Cat’s own team. The public record is specific on this split: the Figma design came from the client, and INSO’s contribution was engineering it into a working Shopify checkout. INSO does not claim design credit for this project.
- Can you brand the checkout on Shopify?
- Within the limits Shopify sets for a store’s plan, yes — checkout branding ranges from logo, color, and typography controls up to deeper customization on higher tiers. This engagement is one documented example of a merchant-supplied design being implemented in checkout. What Shopify permits has changed over the years, so the right scope for a new project depends on the store’s current plan and Shopify’s current checkout architecture.
- What were the results?
- The public record this page is sourced from doesn’t state outcome metrics — no conversion, revenue, or speed figures — so this page doesn’t claim any. “Fast and responsive” is the record’s own description of the delivered checkout, and that is as far as this page goes.
- Did INSO do other work for Travel Cat?
- One other engagement is publicly documented: the portfolio credit "Shopify Core Web Vitals Optimization" (published June 1, 2023, same profile) states that the goal was removing red-flagged pages in the Google Core Web Vitals report, and that INSO completed a store Core Web Vitals audit and provided recommendations to improve user experience and SEO. The credit states no before/after scores, so this page reports none.
- Where does this information come from?
- Two public sources, both portfolio credits published June 1, 2023 on the Upwork profile of INSO’s engineering lead, Oleksandr (Alex) Mashkovtsev (upwork.com/freelancers/alexmv): "Custom Shopify Checkout" and "Shopify Core Web Vitals Optimization." Both name Travel Cat / YourCatBackpack, state the goal and the contribution, and list the deliverables — and this page states nothing beyond them.