The Shopify Tech Stack Behind AQUON's Hydration Store

AQUON, the electrolyte brand from Yuzvendra Chahal and Ishant Sharma, launched on 13 July 2026 and sells mainly through its own Shopify store. We designed and developed that store. This piece opens up the stack: which parts are custom, which parts are apps, and why the combination suits an Indian D2C launch where the first weeks of traffic come from press and social media.

Everything here can be checked on the live site at drinkaquon.com. Where we describe why something matters, that is our view as the development team, not a claim about the brand's internal numbers, which are theirs to share.

What does the AQUON Shopify stack look like at a glance?

The notable thing is how short that list is. A launch store does not need twenty apps. Every app adds script weight, another dashboard and another thing that can break on launch day. The stack above covers selling, trust and measurement, and nothing else.

Which parts of the storefront are custom built?

The sections a shopper actually spends time on were built for AQUON rather than taken from a theme. They show up in the page code under the brand's own name:

• AQUON hero banner. The opening statement: electrolyte drink mix, hydration for Indian heat, workouts, travel and everyday life, with the formula summarised as 5 electrolytes, 8 vitamins and 10 kcal.
• AQUON flavour hero. The four flavours with prices and a direct add to cart, so a buyer can go from landing to cart without opening a product page.
• AQUON founders. The "Built by champions" story from Chahal and Ishant Sharma, which is the angle most launch coverage led with.
• AQUON ingredient cards. Each ingredient with its amount per serving, daily value and purpose.
• AQUON our products and AQUON PDP bundle. The product range and the pack size options on the product page.

A standard theme sits underneath as the base layer for cart, search and navigation. That split is deliberate. Custom code goes where the brand is different from everyone else. Commodity parts stay commodity, because rewriting a cart drawer adds risk without adding anything a shopper would notice.

How are pack sizes and bundles set up in Shopify?

AQUON sells sachets in packs of 24, and the question every hydration or supplement brand faces is how to sell more than one pack without confusing people. The live store answers it in two ways at once.

First, the main product, the AQUON Daily Hydration Pack, carries pack sizes as variants:

Second, a separate bundle product, the Daily Hydration Bundle with 3 + 1 free, exists at Rs 2,499 for four packs of 24. Each single flavour is also its own product at Rs 999. Prices are as listed on 21 September 2026.

Why do both? Variants keep the comparison on one page, which is where a buyer decides how much to commit. A standalone bundle product gives marketing a clean URL to send ads and influencer links to, with one price and one button.

The compare-at prices matter too. Shopify shows the saving automatically when a compare-at price is set, which is how the storefront shows 8% off on a single pack without anyone hand-typing a discount badge that will be wrong the next time prices change.

Why GoKwik for checkout on an Indian D2C launch?

Because a large share of first-time Indian buyers still want cash on delivery, and cash on delivery is where D2C margins quietly disappear. A buyer who orders on impulse after reading about a cricketer's new brand is exactly the kind of buyer who may refuse the parcel at the door.

Checkout tools built for India, GoKwik among them, focus on that problem: faster address entry, prepaid nudges and risk checks on COD orders. We have covered the economics in detail in our guide to reducing COD and RTO on Shopify in India, and the payment gateway side in our comparison of Razorpay and Cashfree for Shopify.

The development point is simpler. The checkout choice has to be made early, because it changes how the cart button behaves across every custom section. A flavour card with its own add to cart has to hand over to the same checkout as the product page. Deciding late means rebuilding buttons in the final week.

Why is each flavour also its own product?

Alongside the main pack product, each of the four flavours, Lemon Lime, Strawberry Watermelon, Tropical Punch and Exotic Blueberry, exists as its own product at Rs 999 for a pack of 24. That can look like duplication, but it does three useful jobs.

• Each flavour gets its own URL. A creator who loves Tropical Punch can link straight to it, and the page shows only that flavour.
• Each flavour collects its own reviews. Buyers want to know how a specific flavour tastes, not an average across four.
• Each flavour can be featured on its own. The homepage flavour cards pull individual products with their own price and add to cart, which is simpler than exposing variant pickers inside a card.

The trade-off is inventory discipline. If a flavour is sold both on its own and inside a pack, stock has to be tracked in a way that does not oversell. That is a decision to make with whoever runs fulfilment, before launch rather than after the first stockout. Shopify's own documentation on product variants is the right starting point for deciding which options should be variants and which should be separate products.

What would we add to a stack like this after launch?

A launch stack should be lean. Once real order data exists, a few additions usually earn their place in the wellness category. These are general recommendations from our side, not a description of AQUON's plans.

• Replenishment reminders. A daily-use product runs out on a predictable schedule. A reminder timed to that schedule is one of the cheapest repeat-order tools there is.
• Subscriptions, once repeat behaviour is proven. Adding them before you know how often people reorder usually means discounting orders that would have happened anyway.
• Order updates on WhatsApp. Indian buyers read WhatsApp far more reliably than email, and fewer "where is my order" calls lowers support cost.
• A post-purchase offer. An accessory such as the Rs 600 glass bottle is a natural add-on at that moment.

How do reviews and tracking fit in without slowing the store down?

Judge.me handles reviews. On the live store, the Tropical Punch listing shows its review count directly on the flavour card, which puts social proof next to the buy button rather than at the bottom of a product page most people never scroll to.

Tracking runs through Google Tag Manager and the Meta pixel. For a launch driven by social media and press, you need to know which story or post sent the traffic that bought. Running tags through Tag Manager also means the marketing team can add or change tags without a theme deploy.

The honest caveat: every one of these tools adds script to the page. The way to keep a store fast is not to avoid apps altogether but to keep the list short and review it regularly. Our Shopify app stack audit explains how we decide what stays.

How does the stack hold up on a phone?

This is the test that matters most for an Indian launch, because the visitor arriving from an Instagram story or a news app is on a phone, often on a mid-range Android handset and a patchy mobile connection. Every choice above is judged against that visitor first.

In practice that means the custom sections are designed to show the formula, the price and a buy button within the first screen or two on mobile, rather than behind a carousel. It means the flavour cards carry their own add to cart, so a buyer never has to wait for a second page to load. And it means the app list stays short, because each third-party script competes with the product images for the same slow connection. A stack is only as good as its worst page on the cheapest phone your buyers own.

What would we tell another founder copying this stack?

• Decide checkout before you build sections. It touches every buy button.
• Set compare-at prices properly. Let Shopify show savings instead of hardcoding badges.
• Offer packs as variants and as a bundle product. One for comparison, one for campaigns.
• Build your story and your label as editable sections. Founders, formula and ingredients will change. Your team should be able to update them without a developer.
• Keep the app list short. Selling, trust and measurement first. Everything else can wait until you have data.

Who built the AQUON store?

The website was designed and developed by ExactWhy, led by founder Parth Sojitra. We have written up the full story of the build in our piece on who built the AQUON website.

If you are planning a D2C launch and want a stack that is ready for day one traffic, send us your product list and launch date. We will tell you what the store needs and, just as usefully, what it does not.