Context
iAmEvolving is a personal growth brand built around a guided journaling system designed to help people cultivate daily alignment, self-reflection, and intentional living. The founder needed one platform to sell physical journals and digital products, deliver online courses, manage subscriptions and build a community through email, without stacking an off-the-shelf plugin for each job.
Challenge
Standard e-commerce and newsletter plugins couldn’t meet the project’s needs. The shopping experience had to feel personal. The newsletter needed automated sequences triggered by purchases and signups. Digital product delivery required secure, token-based downloads with expiration. Course content needed drip scheduling. Everything had to be managed from one WordPress dashboard, without separate email marketing or course software.
What We Delivered
We built a custom WordPress theme from scratch. The shop, the newsletter engine, course delivery and the editor blocks are all part of the theme, in place of WooCommerce, an email plugin and a page builder.
Custom E-Commerce System
- Custom shop supporting physical products with shipping, digital downloads with secure token-based delivery, and recurring subscriptions
- Stripe PaymentIntents and Subscriptions APIs with multi-currency support (USD/CAD)
- Product variations, gallery, reviews and bundle comparison, built from scratch
- Cart abandonment recovery with automated email follow-ups
- PDF invoice generation via DomPDF
Custom Newsletter & Automation Engine
- Newsletter system built into WordPress, with subscriber management, a campaign editor and email templates
- Automation workflows triggered by purchases, signups, and user actions
- Cron-based queue worker for reliable email delivery
- Analytics dashboard with open rates, click tracking, and subscriber growth
35 Custom Gutenberg Blocks
- Product blocks: product-card, product-grid, product-gallery, product-tabs, product-variations, product-reviews, buy-button, checkout-form, price-display
- Layout blocks: section, row, column, background, display
- Content blocks: accordion, HowTo (with schema), latest-posts, web-story, promo-links
- Admin blocks: metadata panels for orders, products, quotes, reviews, and lessons
SEO & Content Architecture
- Google Search Console integration: JWT-authenticated API sync, per-post performance metrics, an admin dashboard with Chart.js and sortable admin columns
- Content Map admin tool showing the pillar and subpillar post hierarchy, with Search Console performance data per category
- JSON-LD structured data: Product (with offers, reviews, shipping and return policy), Organization, WebPage, HowTo, FAQ and Breadcrumb schemas
Online Courses
- Course delivery with drip-scheduled lessons tied to subscriptions
- Progress tracking and lesson metadata management from the editor
Results
The platform launched with the shop, the newsletter engine, course delivery, 35 Gutenberg blocks and a content hub organized into pillar topics, all managed from one WordPress dashboard. The client manages products, publishes guidance content, runs automated email campaigns and fulfills orders in WordPress, with Stripe handling payments. One theme does the work that would usually take WooCommerce, Mailchimp, LearnDash and several add-on plugins.