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June 29, 2026 · "3 min read"

"Why We Built Label One"

"We are an agency that builds Shopify stores for a living. Label One exists because we needed a theme that could keep up with our clients."

Panther & Cub is a Shopify agency. We build stores for brands, and we have been doing it long enough to know that most themes are not built by people who actually use them every day.

A theme gets designed, developed, released. Then it sits. Updates come slowly, if at all. Bugs get fixed but the feature set stays frozen. If you are an agency building multiple client stores on the same theme, you feel this hard. Every project becomes a fight between what the client needs and what the theme allows.

Label One started as a bet: what if we built the theme we actually wanted to use across every client project?

Built from agency work

Every feature in Label One exists because a real client project needed it. The three header layouts came from clients who wanted different brand expressions. The color variant system came from a fashion brand with a complex product catalog. The mega menus, the gallery sections, the flexible cart. All of them shipped because we had to ship them for someone.

That changes the incentive. Most theme updates are driven by market trends or competitor features. Ours are driven by the projects sitting on our desk. We do not have to guess what stores need. We are looking at it every day.

Maintenance is not optional

This is the part that matters most to us. We use Label One for our clients. If the theme breaks, we cannot deliver our work. If a Shopify update changes something, we have to fix it immediately, not eventually.

That means Label One will never be abandoned. It cannot be. It is too central to how we operate. As long as Panther & Cub is building stores, Label One is being maintained, improved, and pushed forward.

What this means for you

If you buy Label One, you are not buying a theme from a team that ships it and moves on. You are buying into a tool that an agency uses daily to earn its living. The updates keep coming because we need them. The features keep growing because our clients demand them.

We built Label One for ourselves first. We think that makes it better for everyone else too.