eCommerce Case Study – Shanore

Shanore is a Celtic jewellery manufacturer, with an established brand in North America and a reputation for design and quality.

However, their website was not conveying the quality of their product or generating as much in online sales as the product deserved.

Wishing to capitalise on its premium product offering & loyal audience, Shanore sought to increase online sales dramatically and expand its brand reach. To realize this objective of eCommerce success they needed to drive greater engagement with their customers. In pursuit of this goal, they retained the services of Matrix Internet.

Previously Matrix carried out a User Experience (UX) audit of the older Shanore website.

Solution

Over several collaborative workshops, we worked with the client to create a vision of the optimal user experience. Thus armed with a better understanding of the customer and Shanore’s DNA, Matrix carefully created prototypes and wireframes for the most important parts of the User Experience:

1. Landing points and orientation on the website.
2. Discovery of Shanore’s products and navigation.
3. Product selection and review.
4. Sales funnel, adding to cart, cross-selling and up-selling.
5. Checkout process simplification.

Structuring the site’s Information Architecture so it facilitated eCommerce success was our main objective. The collaborative workshops enabled us to lay this solid foundation upon which to build the rest of the eCommerce-optimised UX.

Our designers spent a lot of time familiarising themselves with the brand DNA of Shanore and conceptualising a web interface which would appeal to its target market and have a global reach. A custom-developed store was created for Shanore to cater specifically for its industry, products and clients.

Sophisticated product viewing features, filtering options,  configurable products and a streamlined checkout were integral parts of a well-thought-out customer experience.

There were 3 main strands to this project’s solution:

1. Design of a distinctive, elegant website and online identity.
2. Development of a bespoke eCommerce engine specifically around this client.
3. Multi-faceted online marketing strategy created and deployed.

Interview

Senior Developer Tomas Herink was interviewed about the process of optimising the website for eCommerce success and his responses illustrate the focused approach of the Matrix team undertaking the project:

Q: How did you simplify the checkout process?

Q: How did you optimize the discovery of Shanore’s products and navigation?

Q: How did you improve the sales funnel, adding to cart, cross and upselling?

Conclusion:

Not only was the client eminently satisfied with what the Matrix team achieved, but the improvements to their website resulted in Shanore picking up gongs for 2009 Runner-up in Best E-commerce Support and 2010 winner of Best E-Commerce Support.

In order for your business to achieve similar results, we recommend that you follow the steps outlined above. By identifying your ‘bullseye customer’ and structuring your site’s Information Architecture to foster eCommerce success, you will have taken an important step on the road to online profitability.

eCommerce Website Design & Development