1. The challenge
Ecommerce has completely transformed the way people buy things but the majority of online purchases are simple transactions. The bespoke market, on the other hand, specialises in unique creations that require input and investment from the buyer before the sale is made. This form of retail is not suited to picking and buying things from a screen. Buyers want to see a tangible product, or at least an accurate sample, before they will take the risk. The main challenge with Crucial Trading was the level of customisation they offered for every product. Their products were almost too bespoke to be sold via digital channels. We needed to bridge the gap between the experience they offered in-store and the experience visitors would have on their website.
To begin we researched Crucial Trading and what made them special as a brand. Before we could make any decisions we needed to understand and appreciate the issues they were facing. By placing ourselves in their position we could observe the market and their competitors and get a good idea of what was working with their target audience. After a systematised process, including competitor research and data analysis, we found three main issues that were causing them to lose out on online sales.
Low conversion rate of visitors ordering samples
Samples are the bread and butter of bespoke offerings online. They give the potential customer something to touch and feel before making a buying decision. Crucial Trading had a lot of visitors but a very low amount of samples being ordered. This suggested an issue with their sales funnel.
Poor interaction with website features
The original website, though not without its issues, had several innovative ways to engage and inform buyers. The most powerful feature was a 3D rug builder, which gave potential customers the chance to build their own floor coverings. Despite the innovative nature of such a feature, the analytics did not lie: the rug builder was not pulling its weight with regard to sales.
Flawed user experience
These two issues, while serious, were not the core problem that plagued the site.The main issue was more intangible: website visitors were just not interested enough to either order a sample or buy a product. The UX of the site didn’t do a good enough job of bringing the products to life, which consequently caused a drop off of engagement before any sales could be made.
Creative Director
2. Why these challenges were limiting sales
Low conversion rate of visitors ordering samples
Poor interaction with website features
Flawed user experience
3. How did we identify the key issues?
Client Workshops
User Metrics & Testing
4. Research & Discovery
How was the website performing?
The User Journey
Drop offs and exits
5. Strategy
Hierarchy and navigation
Homepage Layout & Design
Rug Builder Technology Stack & User Interface
From our very first time analysing the site we knew that the 3D rug builder could be a great sales tool. During the research phase of the project we discovered that site visitors often engaged with the feature on more than one occasion. The problem was that many users struggled to find the ‘next step’ after their bespoke rug was created. Without a clear call to action, people gave up. This told us that the rug builder was actually a fantastic feature. We just needed to make the journey to basket for easier to navigate. After researching the current flow of user actions that were required we mapped out some improvements to implement and test.
Inspiring Customer Experience
We knew that our main job was to make potential customers happy and to engage them enough to take action. In general, this meant educating them and leading them towards the best purchasing decisions. This was a fairly top level challenge and we needed to understand the customers perspective before we could really begin to solve it.
As Crucial Trading operated in high quality bespoke markets we needed to make the website more of an experience than a transactional process. It was important that the online store was an independent asset to the brand and not just a tick-box exercise because “everyone has one”. With our experience and expertise in new, immersive technologies we felt like we had a good idea of how to achieve this.
When considering how to create more of an ‘experience’ we first thought about virtual reality. With VR headsets and equipment becoming more mainstream it seemed like a good place to start, and would only grow in the future. After running some initial tests, however, we found that VR shopping had not yet reached a high enough level of adoption for it to make sense.
We then turned our focus towards augmented reality, or AR. AR is officially supported by both Apple iOS ARKit and Google’s Android ARCore, making it far easier for ordinary people to get access to the technology. By leveraging AR platforms we could virtually “place” Crucial Trading’s products into the homes of their prospective customers, giving them a powerful and immersive experience that would set them apart from competitors.
6. Solutions
With a full strategy in place, our KPIs agreed, and the team bursting with ideas, we set off to create something big. Here’s how we did it.
Navigation
Homepage
Crucial had a lot of striking visual assets that were under-optimised in the previous site hierarchy. Now we wanted to make sure all of this imagery was given centre stage. Due to the poor performance of the homepage header on the original site we opted for a completely new one, highlighting different materials on each new page load and giving users the opportunity to view different images by hovering over different icons.
Below the header we created a subtle sense of flow by maintaining the key combination of material-related content and stunning imagery. To improve engagement with the important material pages we designed visual cards that linked out to the top level material types in the navigation.
To maximise customer immersion we also wanted to draw attention to the 3D rug builder. We achieved this by creating autoplay video sections, capturing the attention of the users with visually stunning combinations of products.
3D Rug Builder
We knew that the UI of the 3D rug builder would be key to its success so we recreated it, using design best practices, to maximise usability. With a materials selector, preview window and selections sidebar users could create a 3D model of their dream rug, complete with realistic lighting and layered with actual samples of raw materials.
From a technical viewpoint we rebuilt the rug builder from scratch. We knew that for users to engage and invest in its functionality we would have to focus on speed and usability. Once the redesign was complete it loaded 5x faster than before, due largely to an optimised codebase using ReactJS, newly optimised assets and a new caching process that stores all material data for quicker retrieval.
Augmented Reality App
To really drive home the goal of complete customer immersion we decided to use augmented reality within a native platform. This made it easy to place a newly-created rug on any floor, giving the customer a unique opportunity to view the product in their home. Using ARKit on iOS, once you have located the ideal surface you can access all of the rugs you have built in your Crucial Trading account, resize it, and then “lock” it in place. Even if you move away the rug will stay in the chosen position. There was also a sharing feature, which allowed users to send their new rug to friends and family, adding an extra layer of engagement and adding social proof to any purchases.
Inspire is a unique app, allowing you to build a bespoke rug and ‘place’ it in your home within minutes. This is better than other apps on the market for a number of reasons, but primarily because you can fully customise the product without having to choose it from a catalogue. This level of customisation is still a ‘first’ in the online bespoke market and has proven to be extremely popular.
7. Results
It’s all good and well making things that look good but ultimately our role in a project is to deliver effective solutions to problems and results for our clients. We are very happy with what we achieved on this project and the numbers below speak for themselves.
988%
Marketing Manager
8. Build The Future
The entire KIJO team was ecstatic with these results and the team at Crucial Trading was even happier. One of the best things about being an agency is that you get to see clients succeed, over and over again, with work that you have envisioned and created.
However, even after a success like this we are always working out new ways to improve upon what has already been built. Our motto is Build the Future and we are always thinking long-term for our clients. How else can we help them? Is there any way we can make this better?
Here are some of the features we are planning to deliver for Crucial Trading in the near future:
Android Support
Rug Builder Widget
