The challenge: Replace an outdated website with an end-to-end eCommerce solution with integrated inventory management and shipping
Established in 2009, About Space is one of Melbourne’s most popular lighting retailers, with three showrooms across Australia offering decorative, architectural and commercial lighting solutions.
The brand takes great pride in their contemporary and functional lighting range, but their website simply didn’t reflect the values that About Space is known for. Originally built on Magento, the site was slow and difficult to navigate. A sometimes-clunky user experience meant frustrated customers were leaving the website before they could purchase, leading to low conversion rates, high bounce rates and low sales.
Behind the scenes, the About Space team was maintaining two separate websites - one for trade customers and one for retail. Double the work and double the cost.
What’s more, the sites didn’t integrate with the business’ freight or inventory management systems. All orders were entered twice - once in their shipping management system MachShip and once in their inventory management system Retail Express. Double handling of orders and lack of visibility meant About Space was spending more time processing orders than focusing on the things that mattered - like growing their business.
About Space partnered with BlueRock Digital to replace their old website with a seamless Shopify solution - one that would make a great impression on customers, encourage sales, and save the team time, money and a whole lot of administrative headaches.
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The solution: A custom-designed Shopify eCommerce site and API development for seamless integration with inventory management and shipping systems
Taking a consultative approach, we worked closely with the About Space team to fully understand their goals, requirements and customer. This enabled us to design a platform that focused on the customer experience at every stage in the customer journey, from lead right through to nurture.
As part of the project, we delivered:
- Upfront consultation to better understand the needs and goals of About Space
- Market research, customer interviews, UX research and heat-mapping to identify customer needs and inform web design
- On-brand, SEO-optimised copywriting
- Custom website design and development based on UX best practice
- SEO strategy and website migration from Magento to Shopify to ensure minimal impact on search engine rankings
- Integration with inventory management system Retail Express
- Custom API integration with logistics platform MachShip
- Consolidation of trade site and retail site into one cohesive site
We kicked off the project with a deep-dive workshop to better define and understand About Space’s needs. This was combined with UX research and customer research to ensure we created a website that customers would love. Eager to pick a platform that the About Space team would find easy to use and maintain, we chose user-friendly Shopify for it’s intuitive interface and easy navigation.
The next step involved leveraging the design and copywriting capabilities of BlueRock Digital’s creative team to create a beautiful custom design and engaging website copy. With a focus on UX design, SEO, and eCommerce best practices, the result is a highly intuitive, SEO-optimised site that delivers an exceptional user experience, encourages conversions and reflects the brand beautifully.
Integration with inventory management solution Retail Express and shipping provider MachShip automated the fulfilment and shipping process. And by consolidating the trade and retail sites into one, we’ve achieved a consistent brand experience across both customer groups and saved the About Space team a whole lot of time.
The results: 157% increase in revenue, 157% increase in transactions and streamlined operational processes
By replacing About Space’s old website with a Shopify solution, the company was able to increase revenue by 157%. The business now benefits from streamlined operational processes, smooth integration between inventory and their eCommerce store, more engaged users and higher online conversions.
We’ve seen some exciting results:
- 40.9% increase in average conversion rate
- Increase of 104% more pages per session
A seamless migration from Magento to Shopify meant there was little impact to the brand’s Google ranking, and the introduction of a blog has transformed the eCommerce store into a destination for great lifestyle content.
Integration between the store and inventory means About Space now gets real-time updates on their sales and stock levels, giving them the data they need to make informed decisions about their business.
With less time needed on admin, the team now has more time to spend on growing the business. Now, we’re focusing our efforts on driving traffic to the new website and we’re already seeing great results, with cost-per-click dropping by 4% and traffic increasing by 115%.
Client Testimonial
Veronica Vasserman, About Space
"The new About Space website goes beyond our expectation. A lot of hard work was put in by About Space and BlueRock Digital to achieve the end result, and the experience and data shows that it was worthwhile. BlueRock Digital supported About Space’s needs along the journey, and made it a fluid experience. We are really impressed with the process and result."
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