SEVENSTORE

SEVENSTORE, a luxury fashion retail store in Liverpool, sought to extend its in-store experience into the digital realm. The goal was to create a website that not only reflects the brand’s commitment to high-end fashion but also highlights emerging talent and fosters a sense of community through events and collaborations. This case study explores the strategic design approach undertaken to develop a digital platform that merges visually striking aesthetics with user-centric functionality, thereby serving as a true extension of SEVENSTORE’s physical retail environment.

Challenges

Without an existing website, SEVENSTORE faced several challenges:

• No Online Presence: As a result, they were missing out on a huge segment of potential customers who shop online for luxury fashion.
• Brand Representation: SEVENSTORE needed a website that would accurately reflect their high-end, curated collections and offer an immersive brand experience.
• E-commerce Functionality: They required a platform capable of managing complex product catalogues, multi-currency options, and an efficient, easy-to-navigate checkout process.
• Scalability: As SEVENSTORE was planning to expand its product offerings and customer base, the website needed to be scalable to support future growth.

Objectives for the website

The goal for SEVENSTORE was clear: create a visually striking, functional, and scalable e-commerce platform that would showcase their products, whilst providing a seamless and enjoyable shopping experience for customers. Their key objectives were:

1. Create a Visually Impactful Website: The site needed to represent the brand’s luxury ethos while providing a visually immersive experience for visitors.
2. Develop a Fully Functional E-commerce Platform: The website had to provide smooth browsing, easy product discovery, and a fast, efficient checkout process.
3. Optimise for Mobile Shopping: With a growing number of customers shopping on mobile, it was essential that the site offered a top-tier mobile shopping experience.
4. Build for Scalability: The website had to be flexible enough to accommodate future growth in terms of product range, features, and international reach.

Building SEVENSTORE

1. Discovery & Strategy

The first step was a thorough discovery phase to understand SEVENSTORE’s brand, audience, and business goals. This involved:

• In-depth Brand Analysis: Working with SEVENSTORE to capture their brand vision, aesthetic, and target demographic.
• Customer Journey Mapping: Outlining the customer experience from landing on the website to completing a purchase, ensuring that every step was intuitive and designed to maximise conversions.
• Market Research: Researching competitors and industry trends to ensure the website would stand out in the highly competitive luxury fashion sector.

2. Design & Development

Once we had a clear strategy, we moved to the design and development phase, where we focused on:

• Custom Design: Reflecting SEVENSTORE’s luxury streetwear ethos—clean, contemporary, and visually striking. High-quality product images, bold typography, and a sleek layout ensured that the website felt as premium as the brand itself.
• E-commerce Features: Integrated key features like advanced product filters, wishlist functionality, and the ability to sort by brand, size, or price. The product pages were designed to showcase the detail and craftsmanship of each item.
• Mobile-Optimisation: Used a mobile-first design approach, ensuring that the site is fully responsive and provides a smooth shopping experience on any device.
• Simplified Checkout: Streamlined the checkout process to reduce friction and cart abandonment, offering multiple payment options, including Apple Pay, credit card integration, and PayPal.

3. SEO & Performance Optimisation

We built the website with SEO and speed in mind to ensure that SEVENSTORE would rank well in search engines and offer a seamless browsing experience:

• SEO Best Practices: Optimised product pages with rich, keyword-optimised content to improving URL structures, ensuring that the website was primed for search engine visibility.
• Page Speed Optimisation: Compress images and use content delivery networks (CDNs) to ensure the website loads quickly, even with large, high-resolution images.

4. Testing & QA

Before launching the site, we ran a full suite of tests to ensure everything functioned perfectly:

• Cross-Browser & Device Testing: Tested the website on multiple browsers and devices to ensure consistency and reliability across all platforms.
• Load Testing: Simulated spikes in traffic to test server stability.

5. Launch & Post-Launch Support

After extensive testing and final approvals, the new website was launched. The SEVENSTORE team has access to a bespoke CMS that allows them to constantly and consistently update all of their content with ease. The site is also closely monitored and constantly being tested with new elements and ideas to keep the website, high-end and visually-striking.

Outcome

The resultant website successfully translates SEVENSTORE’s luxury retail experience into the digital domain, offering an engaging and immersive platform that showcases fashion, talent, and community. The new website has been a massive success for SEVENSTORE, achieving significant results following its launch. Some key outcomes include:

• Revenue Per Session: increased by 35%, thanks to the fully responsive design that offered a smooth experience on smartphones and tablets.
• New Visitor Conversion: increased by 10.1%, significantly improving user experience and boosting SEO rankings.
• Overall Conversion Rate: 8.1% increase in conversion rate, driven by the optimised user journey and intuitive checkout process.
• Average Order Value: increased by 4.95%, with visitors spending more time exploring the product catalogue and engaging with the brand’s content.