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ScS Case Study
A collaboration with ScS, the UK’s leading sofa and carpet retailer to galvanise their brand’s online profile and to establish an infrastructure that enables rapid online growth utilising a renewed Salesforce Commerce Cloud - powering a whole new digital commerce experience.
In the ever competitive home furnishings market, we partnered with renowned sofa and carpet retailer, ScS, in order to revitalise and strengthen their brand's online presence as the UK's leading retailer in their industry.
This also involved laying the groundwork to enable fast growth through the implementation of a new Salesforce Commerce Cloud-powered online experience.
Together, we have created an exciting new foundation for the future of ScS and its online retail presence.
With work having commenced prior to our appointment, we needed to go back to the start and work closely alongside ScS to formulate a detailed and amplified vision for the project. Taking the learnings of the work completed so far and combining them with customer and stakeholder research, we crafted an informed roadmap and scope that would underpin the ScS digital commerce strategy for years to come.
For a period of three months we worked onsite alongside key stakeholders and product specialists conducting discovery and strategic workshops that provided clarity in identifying challenges with the existing platform and highlighting opportunities to deliver a best-in-class user experience.
We (ScS) have developed a close partnership with Sherwen Studios and their dedication to delivering a fantastic new eCommerce platform for our brand and streamlining our customers' online experience is evident in every aspect of the new website.
We appreciate their tremendous attention to detail and creative approach throughout this entire process in working alongside us to bring our online retail vision to life.
Together, we have created an exciting new foundation for the future of ScS and its online retail presence.
With the vision defined, we employed a collaborative, insight driven design process working alongside key stakeholders and preferred partners to devise an optimal customer experience whilst aligning with the technical requirements and reference framework of the Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform.
Delivered in two phases, the first phase was conducted onsite at ScS. With a view to rapidly prototyping the new functionality identified during the discovery and strategy workshops for stakeholder feedback and user testing. The second phase was conducted alongside the project delivery focusing on simplifying and optimising the customer journey across the buying journey. Enabling ScS to keep adapting to market conditions and learnings seen within the existing website.
As customer behaviour changes ScS has seen a large rise in mobile device usage leading the way to a mobile first design approach. This design method would work hand-in-hand with the utilisation of Salesforce’s SFRA, mobile first framework resulting in a more content and user focused experience.
A key differentiator between ScS and its competition is its value proposition. Based on our decades of experience in retail we sought to emphasise this value offering by creating a consistent value message throughout the site via the emphasis of per item and total savings.
Complimenting the value message we set about creating a sense of urgency through the placement of countdown timers and merchandising placement for key promotional lines. A consistent message across TV advertising, in store and online is a vital driver of conversion rate.
Visual hierarchy is a crucial driver in ensuring customers complete the journey to purchase. Throughout the customer journey, fonts, colours and layouts ensure the users are focused on those key areas and what to do next. The use of green buttons for key primary actions throughout the site guides customers through the buying journey.
With one of the main KPI’s for the project centred around increasing average order value. To achieve this, we set about simplifying, whilst maximising the up-sell opportunities throughout the site. Both the product detail pages and the basket itself provide a simple and unobtrusive way for a user to compliment their purchases with other items in the range and care products.
As one of the key areas of the site we focused on simplifying the checkout process, removing all distractions and condensing into one, simple to complete, single column page. By removing the outer page elements and utilising progressive disclosure to sequence actions across several sections the checkout process is clear and frictionless to complete.
"Speed and responsiveness are the key components that make our company successful - and that’s what we look for in our strategic partners.
Sherwen Studios helped simplify our entire development process. They managed to take complex ideas and processes and helped turn them into easy to understand outputs that even the most junior members of the team could understand.
Their development and testing is first class and gives us the confidence to run aggressive development cycles. This enables us to make informed data-driven decisions to drive online performance and implement them almost as fast as we come up with them.
With ScS already utilising Salesforce Commerce Cloud to power it's digital commerce experience, it was a natural choice to remain on the platform. Prior to the delivery stage of the project we mobilised a team of Salesforce Commerce Cloud experts who worked alongside ScS, to not only deliver the project but, to ensure ScS were getting the most out of the platform itself. Streamlining the way they do business online.
With a large proportion of users visiting the site on a mobile device the experience was developed on top of Salesforce’s SFRA, mobile first framework which we then proceeded to comprehensively tailor towards the progressive requirements of the ScS business. To further the experience Salesforce's Einstein artificial intelligence platform was employed to deliver a personalised commerce experience.
Working under an agile approach all 23 key deliverables of the platform were delivered in good time and on budget before enduring a rigorous UAT process prior to a seamless July launch in time for key trading periods.
When we first partnered with ScS in 2019 nobody could have predicted the impact the COVID-19 pandemic would have had on both retail and businesses as a whole. As an agency we switched from a fully on-site to a fully remote team overnight, whilst in the crucial delivery phase of the project. To do so without any delays is testament to the culture and work ethic instilled in our multi-disciplinary team.
For ScS we're proud to have partnered with them during an unprecedented time in which consumers have switched from in-store to digital commerce. Whilst delivering the new platform we supported the existing platform, ensuring ScS remained agile in adapting to unpredictable market conditions. A key change during this period was the implementation of the ability to book in-store appointments online which was scoped and released over a 48 hour period.
The launch of the new ScS digital commerce platform has not only provided a market leading customer experience but has empowered the ScS team as they embark on what is an exciting journey of growth in a highly active digital market.
Customers are met with a much faster and simplified buying journey across all devices, inspiring and guiding them through their next sofa or flooring purchase from the comfort of their own home, on-the-go, or wherever users desire.
For ScS the new platform unifies the e-commerce and online sales teams. The content creation and merchandising process has been drastically simplified through a restructure and simplification of the Salesforce Commerce Cloud implementation. Alongside this, the new platform provides the online sales team with a 360° view of the customer by integrating Salesforce Commerce Cloud with both the call centre and company wide ERP software.
Digital commerce never stops evolving. As such, we're proud to be partnering with ScS on a long term basis to underpin their digital commerce strategy of the future.
We'll be supporting the ScS teams where they need us most - from the continuous rollout of improvements based on user data and testing, through to ensuring business continuity during key trading hours.
In the months since launch we've worked to an aggressive weekly release schedule. From reacting to market conditions, opportunities and business requirements to delivering progressive enhancements to the platform in a matter of days. With a roadmap in place for future success we look forward to seeing ScS continue to grow it's online business.
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