We are often approached by companies who have an existing CMS website but are uncertain of how best to enable transactions for a better customer-centric experience. In this particular case, the client was looking for guidance on how to handle the web experience for their sister brands to satisfy their customers’ expectations.
As we kicked off the project, the original intent was to keep the brands separate and have two separate shopping experiences, even though both brands were selling similar products with a similar navigation.
As we got deeper into the discovery process, we determined that a new, separate eCommerce website was not ultimately in our client’s best interest. The downside is that this approach would require managing a separate catalog, search results, and navigation.
The client agreed that this additional overhead of managing multiple websites would not be worth the value to keep the brands separate. Therefore, the project’s scope shifted from enabling eCommerce for a new brand to unifying an eCommerce experience across both brands for a better web experience for the end customers.
We worked with the client on managing the details and downstream effects that this decision would entail and began to tackle them, one by one, to avoid any disruption in the buying experience.
We moved forward with a new joint brand and redirected all traffic to a unified domain. We also implemented a Single-Sign-On (SSO) solution that allows customers with accounts in one site or the other to have the same log-in credentials with the new unified site.
We also involved the SEO team to ensure that any equity currently captured in the existing sites would be retained in the new, unified domain.
From initial planning to launch, it took one month to deliver a seamless digital solution.
Our client’s customers can now go to either branded site as they typically have done in the past but are met with a unified and consistent experience. The merging of the brands into a single, unified experience allowed our client to streamline operational costs and increase revenue by exposing their brands to a larger audience.
