John Smedley Website Overview: Classic Brand Image and Elegant Design Experience
John Smedley’s story goes back centuries – established in 1784. They are the oldest manufacturing factory in the world. The brand prides itself on creating beautiful, high-quality garments that will stand the test of time both in the case of materials and also styles.
Over 230 years ago, John Smedley started producing muslin fabric and spinning cotton in Lea Mills, Derbyshire – where the company still resides today.
By the beginning of the 20th century, they established themselves as one of Britain’s most famous clothing brands. The 1950s and ‘60s brought even more exposure to the brand – famous people such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and the Beatles started wearing their garments. The turn of the century brought their first store in Mayfair, London. Since then, the family-run business has continued to innovate products to serve their customers’ various needs.
They are proud to have stayed true to their origins and have ‘Made in England’ on the tag of every garment they make.
In this article, we will review the brand’s online presence – we will take a look at the website’s structure, colours used, and different features that make the customer experience smooth.
Classic Details and Royal Colours
The visual impression visitors get from the website resembles the feel of their garments — classic sophistication with simple elegance. The brand conveys their Britishness in every aspect of their brand image — the royal blue colour is associated with reliability and trustworthiness. Using rich colours gives a calming feel to the site, and the pictures of nature heighten this energy.
Sections with a contrast of blue and gold create a festive look — the perfect balance between positive content and staying true to their brand image.
Practical Structure And Heritage-Inspired Sections
Home Page
The Home Page greets visitors with a full-page offer of 20% off with a discount code — this way, it is impossible to miss out on it.
All the pieces of helpful information are placed in practical columns — such as Made in England, The World’s Finest Knitwear, Free Returns & Exchanges on all UK orders, Sign Up To Our Newsletter for 10% Off Your First Order and Trustpilot Reviews.
The Popular products section shows the brand’s signature products — classic designs that will never go out of style is versatile and easy-to-combine colours.
‘Celebrating Over 235 Years Of British Craftsmanship’ — stating facts like this reinforces the authenticity of products and guarantees exceptional quality and professionalism.
Commitment to sustainability — every brand should have sustainability efforts listed on their website, as preserving the environment is getting more and more pressing. John Smedley is aware of industrialization’s problems, and they actively try to combat them. Read more on their sustainability commitments.
John Smedley highlights the brand’s values and strengths on the Home Page, creating a holistic and authentic brand image. When visiting their website, we instantly get a picture of their beliefs, and this familiarity is essential when retaining customers.
In the following paragraphs, we will discuss the features of the Category Page and the Product page in-depth.
Features That Help Customers Make An Informed Decision
Category Page
We can choose from various category pages, such as Shop by style, Bestsellers, New in, Shop by Fiber, Collections and Sale.
Each category has its unique SEO-friendly description, making it easy to find specific products straight from Google search results. Customers can sort products with filters and based on Position, Product Name, Price and New in.
For instance, let’s see what Men’s Shop By Style Category has for us.
The visual menu to subcategories not only adds an aesthetic element, but it is also very functional — it’s easy to choose from them at first glance.
Including product colour swatches right on the category page is a great way to show available colours for a particular item — this way, customers don’t have to visit the product page if they are searching for a specific colour.
Using an add to Wishlist button is a handy feature, especially in the case of customers who like to think through their purchases — or even wait for items to go on sale.
This brings us to the next feature worth mentioning here — showcasing prices that feature discounts is a very persuasive technique, and it encourages purchases.
Product Page
We can see all the information a customer needs on the product page — in one place. Besides pictures from every angle, and SEO-optimized product description is placed discreetly under the gallery section — along with the sustainability credentials. Customers can see the colours and sizes available, along with a handy size guide.
Product selectors in the size guide are based on colour and size, and it only takes a click to select them, instead of going to the dropdown menu, scrolling, and selecting the option. It’s handy, saves time, and shortens the way to purchase.
The size guide loads in a pop-up on the same page without leaving the product page, saving time and not distracting the user from the purchase. It also has a friendly structure, illustrated parts and units of measure selection.
Close-Up Pictures of The Materials on The Product Page
It’s essential to showcase products authentically online — and close-up photos of the garments and their materials is a must.
Integrated Trustpilot Reviews
Customers appreciate reviews from fellow buyers, and they are even more likely to buy from a brand with great reviews.
Simple Checkout Process
John Smedley uses a secure checkout process — customers can pay with credit/debit card and PayPal. On the second/final checkout page, they have the opportunity to add a discount code and a gift card.
Features That Strengthen Brand Loyalty
Live Chat
Customers can reach out directly to the customer service team within working hours — this might be the fastest way to get in touch and get help from the brand.
Discover Page
The Discover page is full of exciting details about its history and physical stores, such as the Marylebone, Mayfair and St James’s stores.
Under the Quality Tab, we are navigated to a page where we get valuable information about product care and washing instructions and the background of production, such as cotton processing and Merino wool.
The Design Tab offers an insight into the Behind the Scenes of John Smedley. Here we can read about different collections and collaborations, interviews, and fashion weeks behind the scenes.
The Discover Page is an excellent tool for building brand loyalty as we can get an insight into how the brand works at the production level.
John Smedley On Mobile
The John Smedley website loads just as quickly as the desktop version. The site automatically determines the user’s location and offers to default, saving time at checkout.
The different sections look just as great — they use clean lines which are easy to look through. Pastel colours combined with rich blues create a natural and classic look, even on a smaller screen.
The mobile version shows the same information on products as the desktop version — even when customers are on the go, they won’t miss any important details about their order.
The search bar on the site is rapid to respond — the page offers excellent auto-suggested options within a few seconds, making it more efficient to find the perfect garments.
The mobile version of the John Smedley site has a smooth interface. Combined with rich colours and sleek sections, it is a breeze to navigate through the website.
Pandora Jewellery Website Overview: Impeccable User Experience & Customer-First Strategy
Pandora is a Danish jewellery company focusing on creating distinctive, high-quality products at an affordable price point. Their story started in 1982 when Per Enevoldsen and his wife Winnie founded a small jewellery shop in Copenhagen. Thailand has always played a big part in the company’s life, as they imported products from the country from the beginning. The Pandora brand has taken up in just seven years, so they decided to start manufacturing their jewellery there. In 1987, the first in-house designer joined the team, and this way, they could focus on creating their jewellery.
In 2000, Pandora’s very own charm concept launched — with great success. The company began expanding internationally, and since then, they opened various crafting facilities.
Today, Pandora products are available in more than 100 countries and the company employs around 26,000 people.
Pandora is very transparent regarding its brand strategy — you can read detailed information on its four growth pillars. In this article, we will review the features on the Pandora website that create a smooth user experience and make it easy for customers to find the perfect gift for their loved ones.
Feminine Touch and Well-Structured Elements
The page structure is efficient, as the first thing we see is the seasonal offers. The titles and product names are easy to read — this layout makes it effortless to focus on one thing and then move on to the other. There are no disturbing elements, such as pop-up windows, that would obstruct the user experience. Regarding the colour choices, the pink accents give a feminine touch to the whole website.
Intuitive Navigation & All The Useful Information You Need
Home Page
The Home Page has a clean design. It’s easy and intuitive to navigate. The seasonal home page gives a homely feel even at first glance. It’s never too early to start shopping for Christmas presents, and Pandora knows that — clicking on the header navigates us straight to the gifting section. Here we can choose gifts based on categories, like daughter, friend, mom, etc. There are no questions left unanswered under the Customer Service tab at the bottom of the page.
Features That Help You Choose The Perfect Gift
Gift-Oriented Category Pages
Pandora has various category pages to help customers find their way to the perfect gift for themselves or their loved ones. Let’s start with Christmas — here we can see subcategories, such as Christmas Jewellery, Christmas Charms, Pandora Set, Gift Sets, Easy Gifting, Stocking Fillers, and Gift Cards.
Each subcategory has its unique SEO-friendly description, making it easy to find specific products straight from Google search results.
Customers can also Shop by Price and get inspiration from the brand under the Christmas tab.
Another category we have to mention here is the Pandora Brilliance collection, a higher price range collection — a helpful feature here is Shop by Metal.
And then we have the category ‘Charms and Bracelets’, Pandora’s signature collectable products, and ‘Jewellery’ dissected into jewellery types. The brand is big on gifting. This is why they have so many guides and helpful features for those looking to gift Pandora Jewellery.
Customer-Oriented Product Page
On the Product Page, we can find all the information a customer needs. Right under the price, we can see the payment methods, such as Klarna, Clearpay, and PayPal.
Besides photos from every angle, reviews are the next best thing a brand can put on the product page. Under the images, we get all the shipping and return information customers possibly need, and also some gifting options.
The Compatible With section offers various choices to complement the chosen product.
Smooth Shopping & Checkout Process
The Pandora website has a secure one-page checkout process — they offer various payment methods, such as paying in instalments with Klarna (Express checkout). Moreover, Clearpay and PayPal are also available. Klarna partial payments allow customers to separate their payments into three parts. This feature also shows how brands care for their customers and take their preferences into account.
Features for Seamless User Experience
Products can be sorted based on product types and also Collections, Events, and Gifting. This way of sorting is helpful if customers are looking for an event-specific gift or have a rough idea, but they’re not sure about the exact product they are planning to give.
Send With Smartgift
This feature is a fantastic marketing tool — it gives customers all the freedom they need when choosing gifts. Their loved ones can modify or even select their gifts, which guarantees that they will be happy with their order.
Try It On
Try It On is a convenient feature and an enjoyable way of deciding between products. It’s almost like trying on products in a store. The Pandora website generates a QR code, and by opening it on the phone, customers can access the ‘Try It On’ feature and try on rings or any other jewellery. They can then see the pictures they took on their laptops. This feature saves time and helps the brand show they care about their customers, especially those who prefer online shopping over the in-store experience.
Send a Hint
A very subtle way of suggesting gift ideas customers would like to get is to send it via email or Facebook, and the recipient will get a direct link to the product.
Klarna Instalments
Paying with Klarna in instalments is an excellent alternative to expensive credit cards — they don’t charge fees or interest.
Size Guide
Jewellery sizes differ among countries and brands — placing a chart like this on your website will ensure your customers get the suitable sizes.
Complete the Look
In case your customers would like to select each product for their gift set individually, they have the option to do so — Pandora helps choose the pieces that look the best together.
Click & Collect
A free delivery option is available in selected stores. Perfect for last-minute gift shopping or spontaneous surprises.
Pandora on Mobile
The loading speed of the Pandora website on mobile is excellent — even videos load instantly when opening the website. Breaking up static images with animations and videos help keep the attention of the customer and offer a stunning way of showcasing products.
The different sections look just as great as on desktop — they use very clean lines, and the site is easy to look through.
The mobile version of the Pandora website shows the same detailed information on products as the desktop version in a more compact form.
When searching for products, the search bar is speedy to respond, and the page provides us with great options within a few seconds.
Style Advice
Style advice is available on selected days by customer service support only on a mobile. We definitely recommend adding this feature to your company’s page — sometimes, it’s easier to guide customers through your product selection in person.
Sustainability Initiatives
Sustainability has been at the forefront of many businesses’ agendas recently, and Pandora is no exception. They are committed to reducing their carbon footprint — in September 2021. They announced that by 2030, they would halve their greenhouse gas emissions by introducing their new low-carbon packaging. Having committed to reducing their carbon footprint by 3,600 tonnes of CO2 per year, Pandora’s packaging will no longer contain plastics — they roll out their new packaging throughout 2021 and 2022 after they use up their current inventory.
Pandora was always committed to creating hand-crafted products and this brand is taking a sustainability course.
Useful for you:
To have the lowest impact on nature, Pandora revealed that every single one of their products will be made from fully recyclable materials by 2025. Pandora is one of the top global sustainability brands that make a difference.[w4p_external_link]
WEB4PRO Recognized as Ukraine’s Most Recommended eCommerce Developer
Established in 2003, we came together to help ease concerns that bug business owners. Filled with the finest project managers, designers, developers, and marketing experts, our team jive like a well-oiled machine, producing effective and powerful solutions for businesses.
Throughout our years in the industry, we’ve worked with countless clients from different industries and locations across the globe. Anywhere from consumer products, business services, education, medical, and real estate — we’ve elevated our clients to great heights.
This year, we’re absolutely honored to be recognized as part of The Manifest’s 2021 leading agencies!
To give you a better understanding, The Manifest is an independent business news platform dedicated to helping browsers navigate through the B2B space. The site is known for its incredible industry wisdom, blog-style content, and agency shortlists. This recognition from them means that WEB4PRO is among the top 15 most reviewed and recommended service providers in Ukraine!
Of course, we attribute this milestone to our clients who graciously review our services and constantly express their support to us. We are here today thanks to their trust, and for that, we are eternally grateful.
The road doesn’t end here though. We’re so excited to see what’s ahead for us. We can’t wait to unlock more achievements. Be part of that journey! Reach out to us and let’s connect.
WEB4PRO Is Recognized As Top Magento Developers by Clutch
WEB4PRO Receives an Award in Clutch’s Top Magento Designers & Developers
People nowadays don’t only look for companies that could help them grow. They also seek the ones that are client-oriented and responsible. Would you believe that there’s an e-commerce engineering agency that has those qualities? Well, WEB4PRO is glad to be among those.
Since 2003, our company has provided solutions and support in making our clients’ brands powerful and sustainable. We are an e-commerce advisor and reliable B2B partner. More than anything else, we help brands, merchants, digital agencies, and software development professionals produce effective practical solutions and customer-focused online stores. Every project we handle has one similar goal, and that is to share client’s values and help them realize the business ideas.
This year, Clutch, a B2B research firm specializing in ratings and reviews, awarded us as part of their top Magento designers and developers. We are very much honoured to receive this recognition from them. Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without the clients who willingly shared their experience and their partnerships with us.
“WEB4PRO is a truly flexible team. They managed to adjust to our business requirements and show themselves as professional developers and as people who understand our business needs and could give valuable business advice and solutions. They met our budget and time-frames and preserved all features necessary for our business—a highly professional team of eCommerce engineers and managers.”
– Bashar Ballout, Business Development Manager, Lab Test & Tools Manufacturer
We’re happy to have received this award from Clutch and believe that trust is the core of a successful collaboration. So, don’t hesitate to reach out to us, and let’s co-create outstanding products together!
MADLADY: The Nordic Trendsetter
Swedish womenswear brand MADLADY has served trendsetters of the Nordic market since 2011. With its distinctive designs, materials and fits, the brand’s goal was to stand out from the competition and encourage women to develop their unique style. The wearer of their garments will instantly radiate confidence, as MADLADY serves a wide range of products that fit any lifestyle and mood. MADLADY is all about being unapologetically fun and effortless.
Brand’s unique selling point is the distinctive style of clothing that’s not sold anywhere else on the Nordic market. This womenswear brand is the perfect destination for fashion lovers between the ages of 18 and 30. Their advantage lies in having an unbeatable range of clothing that offers a wide variety for fashion-conscious individuals.
MADLADY is for trendsetters, women who dare to stand out from the crowd. The visual representation and brand positioning create a coherent experience – the MADLADY website looks just as unique as the garments they sell.
Unique Garments, Unique Website Design
The Home Page is well-structured – it’s effortless to navigate through their current influencer collaboration, the ‘Recommended’ section and the ‘Bestsellers’ list. The product titles are easy to read in bold and the colours used are easily associated with the MADLADY website. This kind of consistency creates trust and recognition. Creative font combinations and the contrast of black, white and pastels give the site a fantastic feeling – ideally in line with how they position themselves on the market. From the home page, we can navigate the top menu to News, Bestsellers, Categories, Collections, Instagram shop and Sale.
Intuitive Navigation And All The Useful Information You Need
Home Page
The Home Page features a clean design, and its navigation is very intuitive. The brand included a footer text on the website that complements what’s written on the About us page. Reassuring customers that it’s safe to shop at MADLADY is an excellent move. Including a few lines about their customer service and shipping time answers many frequently asked questions in advance.
Features That Help Create The Right Expectations
Category Page
At the bottom of the Category Page, we have a description that highlights the products’ features and styling ideas and all the occasions that MADLADY products are the perfect choice for. Including a not only informative but also keyword-rich description helps SEO efforts immensely.
We can sort the products with filters on the Category Page. Sale price percentages are highlighted in yellow – accentuating great deals so customers won’t miss them.
Product Page
On the Product Page, we can read a brief description of the features we can find here. We have a short description of the product specifics, and we can also see the size the model is wearing. Besides, on the product page, we can get more information on the fit, material, length, article number and brand right on this page. This way, the customer doesn’t need to take any further actions to find this important information. We can see that the available sizes are showcased in swatches, reducing the friction required to purchase the product.
Read more here on how to design a Product Page that converts!
Shopping Cart & Checkout Process
MADLADY offers various payment methods and a secure one-page checkout process – moreover, Klarna, especially popular in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, is also available. On the right-hand side, we can see the contents of our cart.
Effective Features That Will Help You Sell More
Products are not only sorted based on product types but also collections. This comes in handy, especially when users look for a specific product or pieces from a particular influencer collaboration. The ‘Collections’ tab navigates us to a page with all of the garments of said collections, and there we can sort them according to different criteria.
On the ‘Sale’ page, we can sort products based on category, price and size. It’s a fantastic idea to have all the products that are on sale under one tab.
Besides the sale price, they include the original price and the discount percentage as well.
Madlady On Mobile
The website’s loading speed on mobile is good, especially when we consider that high-quality pictures usually slow down the loading speed.
The tile sections look just as great as on desktop – very crisp lines make it easy to look through.
The mobile version shows the same information on the products as the desktop version – users won’t miss a thing even when they’re on the go.
When searching for products, the search bar auto-fills and offers possible search terms – this feature makes it easier for customers to get an idea of what to search for if they’re just browsing the site.
Optimizing your website to be fully functional and visually appealing on mobile has never been as vital as it is today. Though customers are always on the go, they still prefer websites with beautiful designs and handy features that create a fantastic user experience.
Conclusion
MADLADY can’t be influenced. She is the one who inspires. The brand’s buyer persona is this radiant, free-spirited girl who wears what she wants without a second thought. Perfect fit, material and unique ideas make the MADLADY garments powerful. This website is the one-stop-shop for women with a unique style who dare to be different. We believe MADLADY is an excellent source of inspiration that encourages you to be yourself — the most incredible version of yourself.
– Don’t be a chicken. Be mad. © MADLADY
John Henric Review: Website Features and User Experience
Thirteen years ago, Nicklas Nordbergh and John Ekström had a dream. Their goal was to craft accessories that take men’s style to the next level. Thanks to their immense creativity and the best possible craftsmanship, they reached their true potential, and now we are happy to introduce a powerful John Henric menswear brand.
It all started in Lund – a historical city in Sweden. At the outset, they created high-quality accessories, but later they branched out to produce clothing items and bags. This decision made all the difference for the brand – the company gained more exposure due to the production of clothing items. Jon Hencic’s creation process was inspired by Swedish and Italian fashion – to this day. They provide customers with a one-of-a-kind experience, thanks to the website’s luxury feel and garments.
John Hencic brand prides itself on creating “affordable luxury.” They employ small and often family-owned businesses instead of suppliers, making it easy for the company to manage its inventory and stay on top of seasonal changes.
Nicklas Nordbergh (Creative director) identified a gap in the market. He claimed that male accessories were overlooked – so he wanted to change the scene by creating fun and expressive accessories. His love of entrepreneurship drove John Ekström (CEO), and his goal was to create a niche accessory brand, which he had built from the ground up with Nicklas.
This John Henric review article will show you how the luxury feel of John Henric garments translates to the remarkable experience on their website and how these two components create a great user experience.
Overall Impression of John Henric
On the John Henric clothing website, we have a high amount of information, yet it’s easy to navigate the site. You’re going to find what you are looking for in seconds, as the well-structured layout makes it easy to read titles and product names. In addition, the website uses engaging visuals, so the user can easily browse any category. Also, if we start navigating using the top menu, we’ll see that some categories show a visual association with them.
Why this is useful: it decreases the time users spend thinking and finding the right product. Not to mention, it creates clear expectations.
In the following paragraphs, we will take a look at the desktop version of the website – the home page and navigation, the category page, and the product pages. Finally, we’ll examine the useful marketing features they employ.
John Henric Features Optimized For Success
Home Page & Navigation
The tile structure makes it very easy to navigate and look through various elements. They emphasized visuals – this way, the amount of information is not overpowering at all. Under the tile structure, we see a brief description of men’s accessories and how they can elevate any look. If you look closely, you can see how the brand uses keyword-rich text here. They also offer insight into styling the pieces.
Pro tip: using top keywords like John Henric will help your SEO efforts
Including a ‘What our customers are saying‘ block provides social proof about the brand. New customers will feel sure and secure about their choice. On the John Henric website, it’s especially well-positioned right at the bottom of the home page. Customer reviews are inevitable for a growing business. Read more about them in our guide
Features That Help Create The Right Expectations
Category Page
On top of the Category Page, we have a description highlighting the products’ features and styling ideas. Again, they use keyword-rich text here, which helps them achieve favorable Google search results.
We can sort the products with filters, and if we hover over the pictures, we can see the products from another angle and light. It helps customers create the right expectations and not spend time on products that they don’t like. Thus, it contributes to a more positive and smooth shopping experience. Besides another photo, they also have available sizes written over each product as we move the cursor over them. This way, shoppers can quickly see if the store has their size in stock, and if not, they can move on to the Google search results for products they like.
We can find a ‘star‘ icon near each product, allowing us to add the product to the wish list and return to this product later. Wish lists help brands return customers to their stores with the newsletter. They can also use this data for customer-focused advertisement campaigns.
Another trick they use on the Category Page: the brand shows discounts (30% off, etc.) to create urgency. This is how they show customers that they shouldn’t miss out on a great deal. It encourages faster decision-making. This trick works because we are psychologically coded to desire exclusive or only available things for a limited time.
This page has a ‘display mode‘ feature allowing us to scale the grid and get a larger view of products.
Product Page
We can find all the necessary information on the Product Page – the price, available sizes, product description, and specifications.
‘Model is also wearing’ is a section on the website where the various products that constitute the outfit are listed. Customers can purchase them as well. It’s a great way to encourage them to buy more if they like the look – or even the whole outfit if it is still available.
Under the product specifics, we have a ‘Recently viewed‘ section, reminding the customers of the products they already visited but might have forgotten about.
‘Recently viewed‘ and ‘Others also viewed‘ are features that brands use to encourage customers to stay on the site longer and possibly purchase more. The Recently Viewed feature can also come in handy when people are looking for one specific item, for example, a blue polo neck shirt. If the website has four different blue polo neck shirts, the customer can see them side by side after visiting their product pages.
Important elements that help customers develop decisions quickly and confidently are product return policy, delivery details, and size guide. It’s an advantage that they don’t take the user to another page but open a pop-up window, which is easily accessible right from the product page. Another good thing is size swatches – you can see all the available sizes at a time, which decreases the friction needed to buy the product.
One-step Checkout Process
John Henric uses a one-page checkout process, where we can see all the purchase details on one page before hitting ‘Proceed to card details.’ Having only one page makes the checkout process way faster than entering all of our details on separate pages. In addition, this makes it easier for the customer to review the order details and their personal information instead of clicking-through various sections to reach the payment method.
More and more people are aware of the importance of a secure checkout process – it always helps your objectives to have an SSL certificate on your website. In practice, it means that your website URL starts with ‘https://’ instead of ‘http://’ and provides a secure checkout.
Marketing Tactics You Should Try
John Henric offers Free shipping and Home delivery, which they state on top of their website – having a static note like this is a popular marketing feature. People don’t like surprises and hidden costs, but they appreciate clarity from the beginning of their shopping journey.
Products are not only sorted based on product types but also events like proms & weddings. This feature offers another excellent way for customers to look for the perfect outfit for an important day in their lives.
The Style Guide Page works as a shop assistant for men, helping them achieve a stylish look, select the right accessories, and wear them properly. Providing style ideas supported by pictures creates credibility for the brand and gives many ideas to customers. Having a wide range of beautiful products is essential to satisfy various tastes. Brands are expected to create inspiration and educate their customers on how to wear their products.
The wish list button for the products allows you to save favorite or most interesting products and simply add them later to the shopping cart – just like the clothes in the fitting room.
In this section we made a John Henric review of the best features that make the website on desktop stand out – now let’s see John Henric on mobile. Read on to see how they mastered mobile optimization – and how you can, too!
John Henric Review On Mobile
The website’s loading speed is just as fast on mobile as it is on desktop. This is key to customer retention as they tend to be discouraged by slow loading speeds.
The discount pop-up is proportional to the screen – seemingly small details like this contribute a lot to a luxury user experience.
The tile structure looks just as great on mobile as it does on desktop – on a smaller screen, we only have one column, but it is very easy to read. The Categories menu on mobile uses the power of tiny visuals to make its usage more intuitive. On a small screen, having a scrollable menu on the side is way more user-friendly than a static top menu.
The mobile version shows the available sizes of products on the category page if we tap on a product while scrolling. This is highly efficient when shopping on mobile because a split second is more than enough for the customer to see if the retailer has their size in stock.
On mobile, search suggestions offer the most searched terms – offering some great ideas to those just looking around on the site.
Another great feature here is the list of all available payment options – it’s handy for customers and allows the brand to offer the most convenient checkout experience. Users like transparency and predictability – this is an excellent example of a user-friendly checkout process.
Despite having many high-quality photos and all the information we need about their products, John Henric’s website has an excellent loading speed even on mobile. It’s safe to say that the website is optimized for smaller screens – it offers the same high-end web experience as the desktop version while also having all the features accessible.
How Shopify Online Store Will Help Your Brand Grow
When you decide to grow your business online, the path often starts with determining the right eCommerce solutions. Shopify online store is one of the options to help your brand go, scale, and grow.
What Is Shopify?
Shopify is a modern business-focused eCommerce solution. It is a cloud-based eCommerce platform for everyone who wants to start, grow, and scale their eCommerce business. With Shopify online store, you will enjoy benefits such as various marketing tools, payment gateways, effective product and store management, and analytics.Unlike other platforms that require hosting or website knowledge before use, Shopify offers tools and resources to sell online successfully for both beginners and experts.
Shopify features include:
- an admin panel to manage the website;
- a website builder helps you create an online store;
- a Shopify cloud hosting;
- a mobile-friendly look to provide a great digital experience;
- domain registration to create a catchy domain name for your brand;
- a shopping cart optimized to sell;
- advanced inventory and product management to keep full control over the products;
- the marketing features such as SEO, gift cards, free shipping, discounts to grow customer loyalty and brand awareness;
- advanced store management to connect various services, manage on the go, and discover more useful information about your customers;
- multiple languages support to communicate with a broad audience;
- a POS solution to sell in person;
- a complete blogging platform to create connections with your target audience;
- a handy dropshipping solution helpful in starting businesses or experience dropshippers;
- and more great solutions to help your brand grow!
Why Shopify Online Store Will Help Your Brand Grow
Shopify is an excellent choice for those who want to give an online business a try and see how it will work. You can launch your store quickly and sell right from the start. It requires fewer investments into web development and less time into education than more complicated and advanced platforms. It’s a great solution for beginners and experts. This is why:
Easy-to-Manage
Shopify platform is created with users in mind, focusing on the user and the business. It doesn’t require deep technical knowledge of web development, system administration, etc. All you need is to create your account, build your website with a handy block editor, choose the design, and add the content. It is all easy to do with an admin panel. It gives you building blocks for your eCommerce store, all necessary tools, and practical guides to create your eCommerce experience. If you need any help, you can always turn to the Shopify expert to get assistance right from your admin account.
You’ll save costs on website support and team education.
Fast-to-Start
Shopify allows launching an eCommerce website within a few weeks. We recommend you create a plan, evaluate your budget, decide what capabilities your store needs, prepare your content, and then start growing online.
After you choose your domain name, you can create a Shopify account in a trial version. During 14 days, you can see how it goes. So, you are free to look around till you come up with the decision whether you like this platform or not.
You’ll then be able to buy the subscription to one of Shopify plans, find and connect needed features, and select one of the beautiful themes in the Shopify Theme Store. If you add your authentic content, your online store will look different from the others, even with the ready Shopify theme. It will be a great start, especially if you are on a tight budget! If you want a unique look for your online store, professional designers and theme developers from all over the world are at your service.
You save time for project development and start to earn faster.
Business-Focused
Shopify is not just a platform. It is a whole ecosystem that unites entrepreneurs and experts: brand owners, Shopify experts, and digital specialists. You can always connect with professional people ready to help your business grow. This platform focuses on your business and provides you with all the necessary tools to grow successfully, save you time and money, and grow your business income.
It doesn’t matter whether your first try or you already run a successful business using another platform. Shopify allows you to launch quickly and on a budget or migrate without too many efforts. Shopify is not an open-source platform. There is no way to modify its backend, but you can add all the required features with particular apps. In most cases, you’ll need help with creating the custom theme – if you want a unique design or if you’d like to delegate some tasks.
Various reporting tools allow you to analyze business results, create marketing campaigns, and see all about your store management.
The platform focuses on optimizing your business results.
Mobile-Ready
Shopify provides fully mobile-optimized commerce. Mobile eCommerce sales account about 50% of total eCommerce sales. Our customers want to shop right on the go. It is now essential to make sure that the brand website mobile-optimized as mobile traffic has increased significantly. Fortunately, the themes on Shopify are optimized for mobile devices and provide a responsive mobile experience.
You reach a large audience of mobile users and grow conversion.
Growth-Oriented
The in-built SEO functionality of Shopify will help your brand rank well in Google search results and bring more traffic.
Shopify app store offers various marketing tools, from integrating your store with social networks and advertising tools, such as Facebook, Google shopping, Google ads, Instagram, to an email newsletter and customer reviews.
Moreover, if you don’t have the time for digital marketing or find it time-consuming, Shopify provides an in-built kit to help you. It works as a virtual assistant, performing marketing activities based on your sales, helping you grow and track progress.
You have all the tools you need to grow your brand right from the start.
How Does Shopify Work?
Merchants have the following options: they can create or buy an online store. Charging begins after a trial expires.
Shopify uses a monthly subscription model, offering to choose among three plans. They will cost you $29, $79, or $299 per month. They differ in their feature list and purposes.
Shopify, Shopify Basic will be enough in most cases, especially for those who are just beginning their online business growth. These plans have some differences in the reporting system, the number of team members’ accounts, and some additional features.
Advanced Shopify provides additional features for scaling business, such as different locations, advanced reporting, custom-calculated shipping rates, international domains, and exchange rates management. It’s suitable for experienced companies that want to scale.
View the complete feature list on the Shopify website.
You can add useful features with Shopify apps and create an attractive design for your website by applying one of the Shopify themes or creating the custom one.
Shopify Apps
The Shopify App Store is a place where you’ll find various apps for everything, whether you’d like to include customer reviews, offer your products on social media, manage inventory and shipping, analyze results, or boost marketing effects, and more.
Many of them are free. You can add the desired feature by installing the app on your website.
Shopify Themes
The Theme Store has an extensive selection of themes and templates, among which you can choose the desired web design. There are various styles and layouts, offering each user a unique experience for a particular business niche. You can modify the theme with the theme editor in your admin panel.
How Much Does Shopify Cost?
The total budget that you need to launch your Shopify online store depends on your particular brand needs and basic costs:
Hosting: Shopify offers cloud hosting and no set-up costs for all plans.
Subscription: Shopify provides three basic payment options for businesses: $29, $79, $299.
Domain: You’ll need to buy an eCommerce domain that will cost you about $11 per year.
Apps: Apps differ in their cost. Of course, you can find helpful free apps. Most of the paid apps cost $20-$29. Others cost about $67 , a one-time payment.
Theme: Prices for Shopify themes vary from free to $180 one-time.
Setup: Most advanced eCommerce platforms require knowledge in website engineering and coding expertise to get started. Shopify offers a choice: you can launch and set up your website by yourself using their helpful guides or request the Shopify expert for help. This work cost also differs and will depend on the agency’s or developers’ hourly rate and hourly project estimation. Rates vary from $30 to 150 per hour.
So, lets’ calculate:
Minimally, the Shopify store launch will cost you about $500 if you buy about ten apps, a basic plan, a $180 theme, and set up your store by yourself.
Useful for you:
How Can You Grow Your Brand with Shopify?
Shopify is a business-focused solution that can help you solve various business tasks:
Sell Online Everywhere
Shopify offers the opportunity to start selling quickly and set up an online store within several days. With its help, you can sell on the website and social media. It allows you to transact in person with the Shopify Point of Sale (POS). You can manage all these from a user-friendly interface.
Get Paid Instantly
With Shopify payments, you can keep track of all your transactions and orders from anywhere. This feature is preinstalled with your account and will start working the moment you activate it. You will start accepting payment instantly while skipping third-party activations.
With an active Shopify account, Shopify payments will show you a complete overview of your entire finances and the needed things to prepare your documents.
Start with Dropshipping on Shopify
Jumpstart your business by dropshipping on Shopify. It works straightforward and conveniently. You’ll not pay for additional shipping logistics, and Shopify dropshipping will ensure that your customers receive their products unscathed. Your dropshipping supplier will automatically receive your orders, prepare them and finally ship the orders to your customers.
Useful for you:
Unify Your Sales with Shopify POS
Shopify POS allows you to handle your entire inventory management from the Shopify cloud. It will help you save time and make smarter decisions with a comprehensive and detailed report. Besides, it will also save you the hassle of third-party restrictions and accept payments.
Drive Marketing & SEO for Shopify
SEO can get your brand to the top of the pages of search engine results, and as a result, bring significant and relevant traffic. Utilizing SEO for Shopify is an organic way of growing your company’s exposure, which would then play a huge part in how shoppers can easily find your store. Shopify offers various SEO-friendly features, and the higher your ranking, the more traffic your online store will get.
Enhance Shopify Shipping
A fulfillment service is a network of third parties that prepares your orders for you and ships them. If you don’t want to have to deal with delivery or have evolved beyond your current warehousing capabilities to a point where manually moving goods is impossible, opting for fulfillment Shopify is a fantastic choice.
You can take control of your Shopify Shipping from your location to any part of the globe without an extra fee.
Create a Blog for Your Brand
Content marketing and a blog will help your brand highlight your goods and services, educate your customers and create a connection with them. Consistent blogging will show your customers that you have invested in your brand and are eager to help your customers make the right decisions. It is a powerful tool to connect new and loyal customers who want to discover what your brand offers. The default blog on Shopify is free, easy to use, and covers the blogging basics. Another option is you can link your blog from an external platform from within your Shopify online store.
Work on Customer Loyalty with Gift Cards
To attract new customers and retain old ones, you can employ a loyalty program. This method resonates well with shoppers, and you can easily use gift cards to conduct social media contests and giveaways.
Useful for you:
Motivate return visits by adding Shopify gift cards into your loyalty program, either as discounts, birthday rewards, or in your brand awareness campaign.
Grow Trust with Customer Reviews
You can automate your review collection for service and product reviews, add a TrustBox widget, and collect reviews from your previous customers via Shopify’s incorporation with Trustpilot. Trustpilot helps you automatically collect your customers’ reviews. Your customers can share their experience with the world and your sales can be greatly influenced by their reviews because buyers will definitely look for feedback before making any purchase. This way you build trust with your customers and grow your brand equity.
Useful for you:
To sum all this up, get inspired by Shopify store examples where you’ll see the great stores created for different product categories and niche markets. Use Shopify sitemap to learn all you need to know about this solution and see how you can grow your business by industry.
How to Collect Customer Reviews for Your eCommerce Business
Nowadays we all need more than high-quality services and excellent products. Our expectations grow, and we are looking for a deeper connection with brands. Customers create relationships with brands, follow their philosophy, and need trust. One of the essential ways to get more trust is collecting customer reviews!
While shopping online, our potential customers cannot physically interact with our products and brand. However, they can read the verified reviews and get complete information about our businesses. Social proof in the form of reviews is one of the most powerful tools to gain new customers’ trust.
Importance of Customer Reviews for Brands
According to stats, 88% of customers trust online reviews when choosing the brand. They consider reviews at the same level of trust as personal recommendations.
These numbers tell us a lot. With genuine customer reviews, we can cover many crucial marketing tasks and grow our brand positive power.
Build Trust Between Brand and Customer
Potential customers often feel uncertain regarding the online business they have never interacted with. This is why we should invest our efforts into building customer’s trust, and genuine customer reviews help. When people come online and see positive reviews about a brand, it increases their credibility, and the potential customers feel much more confident. Once there’s trust, then getting customers becomes easier.
Get Honest Feedback for Growth
Analyzing how well people love and patronize your brand encourages your business growth. When you get honest answers from your customers about your products or services, no matter positive or negative, it helps. When customers give honest feedback, it’s a great chance to evaluate your brand efforts and see the areas for your growth. Always pay attention to the feedback about the things you need to improve. This is a big help that customers even not loyal can do for us. Remember, if we want somebody to grow, we show what needs improvement. If we are indifferent and don’t want to help somebody – we keep silent and pass through. The feedback is a valuable resource.
Predict Customer Loyalty
Customers that leave you reviews are often loyal ones. Other customers could make purchases and leave. Some of them don’t give feedback, and it’s hard to predict their reaction. If so, try to ask about their experience using various communication channels before leaving the online review. You can personally ask about their opinion: by phone, in the personalized email newsletter, or via messengers. When you hear lots of points that need improvements – it’s valuable information for the plan and helps predict how likely it’s the right moment for asking about the review.
If we deal with an eCommerce review, we deal with a more complicated system and a larger number of customers. This is a tip: you can set up an automated email that asks to evaluate your company’s experience. If the customer gives you a good mark, the automated script can show them the suggestion or link to the online review page. If the mark is bad, you know that and make conclusions. But the automated system doesn’t ask the customer about the full online review right away. We often met such examples in Apple App Store apps.
Grow With a Word of Mouth
What people say online about a particular business is what others use for making their purchase decisions. A brand with multiple positive reviews will more likely get more trust and more purchases than competitors. At the same time, negative reviews can stop customers from making the purchase. But! No one is perfect – people understand this. If you reply to negative reviews sincerely and consistently, it can increase the trust even more.
Social proof represented by customer reviews helps your business be trustworthy and stay ahead among even the strongest competitors. Genuine and verified customer reviews are the long-run investment into the brand growth and awareness.
How to Ask for Customer Reviews
Sometimes it becomes a bit challenging to ask the customer for a review. First, we feel uncertain; second, we need a plan to do that with many customers, scale it for the whole business, and last: people tend to spend time on their priorities. The review is a priority for us, but often not for the customer. That’s why our customers will more likely leave a review in two cases: if they are emotionally impressed, feel happy, and want to share their experience, or if they can get some bonus for their allocated time. Some useful points will help you to prepare and make this process more simple after you do them.
Define the Purpose
We already know the importance of customer reviews. However, we also need to know what we need the reviews for. Is it to improve our services or to get a positive online review? If you need to find the growth points, motivate your customers for honest feedback! Ask about the things they think you need to improve, how likely they will recommend your brand, etc. By doing this, the aspect of your business that needs improvement will be known to you. On the other hand, if you decide to increase positive online reviews quickly, use a different approach. Evaluate customer loyalty first, and start with the most loyal and potentially-loyal customers. Try strategies that help you predict the opinions and grow customer satisfaction. Work on the growth points to show that you hear your customers and become better for them.
Choose Your Approach
To get the desired outcomes, you must engage in proper timing to ask for customer reviews. If you ask customers for reviews at the wrong time, they may drop negative reviews for you. So, look for clever ways to ask for reviews from your customers and at the right time. At what point should you then ask customers for reviews?
These are some indicators of the right moment for the online review:
- repeat purchase and order;
- some time left after the first purchase, and creation of a new wishlist;
- spending much time on your website specific product category;
- sharing a coupon code with a friend;
- referring your brand to friends;
- purchase and delivery.
Now you know when it’s a right time to ask for reviews. Then you need to get prepared to test and scale.
Make Up Your Model and Script
Prepare emails, messages, and request scripts to ask for customer reviews.
Draft a plan which conveys information about the following important parts:
- tools you’ll use to ask for the review;
- platforms for collecting reviews;
- who at your team is responsible for this part of work;
- the right time and context for the review;
- how much time is needed to leave a review;
- a clear and short step-by-step guide for the customer;
- what benefits the customer gets for their effort;
- what to write in your request message;
- how to work with objections;
- what to do in case of negative review, how to respond;
- how to thank the customer and add value
Prepare all this point beforehand and be ready for any cases. You should also include the means of communication to be used, whether by email, telephone, or social media. After you think out your plan, it’s time to combine it into a powerful script and take action.
Pro Tip: We found this online book very useful and helpful to prepare and effective plan and start collecting reviews, and recommend it to you:
Ultimate guide to Customer Reviews by Craig Stoss, Sarah Chambers, Yaakov Karda
Encourage Giving Positive Reviews
Leaving a review must be simple and valuable for both sides. If it’s not, make everything you can do to help your customers and make it easy for them. Explain how simple it is to drop reviews for you and don’t forget to give incentives. Make it clear enough in the emails you send: give discounts, gifts, or bonuses for every review customers drop for your business. This way, you will motivate them towards leaving reviews for you, and grow loyalty to your brand.
Test on a Customer Focus Group
Running a test of your plan on a small group of customers will help to show how effective it actually is. The results gotten from this test running shows you areas that need improvement in your plan before testing it on a larger number of customers.
Automate the Process
The next stage after test running your plan is setting up people who will execute the plan. Asides from using people for this, you could automate the process. This will include the use of different tools that helps you to send emails and messages automatically. Tools such as Magento, Shopify, or review platforms such as Trustpilot.
Respond to Both: Positive & Negative
Treat every feedback you get from customers as valuable information. Negative feedback could influence your feelings, but it could be a true pointer to areas that need to be improved. Learn how to answer them quickly, thoughtfully, appropriately, and respectfully. Then, for happy customer review quotes you receive, give a quick response to them, and appreciate the reviewer concisely. Encourage them to refer people to your brand, sign up for a re-purchase, or find you on social media.
Sometimes Giveaway
This tip is not the typical one regarding the review. However, sometimes we should give more to get more. Make some unique touches and give personal presents to your loyal customers. Try to evoke their positive feelings. This way, one day, they will come by themselves and tell the world about your brand, and how genuinely kind and useful it is.
Be Responsible. Think Big
It is also not directly about reviews. But that counts for a lot. Nowadays, people, fortunately, stand for a responsible attitude to nature and resources, people and environment. As a brand, you should respect their values and share these values as well. Shared values and beliefs are keys to sympathy, trust, and a deep connection. As a result – you’ll get a lot of positive reviews organically.
Where to Collect Customer Reviews
On Google
Google allows you to collect reviews and helps promote local companies on Google Maps. All you need to do is to inform your clients about how easy it is to drop reviews. You could also request reviews using a short URL specific to your brand. Your reviews will be seen right near your listings in Maps and search helping your brand gain trust and stand out on search results.
For whom:
Local businesses and anyone who wants to grow brand awareness online and offline.
Pros:
- Allows genuine reviews to be posted;
- Adds visual rating on Google search results;
- It is a trustworthy platform;
- You can always respond to the review and also flag if necessary.
Cons:
- You can’t moderate or delete a review on your own. Be careful with unfair competitors, spammers, and highly unsatisfied customers.
Look at the example of London’ brand The Hummingbird Bakery. They have an offline store and a website, collecting reviews on Google:
On Amazon
Amazon is another giant platform for Amazon eCommerce merchants.
For whom:
eCommerce businesses that sell on Amazon.
Pros:
- Aggregates all of your product reviews in a central place for ease of viewing;
- Monitors review systematically and this way, you can quickly spot negative reviews;
- Helps you to identify the reviewer to sort out concerns related to negative reviews.
Cons:
- You can’t moderate or delete reviews (the same thing as with Google).
On Shopify
Shopify is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world, the choice of numerous eCommerce brands. It provides a number of cool marketing features for business, including collection of customer reviews.
For whom:
eCommerce brands on the Shopify platform only.
Pros:
- The Product Review app for Shopify is free;
- Has many automated tools and features that can be integrated with other review platforms;
- You can delete, manage, and reply to product reviews from the Shopify admin panel.
Cons:
- Reviews are manageable and this may evoke some concerns about their fairness.
Look how Package Free does this at its Shopify-based online store:
or
On Review Platforms & Social Networks
For whom:
Any type of business relevant to the focus of the particular review platform.
Pros:
- Platforms are famous and trustworthy;
- Additional promotion and lead-generation channel;
- Most platforms allow integration with eCommerce platforms, such as Shopify, Magento;
- Your brand stands out among the other brands collecting reviews on the same platform;
- Platforms carry out high-level verification process to detect spam or purchased reviews;
- Social media platforms request account login to leave a review;
- Other customers can see the personality of the reviewer and even turn to their personal recommendation by connecting with them.
Cons:
- In most cases, you can’t moderate and delete reviews.
List of The Best Platforms to Collect Review
You can use all these platforms or better focus the efforts on the one that has more trust of your target audience and aligns better with your marketing strategy.
Trustpilot
Trustpilot is a famous world review platform helping businesses proactively collect reviews from customers. It enables the user to send out emails to customers inviting them to send their reviews about the business. They also allow the customer to keep the reviews third-party verified by writing both the product and seller reviews.
TestFreaks
This platform also helps businesses to collect customer reviews and help to complement this by writing seller reviews for them.
Feefo
Feefo is one more great platform for your business. Their team values integrity and is dedicated to connecting great businesses with their customers.
Reviews.io
Pay attention to one more great platform designed for the eCommerce businesses and their customers who can share their reviews and experiences.
Yes, our well-known and loved Instagram. It’s really a super-creative platform, especially for the eCommerce businesses. Besides being super-powerful in terms of product presentation, it also can be used to collect emotional and genuine customer reviews. What’s cool is that you can moderate them, create posts with them, collections of stories, and ask clients to tag you!
Look how this works for Swedish fashion giants, Tretorn:
How you can do this:
- check your DM’s for messages sent by their customers which could be reviews;
- track responses from customers to their brand’s Instagram stories;
- keep an eye on your comment section;
- keep track of how many users share their experiences with other followers especially when the brand is tagged/ mentioned in the comment;
- keep an eye on the Instagram page of their followers as some of them could express their views about your brand on their personal pages.
The only con is that your customers must use Instagram. But it’s hard to imagine people who now don’t use Instagram at least just for researching, inspiration, and shopping online. 🙂
Also, YouTube and TikTok are great platforms to get additional audience and video-reviews.
Pro Tip: Google your competitors to find out the platforms they use and pick the ones that work best for your business.
Tretorn: The Iconic Swedish Brand That Makes The World a Better Place
Born out of Scandinavian weather, from rubber galoshes’ maker to the second oldest sneaker manufacturer in the world, from tennis balls to rubber boots, from the first luxury tennis shoes to the rain jacket from the sea – it’s all about Tretorn, a 130-year-old sustainable Swedish brand that changes the world for the better.Tretorn’s story started in the Dunker family and their rubber factory to help farmers face Scandinavian weather challenges. Swedish engineer Johan Dunker founded the Tretorn factory, and later his son, Henry Dunker, continued their family business. He succeeded in building a powerful brand with care about his workers and customers.Henry created a comfortable environment for his workers where they crafted functional and contemporary products. In 1962, he was Sweden’s wealthiest man. He and his wife Gerda always served the purpose of supporting people. They donated the entirety of their fortune to their native city of Helsingborg and left us a heritage of Tretorn’s tradition.Over the years, Tretorn created iconic products and contributed to the tennis story, preppy style, and the Olympic Games. Tretorn invented its eco-essentials and became a world-famous brand that protects nature and creates innovative sustainable products.
Today we’ll have a chance to look at the Tretorn story’s most inspiring moments and visit its regional websites. We’ll look closely into Tretorn’s global online experiences and the best features that show care about the customers and make them love this brand.
We’ll consider two of Tretorn’s websites: Tretorn Europe and Tretorn USA. Both of them are created with respect for customers and the best practices of UI design. The approach to both websites is a bit different but has many similar traits. We’ll focus on the best of them.
Brand’s Tradition & Heritage
Both websites have stylish designs in the traditional Scandinavian style. We can enjoy lots of whitespace, balanced accents, harmony in colors, and nothing extra to let us focus on products and our choices. At a glance, we can see that Tretorn is a brand with a long history.
EST. 1891 Sweden
It claims on both websites right under their logo: EST. 1891 Sweden. It’s just the numbers, just facts. But think: what feelings and associations does this information evoke?
For us, that means Tretorn is a native Swedish brand that creates a long story and cherishes tradition. This is how the brand strengthens its positioning by telling us about its long experience, acquired mastery, and native traditions, just in three short words.
Tretorn’s Heritage
When we visit Tretorn EU, we can learn many inspiring facts about the brand on its pages. One such page is Our Heritage, bringing us to the memories of Tretorn’s long story.
When you read them one by one, the degree of respect for this brand and its creators grows and multiplies at each stage. There is no better way for a brand to get closer to its audience than telling the story – true and sincere.
Customer-Centric Features
Tretorn cares about their customers and shows that care even on their website pages. Several useful features that prove this deserve our special attention.
Tretorn US: Accessibility Mode
Tretorn is a sustainable and responsible brand, making their website experience convenient. In their footer, we can find accessibility mode to adjust colors, visuals, and font sizes, turn on assistance with reading and focusing, adjust the website for blind users, etc. There are plenty of settings that make this website flexible and accessible.
This feature is powered by assesssiBe and can be connected to any website to run an accessibility interface. That’s a great solution that shows the brand’s care and responsibility.
Tretorn US: Wishlist
Tretorn added a little ‘heart’ button for the Wishlist access in the right bottom corner to create an engaging shopping experience. We can access the wishlist at any moment and add items while shopping with any device – desktop, tablet, or mobile.
Usually, we can find the wishlist access button somewhere near the shopping cart button at the top of the page. But here, the wishlist is always in view and stands out, reminding customers about their wishes. When we get to the wishlist page, there is a minimalistic wishlist itself with a possibility to add items to the shopping cart and two more interesting features:
- You can send this wishlist to someone via email. It’s quite useful, isn’t it? It’s especially useful when you are thinking about the ideas for your Santa for ‘what I want for Christmas’? 🙂
- You can add your email and connect the data about your wishlists from all your devices and sync your shopping activity.
Furthermore, you can quickly access the ‘Help’ form and ask your questions. The form itself has structured fields with the possibility to choose the topic for your request.
Time-Saving Category Page
Category pages on Tretorn’s websites have a minimalistic look, well-thought-out navigation, and intuitive filters that quickly help us find the needed product.
Tretorn EU & US: Hover Effects
Both websites have the same interesting feature on the category page. We can hover the product image and see how it looks from a different angle. This way, we get more information quickly and don’t need to visit a product page if it is not exactly what we are looking for.
Tretorn US: Design Views & Quick Shop
The Tretorn US goes even further and provides a great feature for quick product selection and shopping. We can change the product design and see how it looks right on the category page, even without page reloading!
In addition, we can click ‘Quick Shop’ and see the shortened version of a product page appearing in the pop-up. It includes only the necessary product parameters needed for shopping.
That means our shopping experience becomes even more convenient. We save time as a customer: there is no need to visit the product page to view available design options and go shopping. Really cool!
The Tretorn US is created great from the visual point of view and usability. All design elements are intuitive, including filters on the category page. They use not only text but also visual identification for each option available. This way, the customer can shop more quickly and complete their goal faster – it’s exactly what Tretorn needs: more happy purchases.
Let’s move to the product page and highlight the most interesting things there.
Intuitive Product Page
On both websites, we can see a great product presentation:
- High-quality product images and views from different angles show us the product at its best. The Tretorn US even provides the possibility to scale the image by hovering;
- Informative product description gives us a full product overview: short and minimalistic on the Tretorn US and structured in tabs on the Tretorn EU;
- The Tretorn US provides the possibility to add the item to the Wishlist, yet this feature is not available on the Tretorn EU. Instead, they make the ‘Add to Basket’ button bolder.
- The link to the Size Guide helps us pick up the right size quickly on the product page.
All features are great. However, we want to draw your attention to these details:
Both websites provide visual swatches for product size and color selection. This way is better than a traditional drop-down menu. With swatches on the product page, the customer can see all available options right away and saves time, reducing the number of clicks needed to select and purchase the product.
Another great thing is that all product options that are out of stock are blocked. We can see what particular options are available for the product. This way we save time and create the right expectations.
Inspiring Brand Story
Finally, one of the most exciting parts of each website is how the brand communicates its values, story, and positioning.
Tretorn US: 3 Towers
On the Tretorn US, the brand invites us to learn about their ‘3 Towers’, find new trends and old traditions, and read inspiring stories from their journal. This way the brand builds an emotional connection with its customers. ‘3 Towers’ Page introduces a short legend about the Tretorn brand. It turns out that “Tretorn” is Swedish for ‘Three Towers.’ Furthermore, there are three T that Tretorn tells us about: Trends, Traditions, and Tales. This page is beautiful and engaging, and it’s the only chapter on this website that tells us about the Tretorn brand. It seems that here Tretorn wanted to focus on a customer. They make customers their main heroes. It’s not a trivial approach to delivering a brand story, especially for such a large and famous brand.
So, how can we learn more about Tretorn? We should visit their main website for the European market. Get ready. You can dive into their story as an interesting book.
Tretorn EU: About The Brand
We must visit their chapter about the brand. This is a necessary step for anyone who wants to learn about this brand and understand their values, message, and hard way to become those they are now – one of the top world-famous fashion brands.
Sneakers Timeline brings us to the history of Tretorn’s sneakers transformation, Tretorn’s key moments that determined their future and brand growth.
Tretorn’s Journal is a place for stories about travelings, discoveries, initiatives, and things that help the brand and its advocates change the world for the better.
And the most inspiring, involving, and emotional pages that prove how this brand makes a difference are Eco-Essentials Manifest & Timeline. They tell us the stories about how innovation, responsibility, and talent create products with care about our planet and future generation. Anyone who wants to discover Tretorn’s products must visit these pages and learn the story behind their innovation, Leftover Project, Raincoat from the sea, and sustainable products made of recycled materials.
Tretorn proves that the brand values and purpose delivered on the website can build a strong connection with customers, inspire changes, and show what the brand is in its core.
In this website overview, we wanted to show the most interesting features that provide an engaging user experience and strengthen the brand’s position in people’s minds. Both websites provide a convenient mobile experience and allow us to shop on the go. They both have a beautiful minimalistic design with a customer in mind focusing on products and the key shopping goals.
The website for the European audience is ‘a home’ of Tretorn’s online presence. It includes all the information about the brand’s history. Still, Tretorn’s website for the US market looks modern, engaging, and provides many useful and fresh features.
The Tretorn online experience is made with love for customers, respect for traditions, and a high purpose in mind.
eCommerce Sustainable Brands That Make a Difference
Many brands around the world today already see the importance of sustainability. If we’ve learned anything in the 21st century, it’s that sustainability is vital. Without it, such problems as global warming, polluted seas, wildlife endangerment, and the loss of essential planetary resources will decidedly become more pronounced.
Useful for you:
Sustainability is important, and some brands take this mantra to heart. Thankfully, the need to make a profit is not the sole drive for every brand. There are many companies and business organizations that incorporate sustainable brand values in their day-to-day activities. Among other things, we’ll be taking a look at them in this article.
What Is a Sustainable Brand?
To qualify as sustainable, a brand must balance the human factor with the financial and environmental ones.
A sustainable brand is the one that incorporates the principles and values of environmental sustainability in its actions, product creation, and service provision without hindering customer satisfaction.That is, for a brand to be deemed sustainable, it must:
- Hold itself to such high standards that it only uses environmentally safe raw materials. But, this shouldn’t automatically translate to lowering the quality of products. Adherence to environmental safety measures and guaranteeing customer satisfaction aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
- Develop and use unique processes, tools, delivery methods, strategies, knowledgebase, etc. These innovative thinking products must contribute to environmental safety without neglecting the importance of social and economic factors.
- Communicate and relate to the public so that its sustainability inspires other brands and customers to follow in its footsteps. After all, one brand being sustainable in an ocean of non-adherents doesn’t quite make for a healthy planet.
If a brand can do all these, while continually finding new ways to create and maintain sustainability, they will fit perfectly into the definition of a sustainable brand.
Sustainable Brand Values
Every brand that fits into the description of sustainability has the following values.
Eco-Friendliness
The ingredients and raw materials that a brand uses for its products or in the process of rendering its services form an essential part of its sustainability. As such, sustainable brands always make it a priority to use all-natural ingredients.
As a customer, this should be relatively easy for you to detect. For example, if you’re looking to purchase a skincare product, you can take a glance at the ingredients list. A sustainable brand will have such natural ingredients as aloe vera, argan, shea butter, etc.
An example of such a brand is the makeup brand, W3ll People. This makeup company uses cruelty-free and natural cosmetic products to nourish and soothe the skin while offering the desired results.
W3ll People and their Come Clean Project
For brands whose products can’t precisely use natural products, their value might differ slightly. Nevertheless, it will still involve some form of environmental friendliness, either in use or disposal.
This value directly impacts the health of customers in different ways across different industries. In skincare products, for example, it will lead to improved health and reduced risk of cancer. This will happen because there are no inorganic materials contained in the product.
Also, environmental sustainability brands deftly concentrate on running their business, not to harm the environment in any way. Indeed, they may not sell the same products everyone else does. But, they help create a more sustainable environment by planting trees, donating, recycling, etc.
Fair Pay & Fair Trade
One of the central values of a sustainable brand is that they treat people right and pay them well, too. Refusal to do so will amount to taking advantage of people.
A genuinely sustainable brand doesn’t resort to the poor treatment of its workers. For them, fairness in payment is non-negotiable. An example of a sustainable brand that meets this description is ASOS.
ASOS about responsibility
The benefit of this fair pay to humanity is evident. People no longer have to work like slaves and be rewarded similarly. With fair compensation, any working individual can afford a good standard of living.
Philanthropy
Every sustainable brand aims to give back to society and the earth in one way or the other. Ordinarily, it can be in the form of monetary gifts like donating money directly to eco-friendly groups.
But, philanthropy doesn’t necessarily need to come in the form of hard cash. Some brands demonstrate this value by organizing key events and programs for the public. Among other things, these events will help educate people about the environment alongside the other factors involved in ensuring sustainability.
Walmart does this. Every year, they make millions of dollars in donations towards economic development, environmental sustainability, and communities’ advancement through construction and engagement projects.
Walmart Foundation making a difference
This value helps make the world a better place by giving the people and groups that need it the most. It is arguably one of the most important values as it supports humanity at its weakest.
Of course, there is a truckload of values that guide sustainable brands outside the ones mentioned here. But, these are three of the most common.
Sustainable Brand Activations
Brand activation is any activity, event, or program that enables your brand to relate to customers directly. The purpose of brand activation is usually to create a lasting community of customers who are passionate about your brand.
To apply it to sustainability, we’d say that sustainable brand activation applies all the sustainability principles to interact more closely with the community.
Top Sustainability Brands That Make a Difference
Sustainable brands focus on helping society, making the world a better place, and inspiring others. The following examples are proof that there are sustainable brands out there:
Toms Sustainable Brand: Shoes
In 2006, Blake Mycoskie decided to visit Argentina. While there, he shockingly noticed that many children didn’t have any shoes to wear. At this point, he got the idea for a company that’ll help make a difference.
TOMS: One For One
He created TOMS, a brand that donates a pair of shoes to kids for every pair of shoes bought from the company. Today, TOMS has donated more than 60 million shoes across the world.
For One, Another – TOMS
What’s more, is that TOMS protects the planet by being primarily vegan. From their shoe-packing boxes to their shoe-creation materials, this company is truly sustainable.
TOMS about sustainability initiatives
Adidas Sustainable Brand: Shoes
Despite its roots in Germany, Adidas is one of the most widely-recognized shoe brands globally. With over 900-million products created yearly, this brand is a big deal in the business world.
Despite its size, however, Adidas has a long history of sustainability. As early as 1989, the brand saw fit to ban CFCs’ use in creating their products.
Adidas: sustainability history
Even now, in 2020, they’ve publicized their sustainability strategy. As always, they’re shifting to a 100% recyclable material-use for their products and managed to make millions of shoes of ocean waste.
Adidas Parley Collection at Road Runner Sports
Gucci Sustainability Brand: Perfumes & Fashion
Gucci is a luxury brand that’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars in today’s economy. One of their most notable sustainability feats is that they are one of the first brands to start using the EP&L account.
This account is the Environmental Profit and Loss account. It aids in the monitoring of greenhouse gasses in the business. What’s more, Gucci has created a 10-year sustainability plan for themselves and turn society’s attention to the necessity of protecting our environment.
Gucci for HOME
Gucci about their sustainability plan
This will help them to slash the emissions of greenhouse gasses in half by 2025. So, if you’re asking yourself the question, ‘Is Gucci a sustainable brand?’ the answer to that is yes.
Tretorn Sustainable Brand: Clothing
Tretorn is a Swedish sustainable brand that deals with clothing. You can see a mind-blowing example of their sustainability in their Leftover Project.
Tretorn’s Leftover Project
In this project, the company bought leftover fabrics from different manufacturers and reused them to make limited edition. This is just one of the many efforts towards sustainability this company makes.
Tretorn – Rain Jacket From The Sea
Prada Sustainable Brand: Perfumes & Fashion
As a fashion industry member, Prada is one of the best examples of what a sustainable brand should look like. This is hardly up for argument, considering that the brand scores up to 85% in certified and recycled paper.
Prada’s Re-Nylon Project
Alongside this, 100% of their energy is made from renewable sources in Italy.
Prada Group’s Sustainability commitment
Inspiring eCommerce Sustainable Brand Examples
These days, the world is moving further towards a vastly digital civilization. To that effect, we have multiple eCommerce stores and shops.
Some of them are still committed to maintaining sustainability. By all standards, this is incredibly inspiring. A few of these brands include:
Filippa K
Filippa K is one of the top fashion sustainability brands that run online today. The company was founded in 1993 and has grown since then to become a vast Scandinavian name.
Useful for you:
Among other things that drive Filippa K, the need to protect the environment and ensure sustainability in its other ramifications ranks very high.
This includes social and economic responsibility. To do this, the company ensures that it uses a significant proportion of eco-friendly substances.
They mainly focus on making their wears with organic cotton.
Filippa K’s sustainability framework
Alongside this, the company makes it a priority to treat and discharge wastewater properly as part of the supply chain. With its mission of mindful consumption and prolonged sustainability, this company is nothing short of inspiring.
PAPER London’s Swimwear
This is an excellent example of a UK sustainable brand. Philippa Thackeray is the creator of PAPER London’s Swimwear. He believes that everyone should take actions within their power to save Mother Earth.
With that mission in mind, his company uses recycled fishing nets to create their swimwear. Keep in mind that otherwise, these fishing nets will take no less than 600 years to go through the full decomposing process.
Paper London about ECONYL
100% Pure™
This is another company wholly dedicated to promoting sustainability. As the name suggests, it boldly proclaims a dedication to creating top-quality products accessible to the public.
100% Pure about sustainability
With Susan Wang as its founder, its mission is direct — to create the healthiest and purest products while acquainting the world with the essentiality of being 100% pure.
Collina Strada
Hillary Taymour established Collina Strada over a decade ago. The company is based in New York and is significantly dedicated to including sustainability in its operations.
Collina Strada and their sustainability mission
To demonstrate this, Hillary Taymour, their founder, entered into a partnership with The OR. The OR is an organization in the United States striving towards a future of sustainability.
Collina Strada and SwatchOn’s Sustainable Collaboration
Pandora
This company came into being in 1982. Over the years, Pandora has established itself as one of the world’s leading corporate sustainability brands today. Despite its popularity and immense size, this company doesn’t take the environment or the people it serves for granted.
Pandora’s commitment to sustainability
We can see this in Pandora’s use of gold as well as silver for their jewelry. These two materials can undergo recycling without losing their quality. What’s truly unique about this company is every single one of their products will be made from fully recyclable materials by 2025.
Pandora to only use recycled gold, silver
Sustainability Brands Community
More people are becoming increasingly inclined toward the idea of sustainability. By all means, this is excellent for our environment.
As a demonstration of total dedication to sustainability, different individuals and organizations have come together to create communities.
An example of such is the B-Corporation.
B-Corporation Association
B-Corporation is a global community of 3500 corporations across 74 different countries and 150 industries. These companies always make decisions geared to positively affect the environment, their workers, as all as customers, among others. They’re legally required to do so.
Sustainable Brand Conferences
To raise awareness about sustainability, different organizations worldwide organize conferences at other points in a year. A few of these conferences include:
World Sustainability Forum
This conference took place between the 15th-17th of September 2020. Also, It has held every other year for the last seven years. Its main agenda is to birth sustainable development methods in the long term for regions, people, and the entire planet.
Sustainability Week
This program holds from October 5th to October 9th, 2020. It’s designed for sustainability professionals, academics, and government officials. Among other things, it teaches you how we can cut down on our emission of carbons.
SB Paris
Beyond offering the experience of a conference, this event wants to make a real impact. It aims to be a platform for action takers who work to make the world a better place.
Sustainable Brand Index
This is the most significant sustainability study in all of Europe. It ranks B2Cs and B2Bs annually based on their sustainability level. With over 1400 brands across 35 different countries, this is a genuinely massive pool of information.
How Your Brand Can Deliver Value
As a brand focused on sustainability, there are tons of ways for you to deliver value. Here are some of them:
Save Resources and Recycle
This is a no-brainer if you’re looking to make the world a better place truly. You understand the nitty-gritty of your business. As such, ensure that at every turn, you’re saving resources instead of wasting them just because it’s easier to do so.
Useful for you:
In the same way that brands like Prada and Pandora recycle plastic and precious metal, you can also recycle resources.
Take Care of The Environment
In this regard, you need to act responsibly. Do your best to go for safe means of generating energy so that your office isn’t an emission station for CFCs.
Alongside that, don’t dump waste improperly. Furthermore, you can take care of the environment by organizing community programs daily clean and recycle waste at a dumpsite. These, among many others, are the ways you can care for the environment.
Help Those Who Need It
Sustainability goes beyond just caring for the earth. You need to help humanity, as well. As a company, you can create foundations to provide for those who need it.
Even without foundations, you can make donations to better the lives of people. Besides being a kind thing to do, this is very sustainable. According to a study, as a small company, you can donate an average of 6% of your profits.
Give a Touch of Green
By this, we mean that you should plant trees. Think of it as giving back to the earth. Multiple websites allow you to do that.
Some of them are:
- Ecosia
- One Tree Planted
- Tree-Nation
- Trees
- Plant-for-the-Planet
- Nature
- Team Trees
- International Tree Foundation
- The National Forest
Care About Your People
Sometimes you’ll hear stories of companies taking advantage of their employees and maltreating their customers.
If you’re looking to create a sustainable brand, this shouldn’t be you. Always pay attention to your human factor. Treat your people properly, cultivate integrity, corporate values, trust, and care about each other. Always respect people’s rights, value talents, and provide a friendly environment for cooperation with employees, partners, and customers.
Make a Difference Daily
It can be as little as posting content that will inspire others to be more sustainable. On the other hand, it may be as big as donating millions of dollars to organizations that will use it properly. However, no matter what it is, ensure that you make a difference every day. We are also always on your side, and will never stop making a difference for you.
P.S. Finally, we invite you to watch this deep and emotional video by Thai Life Insurance to feel what it takes to make the world a better place.
Unsung Hero by Thai Life Insurance