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Feb 9th, 2009

The following case study examines the End Clothing Magento ecommerce project.

End Clothing before (left) and after (right) - it was important to the client that the new site be familiar to their existing customers.

The Client

End Clothing are a long-term Limesharp client. They’ve been with us since day one, and we’ve been with them since day one. They are a small niche fashion store based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, but when it comes to their ecommerce presence, they are anything but small. Stocking top brands such as Lyle & Scott, Fred Perry, Adidas Originals and Levi Vintage, the company has gone from strength to strength and is now widely recongnised as one of the leading online fashion retailers in the UK.

The Objective

The client had outgrown their previous site. As their list of brands continued to grow, the front-end design, commended for its usability, was starting to become slightly less refined. Also administration was becoming a real problem for End. Managing products with a heavily modified version of Cube Cart was time-consuming, and End were limited by what they could do in terms of features. The objective of this redesign was to build a brand new site built on the Magento framework that would provide a solid platform for growth in future years.

Branding & Design

End had an existing logo and brand history. Their customer base loved the simplicity of their old site and its ease of use. This is something we were all keen to carry over. One of the most important aspects of any redesign of an existing site, is that its current customers still feel acquainted with the new site. After much discussion we decided to modify the existing logo only very slightly (adding the word “clothing” to better represent the web address of the site), and to keep the colour scheme very similar.

The End Clothing logo was tweaked slightly to bring it a little more in line with their new site.

Wireframes were created to play with different layouts and navigation. In the end we went for a very up-to-date layout with drop down menu’s, similar to that of big retailers such as John Lewis and Marks & Spencer. This would give a familiar, simple user experience and also ensure that End could grow their brand list over time without worrying about out-growing the site.

Development

There were a number of bespoke features developed for this project to serve a range of purposes. We used our bespoke “Latest Products” module to display a collection of latest products automatically on the home page, with a link to a page displaying more latest products. This is a small module that has proved useful on a number of projects.

We also integrated a Wordpress blog into this site, which powers the Latest News section. This also required further bespoke development to show a collection of Latest News headlines on the home page, along with a thumbnail image, and also headlines in the left column on various CMS pages.

Another interesting aspect of this project was the integration of street level post-code lookup during the checkout process. This allows UK customers to enter their postcode and quickly select their full address when placing their order. It’s much quicker than typing, and avoids any mistakes that might be made by the customer when typing

The UK postcode lookup feature allows customers to very quickly enter their address when checking out.

Other notable features on this site include the rotating Flash banner on the home page, powered using Slide Show Pro. The client can login and upload images to be added to the banner quickly and easily, without any technical knowledge. We also did a bit of work to the Related Products functionality to randomly select related products from the current category if no products are defined. This saves End time when adding products – if they forget or don’t have time to add specific related products, the system will generate them automatically for them.

The Result

The end result is stunning website with an enterprise level feature set and far more streamlined operations. Feedback from the guys at End has been fantastic, and their new site has been generating quite a buzz in the fashion industry, with a number of their brands commenting on how impressed they are with it. With the new site now online End have raised their game and can further establish themselves as one of the main players in their marketplace.

Find out more…

• Find out more about Limesharp’s Magento Solutions
• Visit the live End Clothing website

Written by: paul.younghusband

This entry was posted on Monday, Feb 9th, 2009 at 10:23 am and is filed under Case Studies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.