A website redesign and ecommerce build using ShopifyPlus.
Background
The Isle of Harris Gin has an instantly recognisable bottle and a mantlepiece full of awards – and soon, it will be joined by The Hearach, the first legally distilled whisky on Harris. We were tasked to build on this momentum with a brand-new website design and dedicated ecommerce site using ShopifyPlus. And equally as importantly, communicate the ethereal and tempestuous nature of the island and its eponymous spirits.
Strategy/Thinking
The Isle of Harris Distillery website plays a critical role in their Direct to Consumer business model. In fact, it’s at the core of every sales journey and customer service experience and is central to their inbound content strategy.
That’s why we had to create a site that would seamlessly integrate with their existing CMS systems to make their business more efficient – and while providing a stable platform from which to grow globally.
The knowledge and insight to simply do more
The new site must also serve as a valuable tool to gather data, derive insight and gain invaluable knowledge about its customers. And our role is to harness these insights to help Isle of Harris Distillers make informed business decisions, optimise conversions, reach their sales goals and inspire loyalty and advocacy by creating personalised experiences and customer service even at scale.
Our key deliverables were:
-
Make the shopping experience easier and more satisfying, including the fast growing Click & Collect service
-
Improve knowledge of your customers and social media audience, to refine communications and increase sales
-
Increase reach and engagement on social media, without sacrificing IoH values and their distinctive style
-
Ensure the website tells the story of the Social Distillery and its offerings in a way which inspires people to connect, stay connected and shop
-
Increase international reach while supporting local partners
-
Integrate e-commerce with courier systems and back office, to streamline processes, improve customer service and improve our analytics capability
Converting interest into sales
The most important area on the site was the design and construction of a new gin shop. The key element here was to convert more sales and to do this, we undertook vast research and internal testing to ensure the consumer journey was as seamless as possible.
Another key element of this build was to let consumers know where they could enjoy an Isle of Harris gin at a bar or restaurant nearby – or pick up a bottle at one of their approved retailers – via an interactive map that easily showed where they could experience a little piece of the island.
A connection with another world
Naturally, the Isle of Harris has a truly inspiring story to tell. And part of our brief was to enhance each element of a consumer journey and make it far from purely a transactional site.
The ‘Journal’ section is a collection of the stories that surround the brand. And our role was to make it as accessible and as inspiring as possible.
Find out more about how we’ve connected the world to the Isle of Harris through our Christmas Ceilidh campaign.
