Madison Heights, Mich (PRWEB) July 24, 2015
Moosejaw, the outdoor retailer known for its quirky marketing, just re-launched a totally new version of their leading ecommerce site – moosejaw.com. The totally redesigned, responsive site incorporates numerous new features and improvements while staying true to Moosejaw’s unique brand voice.
With mobile sales continuing to double year-over-year, Moosejaw focused on providing an optimal experience across all devices. “Way back in 2011, Moosejaw was one of the first ecommerce sites with responsive design,” explained Moosejaw CEO, Eoin Comerford, “but we were limited by applying responsive techniques to an existing desktop design. The new site was developed to be responsive from the ground up.” Out of the gate, Moosejaw is seeing mobile conversion rates improve by over 50%.
The new site was also an opportunity to clean up the design. “Over the years we’d added new functions and messaging, trying to squeeze everything in ‘above the fold,’ resulting in a rather cluttered, disjointed look,” said Dan Pingree, Moosejaw’s VP of Marketing. “As we approached the redesign, we looked at every single word and element on a page and asked, ‘Do we really need this? Can we say it with icons or fewer words? What’s truly important to the user?’” The end result is a much cleaner design with large product images and a clear hierarchy of information.
The site incorporates a number of leading technologies:
- IBM Websphere Commerce Search adds a whole new level of category-specific filtering options, allowing customers to find what they’re looking for in fewer pages.
- True Fit provides personalized fit recommendations that give consumers the confidence to buy styles that fit and flatter and return fewer items. The platform is powered by the world’s largest set of footwear and apparel data from millions of consumers and 2,000+ brands and retailers.
- Bazaarvoice replaces Moosejaw’s in-house reviews platform, adding improved moderation, the ability to add photos and videos, and a Q&A feature, along with content syndicated from Moosejaw’s suppliers that are Bazaarvoice customers.
- Yottaa adaptive CDN optimizes content delivery to minimize the time to interaction across different device types.
The underlying architecture stays with IBM WebSphere Commerce but migrates from V6 to the latest iteration of V7. The site was designed and developed by the internal team at Moosejaw, augmented with resources from Astound Commerce, a global ecommerce solutions company based in San Francisco, CA.
“The Astound folks were an integral part of our team, living and breathing the new site with us,” said Moosejaw CTO, Michael Moore. “They provided great WebSphere Commerce expertise, working hand-in-hand with our developers, so we’d be prepared to fully take over ongoing development post-launch.”
The IBM community stepped up to make for a smooth launch, from IBM internal experts to existing customers Cornerstone Brands, David’s Bridal and Neo-Image that shared lessons learned and best practices on site migration.
“I’ve never been though a site launch that’s gone so smoothly or delivered such immediate improvements right from the flip of the switch,” commented Comerford. “Usually you’d see a little dip in conversion while customers get used to the new site and you work through bugs, but we saw conversion increase over 20% right away and continues to climb. We love climbing at Moosejaw.”
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