West of Woodward

Headless for Growth: How a headless architecture improved website performance and increased conversions.

West of Woodward is a women’s boutique in Yaletown started in 2020 under a parent clothing store company. They started out sharing a Shopify e-commerce store with 3 other stores and wanted to break away to provide their audience a customized and branded shopping experience.

The Problem.

This boutique had no separate online shopping experience. The shared Shopify store had a horrible user experience with an extremely low conversion rate. This multi-brand boutique faced many challenges in identifying and targeting the right audience to increase conversion rates.
  • Limited or inaccurate inventory management, resulting in customers placing orders for items that are out of stock.
  • Slow page load times, leading to frustrated customers and high bounce rates.
  • Poor website navigation and search functionality, making it difficult for customers to find what they're looking for.
  • Inefficient checkout process, leading to abandoned carts and decreased conversions.

I needed to understand the brand first.I created a mood board to help keep the style and aesthetic of the project consistent with a client’s goals and expectations.

I conducted background research to find out common user pain points specifically for online women’s clothing stores. I completed a competitor analysis to look at what other brands are including in their user journeys. 

 

Target Audience:
I pulled email marketing data and old Shopify data and concluded the following:
Location: Canada: BC, Vancouver
Gender: Women
Age Range: 25- 54
Description: Professional, Wealthy with disposable income

Problem statement: West of Woodward, a multi-brand boutique located in Yaletown, was facing a significant challenge with its online presence. The boutique shared a Shopify e-commerce store with three other stores, resulting in a poor user experience and an extremely low conversion rate. Despite carrying a wide range of clothing lines from various designers and brands, West of Woodward struggled to identify and target the right audience, resulting in limited success in converting website visitors into customers. The boutique’s management team recognized the need for a separate, customized and branded online shopping experience in order to increase conversion rates and grow the business.

 

I created a sitemap & a variety of  wireframes to get a brief idea on how the website would look. Once these were reviewed, I put created high fidelity mockups to present to the client.

 

The Results.

After implementing a separate, customized and branded online shopping experience, West of Woodward saw a significant improvement in its conversion rate.
  • By targeting the right audience through focused digital marketing campaigns and optimizing the user experience on the website, the boutique was able to increase its online sales by 25%.
  • The separate online store also allowed the boutique to build a strong brand identity, which helped to increase customer loyalty and repeat business.
  • Additionally, West of Woodward was able to improve inventory management by tracking the performance of different products and re-focusing its product offerings, which led to a 20% increase in profit margin.