Nearly one-third of Manhattan Wardrobe Supply’s visitors access the site on a mobile device but until recently, the customer experience was poor. Using the desktop version on a phone was tedious and difficult, a far cry from the friendly customer service offered in-store.
To solve this problem, we recommended a responsive design approach which we implemented in a couple phases. How did it work? After the first month, according to Google Analytics, the new responsive site is delivering a:
The latest statistics from Internet Retailer show mobile taking a bigger slice of the U.S. eCommerce pie than ever: 29.7% in 2015 compared to 24.6% in 2014. Mobile is growing even faster outside the U.S.
Whatever the device, your website needs to be easy to use — from browsing, to searching, right through to completing a purchase. If it isn’t, you’re at a competitive disadvantage and leaving money on the table.
With responsive design, we build one front-end that works on multiple devices and screen sizes. It doesn’t limit customers’ options based on the device they’re using. Responsive sites provide more uniformity. They look good and work well from desktop to phone.
We followed proven, familiar design conventions using the Bootstrap framework. It provides industry-standard templates for menus and slideshows, and deals easily with things like adjusting layout columns to screen width. This allowed us to spend time on the required customizations.
Given Manhattan Wardrobe Supply’s vast inventory, search functionality is always going to be important. This is especially true on a mobile platform where less screen real estate is available to display menus.
We replaced the out-of-the-box Spree search with Algolia, which is faster and smarter (it handles errors like mis-spellings). The search box is featured prominently near the top of all pages.
Algolia search is designed for shoppers to find products instantly. They start to see results as soon as they begin typing (especially important for mobile).
Manhattan Wardrobe Supply’s new responsive site is simpler to update and maintain. It delivers a better customer experience, from navigation to search to checkout. The company is already seeing a significant increase in conversions and revenue. Responsive design suits their customers better, which makes it better for business.
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