Project Summary
Earth Pan is a range of recycled and sustainable kitchenware from Prestige. Prestige is a household name in cookware, that is part of the wider Meyer Group.
They approached Impact Media to help them deliver a brand building website for Earth Pan, which was to be an experiment in D2C sales, without the immediate investment in a full scale eCommerce website.
The project was an experiment by Meyer, to gauge how their users would respond to not buying directly through the brand website, but instead being directed to Amazon to complete their purchase.
The WordPress website delivered, provides the framework of a more traditional D2C brand website, with storytelling and the consumer confidence that comes from buying from the manufacturer.
The only difference being that CTA buttons for purchasing take the user to the product listing on the official Prestige web store on Amazon for their country.
The website is built to be scalable, to allow for a growing product catalogue and expansion into further markets. It was also built to allow for the implementation of deeper eCommerce functionality further down the line, should Meyer choose to move in this direction.
Deliverables
- Discovery & Strategy Workshops
- High Fidelity UX Wireframes
- Page Layouts Designed
- Mobile & Desktop Viewports
- Bespoke WordPress Theme
- WordPress Development
- Geolocation For Local Pricing & Amazon Links
- Browser & Device Testing
- Analytics & Goal Tracking
- WordPress Training
- Ongoing Support & Maintenance
- WordPress Managed Hosting
The Challenge
Meyer UK came to Impact with a website brief, for a direct to consumer website for their Prestige Earth Pan range.
The website was to be a trial, in creating brand websites that look and feel like full eCommerce brand sites, but where purchases are completed via their official Amazon stores, for fulfilment.
Although intending to launch with only 8 products, they wanted a website that would scale with ease as more products are introduced in future, and to have the flexibility to allow for deeper eCommerce functionality to be added at a later date.
The one website needed to service 3 English speaking markets, with geo-location features to enable users from the USA, Australia and the UK to be able to see pricing, currency and product links to their local Amazon page listings.
With multiple markets in mind, the website needs to be GDPR and CCPA compliant, and meet WCAG Double A Accessibility standards.
Another important requirement was to deliver a website that the Meyer UK team could use and update with ease. From adding new products, to the addition of new pages, it was important that their team could create these independently without further developer assistance.
Meyer did however want an agency that could also provide ongoing support and maintenance for the website, premium hosting, and that could be on hand to evolve the site over time, based on the findings of their initial trial.
The following key objectives were identified:
Objectives:
- Scalable and bespoke website that represents the Earth Pan brand.
- Engaging and interactive with animations and transitions.
- Easy to navigate across the entire site on both mobile and desktop.
- Drive sales to the designated Amazon pages and track conversions on product ‘buy now’ clicks.
- Code-free content updates and full control over content.
- The ability to create pages and campaigns without the need for developer help.
- Technical support available from the agency when required (ongoing support).
- A website that conforms to accessibility AA standards, as well as GDPR and CCPA compliance.
Workshops & Content Mapping
The project kicked off with 2 Discovery and Strategy workshops, where we interrogated the brief, and solidified the goals and objectives for the new website.
The workshops bring together key stakeholders, user research and available data, to ensure every decision is strategic and data led.
Over the course of these sessions we are able to flesh out the initial website sitemap, key user journeys, and create a draft content outline.
Look and feel, technical requirements and integrations, and SEO benchmarking are amongst the other areas that we delve into during these sessions.
The workshop included:
- Goals and objectives
- User research and persona creation
- Competitor analysis and review
- Discussion on look and feel
- Product discovery
- Sales journey/order process review
- CTAs and contact methods for clients
- USPs
- Review of SEO strategy and keywords they wished to target
- Integrations and functionality required
- Branding & guidelines
- Moodboard creation
- Initial sitemap creation
- Content planning and outline
- User journey mapping
Wireframing And Visual Design
All of our projects go through a process of wireframing and prototyping, to ensure that the user experience and user journeys are fine tuned, before visual design can cloud things.
Once these are tested and signed off, we then move on to visual design, with the creation of website visuals for both desktop and mobile views.
Meyer wanted a light and airy design, reflecting the sustainable, low impact nature of their Earth Pan products.
The deliverables for this part of the project included:
- Wireframing & Prototyping
- Design Style Guide & System
- UI Design Visuals
- Open Graph Image Template
Development Of A Bespoke Theme
Impact never uses pre-made themes or templates for the websites we build. Every website project involves the development of a bespoke theme, designed around the business in question and their custom requirements.
Not only does this ensure a unique website, but also delivers a more streamlined and lightweight solution, as unlike with most pre-built themes, there isn’t a lot of extra code and unnecessary functionality bulking it out. This improves performance.
One Website For Multiple International Markets
Meyer wanted a single website that would service multiple markets. To achieve this we implemented functionality for geo-location that serves the user a localised version of the website. This included currency, pricing, and links to the correct international Amazon website.
We also wanted to ensure that users visiting the website from outside the target markets wouldn’t find themselves accidentally trying to purchase from an international Amazon store that would be unable to fulfil their order. So we implemented a solution that provides these users with a version of the site that doesn’t display pricing, and does not have product purchasing links.
Brand Storytelling
The website is designed to showcase Earth Pan’s sustainable credentials and premium quality.
Video and high quality imagery alongside animations and transitions are used to tell the brand story in a succinct and visually engaging way.
The core messaging on both sustainability and quality are carried throughout the site, blended with attractive lifestyle type photography to show the products off in situ.
Accessibility & Compliance
As this website was built to service several international markets, including the US, we built it to comply with GDPR and the CCPA.
As standard, our websites are built to a baseline of WCAG single A compliance. In the early planning stages of each project we ascertain if clients would like or are required to build to a higher level of compliance.
As they are selling to the US market, Earth Pan was built to WCAG AA (double A) standards, to ensure it meets the local requirements for web accessibility.
SEO, Performance, Analytics & Tracking
For SEO to be truly effective, it needs to be considered from the outset of a website project. We audited existing SEO performance and managed a careful migration to mitigate the risks associated with website redesigns on organic performance.
- Premium hosting - private server
- CDN
- Caching
- Image Optimisation
- CSS, HTML & JS minification
- XML Sitemaps
- SSL certificate
- W3C & WCAG 2 AA Compliance
- Google Tag Manager set up
- Yoast implemented and set up
- Mobile first design
- GA4 conversion tracking
- Search console setup
As we do with the majority of sites we build, we implemented Analytics and set up conversion tracking for the various conversion types on site. This includes the various button clicks through to Amazon product listings.
We also set Google Tag Manager, and Search Console, to which we submitted sitemaps on launch.
A Faux-Commerce Approach
The website successfully delivers a full eCommerce website experience, up until the purchasing stage. At this point users are taken to their local Amazon store to complete the transaction. This is with the reassuring knowledge that they are buying from the brands genuine Amazon listings.
