Our customers say
ExcellentCustom Lids: Embracing a Site revamp that improves their customer journey
CustomLids.com started its journey with custom headwear and apparel and has grown significantly over the past three decades. Today, their products are available both online and in physical Lids stores. Collaborating closely with the Lids team, we delved into understanding the brand's identity and the current obstacles faced with their customizer. Our goal was to adopt a mobile-first UX approach to seamlessly integrate CustomLids.com into the current digital landscape. We redesigned and built a custom app for their hat customizer that aligns with the overall site branding and includes additional features to meet the company’s strategic goals.
With a dedicated and loyal customer base, maintaining ease for users with the new site layout and customizer was a primary focus. Our approach centered on the philosophy that "shopping online should be easy." To achieve this, we designed an intuitive, user-friendly interface that allows users to handle all their customization needs, such as saving and using templates, changing products, and more, all in one portal. This enhanced the overall user experience and ensured a fresh and easily manageable product offering, aligning with CustomLids.com's commitment to a personalized style with a modern approach for convenience.
Seamless experience
Users can now enjoy a seamless experience when creating their custom headwear, with the ability to add products directly from the customizer. The intuitive design ensures that customers can easily navigate through the customization process, making it more accessible and enjoyable.
Save designs
One of the standout features is the ability to save designs for up to a year, providing users with the flexibility to revisit and modify their creations at their convenience. Additionally, the introduction of templates allows customers to start their designs with a pre-set layout, saving time and effort. These templates can be saved in the "Your Stuff" section, making it easy to access and reus favorite designs.
Power to the buyer
The improved account portal enhances order management, offering users greater control and liberty over their purchases. This updated portal simplifies tracking orders, managing saved designs, and utilizing templates, ensuring a streamlined and efficient customization experience.
The Challenge
CustomLids.com needed to update their outdated site designs and create a customizer that adapted to both the company's requirements and their buyers' needs for ease of use, empowering them to manage their orders all from the customizer and account portal. The issues they were facing with their current customizer included no ability to save designs for a year, no option to save templates from the customizer, no ability to change products from the customizer, no realistic thread color view, no preview of the font selection, and limited editing options. This resulted in a custom redesign with a 2.0 theme and a turnkey customizer application.
The Solution
Our collaboration with CustomLids.com began by understanding their specific requirements and objectives. We identified the issues they were facing with their current site and customizer to ensure we addressed all these points for them.
To address these challenges, we developed a comprehensive solution that included:
- Custom Redesign with 2.0 Theme: A completely custom UX-optimized theme that reflects CustomLids.com's new brand identity and enhances the user experience.
- Enhanced Customizer Tool: A visually appealing and user-friendly interface that allows users to easily create and customize their headwear, with the ability to add products directly from the customizer.
- Design Saving and Templates: Users can save designs for up to a year and utilize pre-set templates, which can be saved in the "Your Stuff" section for easy access and reuse. This includes the ability to save templates directly from the customizer.
- Realistic Thread Color View and Font Preview: The customizer now includes a realistic thread color view and a preview of font selections, ensuring users can see exactly how their designs will look.
- More Editing Options and Tools: The customizer now offers more editing options and tools, allowing for greater customization and flexibility.
These enhancements ensure that CustomLids.com meets both the company's goals and the needs of their customers, reaffirming their commitment to a personalized and modern approach to custom headwear.
A truly diverse range of action
Arctic Grey collaborated closely with CustomLids.com to enhance the customizer user experience across both mobile and desktop platforms. By adopting a mobile-first approach, we ensured that the new design was responsive and user-friendly, regardless of the device. Our team worked to integrate a visually appealing and intuitive interface, enabling customers to easily create and customize their headwear. We also introduced features such as design saving, templates, and an improved account portal to streamline the shopping process. This collaborative effort resulted in a seamless, efficient, and enjoyable user experience that aligns with CustomLids.com's brand identity and meets the needs of their diverse customer base.
By adopting a mobile-first approach, we ensured that the new design was responsive and user-friendly, regardless of the device. Our team worked to integrate a visually appealing and intuitive interface, enabling customers to easily create and customize their headwear.
In today's digital landscape, where users are presented with numerous choices, an exceptional user experience (UX) is crucial for a business to stand out from its competitors. A user-friendly UX design streamlines the conversion journey by minimizing obstacles and helping users complete desired actions, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service. For CustomLids.com, our goal was to empower users by providing all the tools they needed to design their hats and manage everything from their account portal.
The custom UX-optimized theme is built with clean, efficient code, which further boosts site speed. Faster loading times contribute to better SEO performance, as search engines prioritize sites that offer quick and seamless experiences for users. The redesign also included improved meta tagging, structured data, and optimized images, all of which are critical components of effective SEO. These enhancements help search engines better understand and index the site, leading to higher visibility in search results.
The new customizer developed for CustomLids.com has had a significant positive impact on both SEO and site speed. By adopting a mobile-first design approach and optimizing the overall site performance, we ensured faster load times and improved responsiveness across all devices. This optimization enhances user experience, leading to longer site visits and lower bounce rates, both of which are crucial factors for search engine rankings.
Arctic Grey UI/UX Design Approach.
Enhancing desktop user experience is important for retaining visitor engagement and satisfaction on any website. Our emphasis for the Lids Lab Customizer was on intuitive navigation, responsive design, and ease-of use.
When designing the new Customizer, we focused on a easy to shop and intuitive experience, while preserving a consistent brand identity, keeping their logo revamped brand identity elements across the entire website.
The well-spaced content was selected for ease of information consumption, facilitating focused attention on essential elements.
With climbing mobile shopping rates, adopting a "Mobile First" design was crucial to improving conversion for Custom Lids. Not only this, but Google and other search engines consider mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor, which means a positive mobile UX can positively impact your website's search engine visibility.
Investing in mobile UX sets your brand apart from competitors and establishes a positive impression among mobile users. We ensured their customizer was fully optimized for mobile devices with responsive design, easy navigation, and quick loading times.
The Results
Improved User Experience: The enhanced customizer tool and intuitive interface have significantly improved the overall user experience, making it easier for customers to design and customize their headwear.
Increased Customer Satisfaction: The ability to save designs, use templates, and preview thread colors and fonts has resulted in higher customer satisfaction, as users feel empowered to create designs that accurately reflect their preferences.
Enhanced SEO and Site Speed: The mobile-first design and optimized site performance have resulted in faster load times and better search engine rankings, driving more organic traffic to the site.
Streamlined Order Management: The improved account portal has provided users with greater control and convenience, simplifying order management and enhancing the overall shopping experience.
Our Process
Discover
Define
Develop
Quality Assurance
Deliver
A/B Testing
01 Research
We start our partnership with a client with a kick-off call with a dedicated member of our Success Management team. There, we discuss the site in detail, UX and UI goals, any existing pain-points, and potential solutions. Our team of Success Managers have extensive knowledge of Shopify, and provide ongoing support and daily communication to our clients.
02 Branding
We believe in the power of simplicity and strive to create eCommerce solutions that embody both elegance and functionality.
03 UX Design
From there, we dive right in to the branding and UX design with our talented team of designers. Our focus on delivering results has solidified our commitment to crafting the finest Shopify experiences through dynamic and beautiful UX and UI, and The Cashmere Sale was no exception.
04 UI Design
Our global team of developers are unparalleled in the pursuit of perfection of creating dynamic and responsive themes, that also allows a merchant the ability to manage their site through advanced customization features.
05 Development
We are multi-award winning Shopify Plus Design & Development Firm.
At Arctic Grey, we craft the most exceptional eCommerce solutions for Enterprise Merchants worldwide. Our commitment to excellence is evident in the overwhelmingly positive feedback from our clients, with over 500 Five Star Reviews.
06 Quality Assurance
Our talented Quality Assurance team test each element of a new site, from both a technical and user’s perspective. They are true perfectionists, and have extensive knowledge of UX and UI best practices on all mobile and desktop devices.
07 A/B Testing
AB Testing is crucial, and we are passionate about delivering excellence for our clients by using clear, data-driven results driving all decision making.
The Multi Award Winning Shopify Management Team at Arctic Grey
Engineering each solution
Arctic Grey has taken an innovative approach to customer experience. We conducted research that pinpointed areas of confusion around our product offering, allowing us to make adjustments and improvements for the user journey - so customers shopping can have a more engaging experience. Our findings will serve as guidance in developing future projects moving forward.
During the project, we provided and continue to provide the following services and support:
- Strategic Product Placement
- Email Marketing Optimization
- Full Responsive Experience
- Site Speed Optimization
- Core Web Vitals Management
- 24/7 On Demand Support
- Custom Upsell Cart Drawer
- CRO & AOV Optimizations
- E2E Shopping Experience
Checkout extensibility includes a robust set of platform features facilitating easy customization of your checkout in Shopify. This approach is app-based, upgrade-safe, enhances conversion rates, and seamlessly integrates with Shop Pay. Utilizing checkout extensibility, you can customize your checkout through code-free options using apps and branding tools, or opt for a more tailored checkout experience with our collection of components and APIs.
For Ebbets, we optimized their checkout experience using Shopify Checkout Extensibility, incorporating additional Shopify payment options and address validation through Shopify Functions. We also implemented one page checkout, engineered to reduce cart abandonment. This quick update to the previous Shopify checkout flow results in a 36% higher conversion rate compared to competitors.
Lids now uses Shopify Checkout Extensibility, and wow!
By leveraging Shopify Checkout Extensibility, we improved Ebbets's checkout process, introducing one page checkout, and address validation. This implementation effectively minimizes cart abandonment, resulting in an outstanding 36% higher conversion rate than competitors, thereby amplifying sales and fostering business growth.
The Conclusion
The evolution of Ebbets.com from a basic online store to an optimized online powerhouse reflects the adaptability and innovation ingrained in their brand. Our collaboration, supported by Shopify's robust and flexible platform, propelled them to excel and scale their growing business, ensuring a promising and flourishing future for this beloved brand.