Customer Success Stories

Bringing the in-store experience, online

A scalable, highly flexible new site was needed, and very quickly to avoid more lost revenue.

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Fortnum__Mason

8 months
From concept to a complete re-platform, for under £1.3m

+52%
Total sales growth year on year

+77%
Increase in mobile visits year on year

+57%
Increase in mobile conversion rate

fortnum_and_mason_christmas_sales_record-image-store-1

The Challenge

When you think of Fortnum & Mason, the iconic eau de nil colour, the beautiful store layout, amazing customer service and the incredibly high quality of products spring to mind. This unrivalled reputation, held over 300 years, has always been led by the store experience. But with more and more shoppers heading online to make purchases from over 130 different countries, Fortnum's realised their digital experience didn't match the service delivered by the physical stores, and something needed to change, quickly.

The old site had an inconsistent design, was inflexible, difficult to update, and the underlying technology was nearing the end of its life. Customers were dropping out at certain stages in the buying process, for example, the presentation of delivery options was confusing, and if one element of a customer's order was unavailable, it could stop the entire order from going out for delivery.

The new site needed to solve all of this while handling complex orders and delivery to more than 130 countries, scalable and highly flexible, and built quickly to avoid more lost revenue.

 

Our Approach

Red Badger began with a two-day hackathon to produce a minimum viable product,  a 'show not tell' approach to demonstrate its thinking for the new site. Working in a collaborative, Lean way with Fortnum & Mason's design and tech teams, the team built on a progressive selection of open source technology including Spree Commerce, Wombat and Facebook's React, on a cloud-based architecture designed for continuous delivery, releasing tiny, tested changes to production multiple times a day instead of a few times a year.

Customers were kept at the heart of the project throughout: the design team ran guerrilla testing in the Piccadilly flagship store, brought in the in-store historian to keep the new design aligned with the brand's heritage, and ran the new site in parallel with the old one, gradually switching customers over across two months and using their feedback to refine it before full go-live. The result was a complete re-platform and redesign, from concept to delivery, in just eight months and for under £1.3 million.

fortnum
fortnum

The Results

The new site was one of the only fully responsive retail sites live at the time, built to scale through peaks like Christmas. In its first week alone, conversion improved by 14% and average order value rose 5%, with new customers up 15%. Since then, mobile visits are up 77% year on year with a 57% lift in mobile conversion, total sales have grown 52% year on year, and calls to customer service have dropped 18%, with a 38% sales uplift over Christmas 2015 and a 78% increase in grocery sales.

The site has also won a BIMA Award for Best Web Design & Build and an eCommerce Award for Best eCommerce New Design or Re-Design, alongside multiple award nominations.

But don't just take our word for it....

Since the site went live it has had incredible results in increased revenues and conversion rates.

Zia-Zareem-Slade
Former Customer Experience Director, Fortnum & Mason Zia Zareem-Slade

KEY TAKEAWAYS


Context
Fortnum & Mason's 300-year in-store reputation wasn't matched online: an inflexible, end-of-life site was dropping customers out of complex orders shipped to over 130 countries, and needed replacing quickly.

Approach
Ran a two-day hackathon to prove the concept, then built a scalable, continuously-deployed site on Spree Commerce, Wombat and React, shaped throughout by in-store guerrilla testing, the brand's own historian, and a phased, feedback-led customer switchover, delivering a full re-platform in 8 months for under £1.3m.

Results
First-week conversion was up 14% and average order value up 5%; since then mobile visits have grown 77% and mobile conversion 57% year on year, total sales are up 52%, customer service calls are down 18%, and the site has won multiple design and ecommerce awards.

Ways of Working
Kept customers embedded in the design process via in-store testing and a gradual, feedback-driven site switchover, and moved Fortnum & Mason from occasional big-bang releases to multiple production deployments a day.


 

We solve complicated problems in complex places

Red Badger is the product transformation consultancy for blue chips. Our product design capabilities and technical pedigree build high-performance digital platforms that get you closer to your customers and embed new ways of working. Your journey to an agile, innovative digital product organisation starts today.

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