Uncorked.com
Magento Commerce Migration : Site Redesign
Overview
Bringing Luxury Wines to the Masses
Terlato Wines is a leading marketer of luxury wines in the U.S. with a portfolio of more than 70 brands and more 90+ rated wines than any other company.
Terlato’s existing website primarily provided some information on their brands and where to buy them in retail locations. They wanted to start selling these wines directly to customers where it was legal to purchase online. They wanted a website that could be managed easily and one that would integrate with their existing fulfillment systems.
Strategy
Creating a Scalable Ecosystem for the Future
Terlato was looking to the future, but their current systems were built around a world that was quickly dissolving. An ecommerce solution that could integrate with their inventory management and fulfillment systems would help ease the transition.
I was brought in initially to provide UX and design expertise. However, my experience with ecommerce platforms allowed me the opportunity to guide them to Magento, an ecommerce platform that was both open source and well maintained by the community. It was solid and scalable. I recommended this platform and assisted in interviewing backend partners for the integrations with their front and back of house systems.
Methods | Research
Finding our Customers and Mapping Their Behaviors
User Personas
I created a user persona based on interviews of stakeholders, customers, and by reviewing analytics data. What I came up with was an ideal customer profile including their goals, lifestyle and needs. Personas are a great way to see if your design/branding strategy is matching what your users need.
Customer Journey Map
A journey map is a visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal. It’s a great tool to understand where the process is working well and where it is failing – your customers pain points. If you do not pay attention to where your UX is failing your product and business will soon follow.
Methods | Design
Wireframes and Visual Designs
The process of turning research and testing into a polished design can be time consuming but fun. In the end you end up with a design that satisfies the client while maintaining a user-focused design process. The designs on the left are the first wireframes I developed through research and testing. The 2nd and 3rd designs show some of the tweaks my design took over the course of different rounds of iterations.
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Outcome
A Website Built for Sustainable Growth
The new website was launched in time for the Holiday season in 2013 and I continued providing design and development support until 2017.
Uncorked.com had their highest year of sales in 2015 and they continue to grow their customer base. After the first year I recommended they move their hosting to Nexcess, and that move really helped improve site performance.
The knowledge I gained in helping bring an existing company into the e-commerce space was invaluable. Magento is a great commerce platform and it has served Terlato well.
By the end of my work with Terlato I had touched nearly every aspect of the business:
- market research
- competitive analysis
- information architecture
- project management
- visual design
- print design
- search engine optimization
- AdWords Management
- Adding new inventory
- Email Marketing
- … etc.
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