User-Centric E-Commerce Experience and Digital Strategy for a Sri Lankan Fine Lingerie Brand

Launched in 2019, Tinge is a women’s innerwear brand based in Sri Lanka catering to a global audience in North America, Europe & Oceania continents.

Tinge was in need of converting their existing website to a functional e-commerce platform customized for secure online purchases.

They also required a digital strategy to drive traffic to the website and increase conversions. 

As a MarTech company with e-commerce development and digital marketing services, Tinge reached out to Creative Hub for effective solutions.  

Hence, the key challenges were :

• Redesigning the website with a modern, functional, user-friendly appeal for a seamless shopping experience

• To optimize the site for search engines and rank higher on SERP to enhance discoverability for the global audience 

• A systematic backend to easily update products, manage sales, customers, and careers

• A digital strategy to drive traffic to the site and increase conversions

Our strategy was to create a responsive, functional, search engine optimized e-commerce platform with a customized backend to control, manage and update products, careers, and so on. 

Conducting research on competitor analysis and target audience, we organized the site structure, functionalities of the site, and our technology approach. 

Design Process (UI/UX)

On a mobile-first approach, we designed the user-centric interface with a consistent color scheme and a style guide that aligns with the brand. 

With 68% of visitors completing purchases on mobile devices, the website design was created to be responsive on all devices like mobile, tab, and desktops. 

Main Pages

We designed the website as a minimal, clean, ergonomic interface and incorporated the professional e-commerce elements. 

First, the home page was designed with exceptionally attractive images and useful information to lure the attention of the visitors. 

As with any e-commerce platform, the header featured all the main pages as About Us, Shop, Careers, Size Guide, and Contact Us. And the product categories were listed in the dropdown categorized navigation menu of ‘Shop’. 

Moreover, the organized footer gave quick access to frequent information links such as size charts, FAQs, returns, and exchanges. 

The footer also included social media links, newsletter subscriptions, and log into user accounts to facilitate the user to stay connected with the brand. 

Overall, the pages were designed to give the familiar feeling of any professional e-commerce platform. 

Product Pages

The user experience is a key element of a site's performance. 

So understanding the user requirements, product pages were designed to be informative and efficiently organized to facilitate a convenient experience. 

For example, each product page included multiple high-quality images and appropriate descriptions of each product, availability status, and size options to select.

Further, for the user to easily find their products, a list of quick links to all the product categories,  filter by price, and sort by (name, rating, model A-Z, and price range) options enhanced advanced search within a short time. 

Checkout

A simplified registering process and guest check-out assisted visitors to complete purchases in a few clicks without any inconvenience. 

The check-out process is only 5 steps (6 if the delivery location is different and only the receiver details and address to be entered at step one) and is logically structured in accordion style (collapsible content). 

As the main payment gateway, PayHere was integrated into OpenCart for a secured online transaction. 

For additional protection, SSL certificate encryption was enabled to secure visitors' personal information and financial transactions.

 A ‘Thank You’ page was also created to confirm the completed transaction. 

Technology Implementation

The e-commerce site was built on Opencart (one of the open-source e-commerce platforms) and customized to meet Tinge's requirements. 

Our purpose of utilizing OpenCart was due to its wide range of functions and ability to code, create and administer an online store effortlessly. 

It's written in PHP and has a MySQL database, so it's very simple to set up and use. 

Moreover, the OpenCart platform was the most suitable to address Tinge's objectives since the platform is capable of full customer management, order management, product management, reporting, and SEO compatibility. 

It also supports an unlimited number of products, categories, customers, and transactions which is beneficial for the brand in the long run. 

Furthermore, the platform is customizable and provides 13,000+ add-ons which allowed us to create custom codes to provide a unique nature to the site. 

With OpenCart’s MVC (model view controller) pattern, we organized modules and code reusability, to develop a flexible, effective, and efficient site in accordance with the client's requirement.

In terms of other technologies, the site was developed with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript as front end technology, PHP as backend, on Apache web server, and MySQL as the database.  

Admin Backend

A fully structured and functional admin backend was developed to efficiently control, analyze reports, and manage the platform. 

For example, the site allowed the admins to manage orders, catalogs, customers, and users. 

In addition, data reports analysis, bulk product imports, update careers, and so on were also made possible. 
 

Moreover, with OpenCart, it’s easier to track the marketing campaigns within the admin panel as well. 

For example, the built-in features allow viewing a customized set of reports and metrics such as most visited pages, periodical sales uptrend, customer orders, customer transaction reports, products viewed reports, etc

SEO

In terms of SEO,  technical and on-page SEO best practices were followed according to Google’s Core Web Vitals. 

With OpenCart’s built-in SEO features, meta titles, and meta descriptions were updated and a strong internal link structure impacted the site’s discoverability on SERP. 

Further, we ensured a seamless user experience, with faster load times, size-optimized images, and responsiveness on all devices. 

To measure the site performance and boost SEO, we set up Google Analytics and the sitemap for the site. 

Organized data in schema markup aided search engines to understand the Tinge site and its content. 

Testing and Launching 

Before the launch, we conducted several testing sessions to figure out any issues with the navigation experience, check-out process, security of the database, and financial transactions. 

Ensuring that the site was fully compatible, secure, and seamless, the Tinge e-commerce site was successfully launched. 

Digital Marketing Strategy 

Tinge required a digital marketing strategy to drive traffic and conversions to their new website. 

So we adopted a strategy to increase awareness of the brand and products with paid and social media marketing. 

With paid media, we were able to target and attract potential buyers and social media campaigns led to an increase in engagement and visits to the website. 

High-quality engaging and informative posts highlighting the product benefits gained massive traction locally and internationally. 

Facilitating all the requirements similar to a professional e-commerce platform, the website developed was easy to navigate, and flawless with a smooth user-centric experience. 

After the launch, Tinge site performance increased with more visits and fewer bounce rates. 

As a result, there was also a surge in sales revenue and conversions. 

Finally, we were able to meet client requirements with a well-developed e-commerce site and a powerful backend to render an effortless user experience.

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