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Historic Newspapers
Redesign and Migration from .NET to WordPress/WooCommerce
The Brief
Historic Newspapers is a hugely successful online business selling fully personalised original newspapers from the last 100 years. The website had been trading successfully on a legacy bespoke .NET codebase which was due to go end of life.
Our brief was to redesign and modernise the brands look and feel and introduce a more user focused experience throughout the shopping journey. After we completed the design process the client was so impressed that they then briefed us on the build requirements – which wasn’t an issue as our designers already new the chosen platform and designed with that technology in mind.
The solution
From both a design and build perspective our solution was very much customer focussed as the purchasing journey is a very complicated one, with lots of choice and variables. Our aim was to get a consumer through this purchasing journey as seamlessly as possibly, while improving key areas around upselling and crosselling into higher priced gift options.
The chosen technology of WordPress and WooCommerce was based on two facrors; 1, because the company already had another website on the platform so were already familiar with it. 2, because of the huge amount of flexibility the platform provides in crating bespoke products and attributes.
Added focus on increasing basket size
By utilising better design across the user purchasing journey
Bespoke Prices for different dates and titles
Using custom API lookups and pricing tables instantly available to the front end.
Easy Merchandising and page creation
By setting up templated designs that mean any admin can quickly create new beautiful pages for promotions or campaigns
Maintain all organic Traffic
Through through analysis of historic URL’s and applying new URL structure with detailed redirects and Google Management.
The Results
“I would highly recommend SOtechnology and they will be my first port of call in any future requirements in my Ecom career”
Kevin Sears, eCommerce Director, Historic Newspapers
Immediately after the site went live the business employed an independent 3rd party to run checks on the site – and the client was delighted when the results came back with zero major issues and only a handful of minor tweaks.
The new site went live around 4 weeks prior to the businesses peak trading period pre-christmas – black friday weekend.
The results across the weekend exceeded all expectations:
Revenue: +53%
Transactions: +42%
AOV: +7.43%
Conversion Rate: +20%