Q&A: Mike Warwick talks about the new Joseph Joseph website

Kitchenware retailer Joseph Joseph has just launched a new version of its website. It looks great, but what’s behind the redesign?

I’ve been asking Joseph Joseph Head of Online Mike Warwick about the new design…

What was the thinking behind the new site? How long since it was last updated? 

We had been on our previous platform for approximately 10 years but had gone through various updates in that time. April 2013 was the last major overhaul, where the site moved to a responsive design.

JJ website

Our online growth here in the UK and internationally over the last few years has been strong and we wanted to build on that success by improving our site for the customer.

In 2015 we launched our French site to join our US subsidiary and with Germany and Japan sites due to launch this year we needed a platform that could quickly and easily scale internationally, whilst being managed by a small internal team.

How did you identify the areas you needed to change?

We wanted the site to become the font of all knowledge for Joseph Joseph, a place where our customers could get immersed in the brand as well as our products. This required a rethink of our entire site structure and all content.

We also wanted to put the customer first and really look at the usability of the site from their perspective which meant thinking about navigation and how it translates on tablets or devices.

What’s new about the redesign? 

Everything! We started from the ground up. Our previous site had a one level traditional category structure that consisted of eight sizeable categories, we’ve now broken it up into 36 categories over two levels with more specific groupings of products so people can find exactly what they’re looking for.

While the navigation on the right hand side of the logo is catered towards the browser who isn’t sure what they are looking for but wants to see our whole range.

jj nav

We’ve also enriched the information provided within the main menu, using sticky navigation (and sticky add to bag on the product pages), expanded account login and account information, full details of what’s in your basket, and suggestive search results, all without leaving the page you are on.

You’ve opted for very detailed images, even for relatively low proced products, like this garlic peeler. Have you tested the effects on images on sales? 

This was always on our mind with the new site design.

All of our products, from can openers or to kitchen bins has design innovation behind it and a unique story to tell, this is not something that our retailers can easy convey using their standard product page templates.

We wanted a design that allowed us to customise each product page to suit the story of the product.

This will be a work in progress over the coming months as we backdate all of our core range, but our Dial page is the closest to the direction we are heading towards.

Dial page

There are quite a lot of relatively low-priced gadgets on the site – how do you encourage shoppers to increase order values? 

By making the customer fall in love with our brand. Although AOV is an important factor, our main consideration is that the customer has left with a positive experience and found what they’re looking for.

If we’ve done our job correctly they will fall for the innovation behind that one low-priced gadget, find it genuinely useful and return to extend their Joseph Joseph collection.  

What’s the thinking behind the one page checkout? 

We wanted to reduce the number of steps and data entry required for a customer to complete our checkout, without losing them along the way.

We also wanted to offer standard features such as guest checkout and saved payment details to make the journey as seamless as possible.

JJ checkout

The site build itself was done in a short timescale so we couldn’t stray too far from what came out of the box on the Magento Enterprise platform, but we do have a few checkout enhancements planned for the next phase of development to simplify the journey even further.

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