Over the past few weeks, I’ve research, interviewed and written a case study about one of New Zealand’s largest and oldest retailers - a sort of Sears Roebuck to make a North American comparison. I suggest Sears because the ‘over-a-century-old’ appliance and electronics retailer Bond + Bond built their business - in part - by getting products, which otherwise would only be available to urban dwellers, to the rural communities.

In the case study, Linda Geary (business development manager for parent company Noel Leeming Group) emphasized time and again the reason for building out the website the way they did - the customer.

As she points out (in no uncertain terms):

“The long term holistic view of retail suggests that customers will choose their natural channel at the time of purchase and may change at will using a hybrid or mixture of channels. The point is, it’s the customers choice.”

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Multi-channel retailer talks about customer choice in case study »

Koko Bino is a tremendous example of successful niche marketing with their bright and inviting ecommerce shop - running on, you guessed it, … Elastic Path. This UK-based retailer sells project kits for making all manner of baby and toddler gear from fine yarn.

Knitters form a huge online community (as I learned at Moose Camp last year), and while often excused as a “low-tech” constituency, knitters interact with online projects, tips and tutorials as much as the most enthusiastic participants of any other hobby and yarn companies have entrenched themselves into the blogosphere by sponsoring high-profile knitting bloggers.

As they describe themselves:

A design collective? A new knitting philosophy?

Kokobino was born because we love to knit, especially for our - or actually anyone’s - babies and toddlers, but we couldn’t find the patterns to get us excited.

We wanted to create simple kits with real, modern designer patterns, the most beautiful colourful yarns, such as real cashmere and soft baby merino, interesting buttons and accessories all put together with the right needles, labels and all other equipment you might need to create a gorgeous Kokobino piece.

The best thing is you’ll definitely be able to do it - trust us, we had to knit the first range ourselves! Instructions are kept very clear and simple and we’ve created a little system that will not only tell you how easy a project is, but that will also indicate if it is going to take a lot or a little of your time.

If you ever drop a stitch, lose the plot or realize that what you’re knitting doesn’t quite resemble the picture, don’t despair. There’s help online! Look up your problem in the knitting tutorial and you’ll be on your way again before you know it.

They are doing the right things to embrace their customers and nurture a community. Design-wise, the site is clean with ample whitespace while at the same time colorful and cheery. The mix of graphics interacting with top-quality photographs is admirable and the page layouts are simple making navigation easy while reinforcing branding. They wisely incorporate suggestive selling with product info appearing when the shopper mouseovers the lifestyle shots on category pages - additionally, the shopper is offered cross-sells and up-sells on product pages. Also each product’s contents are clearly indicated so you know you’ve got all the materials you need to finish. The image previews respond quickly (handy for seeing detailed yarn textures and color choices) and they’ve utilized custom attributes to designate the project’s skill level and time estimate.

Importantly, they’ve leveraged EP’s baked-in SEO tools by using “clean,” keyword-optimized URLs as well as product-specific title tags. Doing so will likely help in converting those desirable customers who know exactly what they want.

Congratulations on a fantastic site Koko Bino!

PS I warm, handmade scarves ;-)

Another Elastic Path powered ecommerce site launched today, this time the retailer is Cotswold Collections, a UK-based seller of “Unique Classic Clothing.” Certainly, you want to tailor both the aesthetics and processes of the store to suit your users’ tastes and indeed the site’s design reflects a refined elegance with understated elements and a calming color scheme.

The site, built by Marketing Integrator Agency Leftfield Digital, makes excellent use of cross-selling by prompting the shopper to purchase coordinated items to complete an outfit, i.e.: select a blouse and be presented with the skirt and scarf worn by the model to complete the “look.”

Also notable is the use of size/color swatches as the “add to cart” action button making for a more casual, boutique-style shopping experience for the discerning shopper. Plus, I noticed a special offer for first time shoppers.

The search engine optimized title tags and URLs are an Elastic Path calling card and should reap tremendous rewards for Cotswold who will likely discover significantly higher conversion rates due to more specific searches.

For example, a URL ending with “knitwear/34-sleeved-top-with-whipstitch-trim” will not only reap customers who know what they seek and are ready to purchase, but will also appear higher in search results organically than a URL ending with a string of indiscernible characters.

And you should also try the dynamic zoom-in photo viewer. Want to see the detail on that button? Drag the wee viewer window to see close-up view without a big download wait. Slick!

Overall, they’ve created a compelling and well-crafted site.

Cheers and best wishes to Cotswold and Leftfield Digital!