Like most of the best brands, Proviz was founded by people passionate about the products they sell. Having been avid cyclists, brothers Anthony and Rupert Langly-Smith identified several issues with the equipment that they and fellow commuters were wearing on their rides - and, having noticed that gap in the market for innovative, light-emitting and reflective products, they launched the first five Proviz products in 2009.
The brief
The strategy
The process
The results
Facing a growing number of issues with Magento 2, Proviz were keen to move away from the platform - and do so quickly, prior to their peak autumn season as the darker nights draw in. They also wanted to improve their performance against Google’s Core Web Vitals during the migration - no mean feat, as their previous home had been a headless site built, in part, to maximise site speed.
The final key pillar of the brief related to a mix of issues caused by the previous two - they found managing content on the site difficult on a day-to-day basis, and needed Shopify’s more user friendly backend - which has become so popular with ecommerce brands - to make managing the site more efficient.
The brand, having worked hard on their site’s design previously, were happy with the general look and feel of their Magento 2 site - but we were also asked to take all necessary steps to improve the site’s UX and UI and, as a result, the customer journey - this made the design aspect of the migration one of refinement more than revolution, but no less important.
To enhance the user journey of Proviz customers, we proposed creating a bespoke Shopify theme to ensure that the best parts of their Magento 2 site were carried into the new project while allowing us to take advantage of the advanced functionality of the Shopify platform. This helped us to create a user-centric, conversion-driven, mobile-responsive (and other hyphenated compounds) site, and to achieve the outcomes Proviz needed.
In addition to greater backend integration potential, and some great front end options for the new site, Shopify 2.0 and Shopify Plus helped us to empower the Proviz team with efficient and easy to use store management, which will save time and money as the brand continues its fantastic growth.
To meet the desired improvements for UI and UX, our fantastic designers worked with the team at Proviz to make sure that our best practice processes were aligned with their vision for the user journey.
With the work Proviz had put into the designs of their previous site, they had achieved a look and feel that they were pleased with - for that reason, our designers focused on refinement, creating a less cluttered, friendlier looking top nav and search, with a sleeker feel that better reflected the quality of their products.
To assist with the user journey, category pages were also tweaked to provide shortcuts representing common paths to purchase - allowing customers to skip the process of refining searches and click right through to their preferred products.
There was also a process of refinement throughout the site - with edges smoothed, journeys shortened and information, as with the product pages, provided to help drive conversions - including making use of the extensive social proof the brand has accrued in its fantastic customer reviews.
In the first few months after launch, the Proviz team has begun to enjoy the many benefits of a platform, site design and build that has what the brand needs to help it grow. This has resulted in the following improvements to integral business metrics.
- 23% increase in total purchasers (YoY)
- 22.7% increase in first time purchasers (YoY)
- 14.4% increase in sessions (YoY)
- 1.8% increase in total revenue (YoY)
However, it wasn’t just these that we were keen to improve, we were also tasked with outperforming a headless site-build on a platform which has had its fair share of historical issues with performance.
While performance varies with the addition of apps, the site consistently outperforms their previous headless site - and, more importantly than the CWV score (which are only an algorithmic stand-in for real world perception), the site feels just as fast for users.
The site also enjoyed a doubling of the keywords for which it ranks since its launch in July 2023 - and while there is excellent work being done by the Proviz team, the newfound efficiency of content uploading and site maintenance, and the work our team always put in to making sure all our sites are ready to rank, has played a part in enabling such excellent growth.
What may be the most impressive thing about these results, however, is that they resulted in a revenue increase that exceeded their investment in the website inside three months!
We would also like to credit the brand’s incredible products but, following the site launch, Proviz has enjoyed the following YoY results:
increase in total purchases.
increase in 1st time purchases.
increase in sessions.
Avid cyclists, brothers Anthony and Rupert Langly-Smith identified several issues with the equipment that they and fellow commuters were wearing on their ride.
Having noticed that gap in the market for innovative, light-emitting and reflective products, they launched the first five Proviz products in 2009.
Visit Site↗What We Did.
At the start of 2023 we learned that, in order to grow Proviz we needed a more stable, user friendly platform that could scale with us. Moving to Shopify Plus was an obvious choice, and after researching all the agencies out there, we quickly decided that Velstar would be the perfect partner to work with. Velstar were diligent during the build process and very open to ideas, while guiding us on best practices and problem solving. Their team is full of Shopify experts, who we have been able to call upon for advice and support. Nothing is too much trouble for Velstar, and they are always happy and able to accommodate our requests.
Justin Brown
Head of Ecommerce | Proviz