You could probably tell with all of our social media posts this week that we’re pretty happy and excited about our new website! :) For us, it represents months of work meticulously planning every detail. Our aim was to design a simple and engaging website and there were 3 areas we really focused on:
- Customer experience
- Community
- Content
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
When embarking on developing a new website, we really wanted to make sure that our customer experience was world-class. We want our customers to have a seamless experience and purchase journey when they visit www.gympluscoffee.com. We believe there is only one place to go to for that, Shopify. It is considered best-practice globally when it comes to ecommerce stores. With the help of Milk Bottle Labs, our new site now has everything from sizing charts, to delivery details, to new improved payment methods, faster loading, more ways to contact us and much more. We now believe we are structurally set up for the years ahead.
COMMUNITY
Sometimes, we feel we mention this word too much but it’s hard to find another word that so accurately describes our brand and audience combined. We always say that we want to
inspire a community of people to make life richer. We REALLY wanted to get this across in our website. When designing the new site, we spent hours debating how we could get this across and how our website could be used to build a community that encourages and inspires others. During one meeting, we were discussing all the photos we get tagged in and how amazing they are. We couldn’t believe the places people have visited in our hoodies and the ways people stretch themselves. We had already been sharing these on social media and then the penny dropped! Why don’t we put these on our website? So, as new people visit our website they can see these inspiring photos from our community!
When deciding on the layout of the site, we thought that “COMMUNITY” made perfect sense to make as a whole section too. When we thought about the initiatives we do, whether it be our events, our collaborations or even our blog, we recognised that these are all done to help build and inspire a community of others. So this made perfect sense when we were designing the site. (Spoiler alert: we have one piece left to finish and to fit in our community section. Look out for a really exciting collaborations launch we have coming in the next 10 days!)
Another way to integrate the community was to link it to the product. At its most basic level, G+C is the relationship between the customer and the gear. We have been getting loads of amazing emails and anecdotal positive reviews of the gear but we needed to capture this and amplify it in some way. So, a new feature on the site is customer reviews under each product. Now, you can see feedback and a star rating from people who have already bought this item.
CONTENT
As with most brands nowadays, especially online, social media brands with a community, content is so important. Over the summer we really struggled here, we didn't have enough content and it hurt us. In the last 6 weeks, we have massively invested in our new content to feed our marketing strategy and prepare us for future plans.
However this is not just commercial and product focused content. Our ambition is to be a global, Irish brand. We want to represent the best of modern Ireland and our growing active culture, so our content will showcase this contemporary lifestyle. In our marketing you can expect to see spectacular scenery from rural areas to vibrant cities.
This approach, we think, will be crucial to our expansion overseas. It's pretty scary but before the end of the year, we will launch in a number of new markets including the USA. Ireland is a place and an ideal that people think positively of, but we're not just Guinness and sheep! :) We want to showcase the modern social culture of Ireland revolving around active exercise and people making life richer!
So, for us, Website Week has been the culmination of months of strategic and technical work for G+C. Trying to put all the important foundations in place for our (fingers crossed) future success. Gulp! :) We hope you like our new site. As always we'd love to hear what you think so please comment below or send us a message! :)
