This luxury brand needed a designer website to showcase their premium products.

Challenge

Trendz Outdoors offers a range of luxury outdoor fireplaces, pizza ovens, and a firepit to homeowners across New Zealand and Australia. The quality of these fireplaces, the craftsmanship, and the service offered by the team weren't effectively communicated on the previous website. The imagery was unflattering and the layout made it challenging to discover the perfect outdoor fireplace solution. The fireplaces will elevate any home's outdoor lifestyle, and it became obvious that the website needed to display these luxury products in a premium way.

Messaging about the fireplaces was confusing. Answers to common buying questions weren't easy to find and the process of buying an outdoor fireplace seemed harder than it was. The seamless customer service experience the team at Trendz delivers wasn't translated across to a platform where a face-to-face explanation isn't possible.

Contributing to this lack of cohesion was the piecemeal nature of website upgrades. Pages had been added with little or no thought to the overall structure and navigation, with designs changing over time as different people made their mark on the site. The old website's CMS required a web agency to update at a significant cost, meaning many changes were avoided to reduce financial expenses. And while the site became more and more bloated it became harder and harder to actually find the information needed. This meant the digital platform promoting these assets needed to be upgraded to meet the expectations of discerning clients, and the design brought back into a cohesive approach.

Approach

While photos sell the dream it was 3D renders that clarified the reality. Showing prospective customers the product they were actually buying, and explaining the range of upgrades available, clarified the Trendz Outdoors offering while also showcasing the almost limitless level of customisation available. The website was structured to provide increasing levels of detailed information as a visitor ventured deeper into the product range so they saw the most relevant content at the right time. 

The dark style complimented the feel of an approaching evening and the use of warm orange was reminiscent of the glow of a fireplace. This also worked well with the range of imagery on offer, which was often darker in tone and would have fought with a bright website palette.

60% of the previous website's visitors used a mobile device so we built this site from a mobile-first perspective. Conversion points, imagery, and interactive modules all function as beautifully on smaller devices as they do on a desktop. This also influenced the website's navigation. We streamlined 25 header links down to only 6 in the new design, deciding to lead the visitor on a journey through the range, rather than force almost limitless options on them from the get-go!

Results

Beyond the cosmetic enhancements, there have been several significant empirical improvements and a significant shift in sales results due to this new website and the conversion rate optimisation (CRO) implemented. In the 6 months following the website's launch, we saw huge growth in the quality of business leads, and the level of self-qualification and education present in each enquiry. There was a 6.82% increase in the average sale value, versus the previous year and a 69.02% increase in the closed-won revenue. This was due, in part, to the 58.24% increase in the number of closed-won deals as a result of the website.

Leading indicators also saw significant improvements due to the new website. Website traffic increased by 94.18%, while new contacts increased 84.17%, with organic search traffic doubling in the 6 months after the website was launched, versus the same time the previous year. So while the new website not only looked good, and presented the Trendz Outdoors brand in a more fitting light, it has also delivered several real-world benefits within a very short timeframe since launch.

The new website was built on the HubSpot CMS, which means ongoing changes can be made with no additional cost to the business. The easy-to-use website management platform enables Trendz to control key parts of their website, like the gallery, without being charged for every little change. Thank You pages use personalisation tokens to show the personal approach the brand delivers and automated emails synchronise with form submissions to progress buyers to the next step in the sales journey.