Case Study: +67% Revenue for Kent Brushes After Migration From Magento to Shopify

Distinguished hairbrush manufacturer Kent Brushes made the switch from Magento to Shopify earlier this year, with a stylishly-coiffured online store designed and built by Swanky. Since their migration, year-on-year revenue is up 67% and the conversion rate on their site has seen a 52% increase.

In this case study, we’ll explore the challenges Kent Brushes were facing on their Magento 1 site, what Swanky did to help, and what impact their new site has had on key ecommerce and behavioural metrics. You can find out more about our experience in Magento to Shopify Plus migrations here.

Brand overview

As the oldest hairbrush manufacturer in the world, Kent Brushes is a brand steeped in a rich and intriguing history. Their illustrious background tells a tale of meticulous craftsmanship and continuous innovation, which has been recognised by the granting of Royal Warrants for nine reigns. 

Today, after nearly 250 years of trading, Kent Brushes distributes to more than 50 countries across the globe, including the US, Canada, Australia and Europe.

Their products, which range from styling brushes and shaving sets to handmade toothbrushes and beard combs, are available to buy directly from their ecommerce store, or, for UK customers, in-store at some of the country’s most established department stores (including Selfridges and Fortnum and Mason).

The challenge

With Magento 1’s end-of-life looming and their site support soon to expire, Kent Brushes were eager to upgrade their ecommerce tech stack, starting with a brand new platform to live on. 

After comparing the costs and features of ecommerce heavyweights Magento 2 and Shopify, it was the latter that stood out as the best fit for the brand’s business needs.

Discussing the reasoning behind Kent Brushes’ migration, the brand’s Ecommerce Manager Carly McIntyre said:

“We needed a flexible solution that doesn’t require expensive, endless development and maintenance. Shopify allows our team to be agile and responsive to the needs of our consumers.”

Having enjoyed working with Swanky on a previous replatforming project during her time at luxury fashion retailer Needle & Thread, Ecommerce Manager Carly was excited to join forces with us once again.

How Swanky helped

We migrated the Kent Brushes store from Magento 1 to Shopify, with their new site launching at the end of June 2020.

Storytelling through design

Let’s hear from the lead UI Designer on this project, Sam Wilkinson, about how he used the site design to communicate the brand’s unique heritage:

“Kent Brushes has so much fascinating history, with a unique culture and outstanding reputation, but their old site didn’t communicate these brand features at all. Their British manufacturing heritage is such an important USP to communicate to shoppers, so weaving the brand’s story throughout their new store was a priority.

With this in mind, we created a timeline feature to showcase the milestones in Kent Brushes’ history.

Interactive elements like this really help engage users and provide a memorable on-site experience. Plus, creating a narrative around the brand helps inspire confidence and loyalty through demonstrating key values like authenticity and quality.

Despite having been trading for almost 250 years, Kent Brushes continue to innovate and embrace industry trends, creating contemporary products for modern consumers.

In order to balance portrayal of their historic roots with their modern appeal, we mixed the use of old, black and white imagery with crisp modern photography.

The timeless, stylish site design, subtle colour palette and refined font combination also help to showcase both the classic and contemporary aspects of the brand.”

Tech stack consultation

This project wasn’t all about looks though. With Kent Brushes’ move to Shopify signalling an architecture upgrade, our experts loaded up their digital toolbox with all the right apps for ecommerce growth. 

With an extensive selection of products available to buy on their ecommerce store, an intuitive on-site search experience is key for Kent Brushes. Thanks to its long list of conversion-boosting features, including error tolerance, recommendation blocks and advanced results filters, Searchanise can provide exactly that.

Next up, for all their customer review needs, we recommended Swanky favourite Okendo. The Kent Brushes team can leverage this popular tool to showcase high-impact reviews and other forms of user-generated content, build trust and compel buying action.

Our consultants recommended Klaviyo as the best-fit when it comes to customer engagement. With this powerful app integrated into their digital ecosystem, Kent Brushes can listen to, analyse and act upon customer data, enabling them to provide a tailored customer experience across multiple channels. Find out more about Klaviyo and its features over in our Ecommerce Spotlight series!

Results

So how has Kent Brushes’ migration and site build impacted key ecommerce and behavioural metrics? Analysis from the six weeks after their Shopify store launched compared with the same time period in 2019 reveals that:

• There’s been a 67% increase in overall revenue, whilst revenue per user has risen by 72%.
• Average order value has increased by 12%.
• Conversion rate on the Kent Brushes site has seen a 52% boost.
• There’s been a 49% increase in the number of transactions completed on the store.
• The bounce rate has decreased by 14%.
• People are now spending longer on the site, with a 12% increase in average session duration. The number of pages being viewed per session has also increased since last year, with a rise of 27%. These increases could be the result of improved user experience, with faster page loads, easier navigation and engaging visual design.

Discussing the impact of the new Shopify store, Ecommerce Manager Carly said:

“We are delighted with the results we’ve seen since migrating from Magento to Shopify – the figures speak for themselves.

Replatforming to Shopify has also allowed us to focus more time and resources on growing our business with exciting marketing strategies, rather than having to spend money on constant maintenance work.

Moving forwards, we feel confident that we have the right platform behind us to accelerate Kent Brushes’ global growth!”

Migrate to Shopify with Swanky

Magento making you miserable? WooCommerce woes getting you down? Talk to our team today to find out if Shopify is the right solution for your business. 

With a decade of experience behind us, we’re well placed to provide honest, expert digital consultancy when it comes to choosing the right ecommerce platform for you.

And why not take a look at our must-have migration bundle, complete with downloadable ebook, on-demand webinar and plenty of replatforming success stories to get you inspired!