Case Study: How Swanky Optimised this Fashion Retailer’s Shopify Store for Success

Due to the inventiveness and stylishness of all of its original designs, Knomo has been experiencing an increasing rate of customer interest from online shoppers across the globe since its launch in 2004. 

However, despite the brand’s growing popularity, Global Ecommerce Director Will North admits that the team at Knomo spent last year struggling with the lack of technical flexibility available to them while they were hosting their online store with ecommerce platform Magento 1. As a fast-growing ecommerce business, the Knomo team wanted to be able to make changes and improvements to their website quickly and easily, and felt restricted by the fact that they could not make simple alterations to their online store without multiple technical hurdles and a considerable amount of waiting.

Making the Shopify switch

When they transitioned their website to Shopify, however, Knomo found that things were very different. Although they had initially been drawn to Shopify simply because of how cost-effective and scalable the platform was, Will says he was soon delighted to discover that with Shopify “you can actually go from conception to implementation in hours rather than weeks.”

Given that their business is large enough for them to invest in outsourcing help for their website design and development, Knomo therefore began reviewing proposals of Shopify Experts and partner agencies to find the team of ecommerce professionals who would be best suited to their brand. They quickly decided to work with us because they felt that our team’s advanced technical knowledge and experience in the website design and development industry would complement their brand perfectly by providing them with valuable insights into ecommerce strategy and user-friendly website design for Knomo’s own in-house design team to learn from.

How did we help?

Primarily, our team put together a detailed custom proposal to help the business improve in certain key areas. This proposal was split into three sections; a design and development consultation, a full apps and ecosystems review and internationalisation solutions support. 

As part of their consultation, we also provided Knomo’s staff with extensive Shopify training and general ecommerce website management sessions to help the team make the most of their new store’s updated tools, features and functionality.

This system proved to be extremely effective as, according to Will, our team’s design suggestions and during the consultation sessions “ended up changing our design quite a lot”. The apps and ecosystems advice we provided Knomo also helped them determine which apps would be most ideally suited to various elements of Knomo’s new build – making the website more enjoyable for its customers to navigate as well as easier for its founders to manage.

Additionally, we were able to action their data migration automation after consulting on it for no extra fee as the team did not yet have an in-house data expert to carry out the task. 

As Knomo is currently available to customers in over 40 countries and has employees working from over 15 different regions across the world, we also recognised that an international outlook and a ‘Knomadic’ love of travelling is an essential part of the brand’s philosophy, and thereby conducted our internationalisation consultation with this attitude in mind.

Our support with the international set-up of their website allowed Knomo to overcome Shopify’s currently limited internationalisation functions by creating new multi-currency workarounds and multiple localised website domains, helping the team to take their products global and expand into a much wider customer base. 

And what came of this consultation?

In short, the result was a compelling new Shopify website which is beautiful to look at, easy to navigate and optimised for global ecommerce success.

GIF to demonstrate Knomo’s striking and optimised new ecommerce website.

Knomo has recently launched the first of their 5 international website domains, which has now been live for 2 weeks. Even in these initial stages, Global Ecommerce Director Will North asserts that “the early signs are extremely promising”, a claim which is supported by the constant buzzing of the rather addictive new Shopify app on his phone, which notifies him every time a Knomo sale is made.

What’s next for Knomo?

Moving forward, Knomo plan to continue developing their strategy for managing 5 Shopify store fronts and are looking forward to continuing their work with us so that our team can collaborate with theirs to continually innovate and improve their website.

They are also looking into creating more internationalisation opportunities in countries where their business is currently growing – such as Australia, France, Holland and Singapore – by working to create more localised store fronts and so reach out to a wider customer base.

At Swanky, we are excited about the growth that Knomo continues to experience, and are excited to continue working with them in the future to help maximise their sales, customer reach and overall success online.

If, like Knomo, you are looking for a website design or development consultation that will ensure your store is headed for instant ecommerce success, Swanky are here to help. Our expert team are passionate about designing and optimising unique, beautiful, high-quality websites to help you unlock your full ecommerce potential and reap all of the exciting benefits of owning an exquisite Shopify store. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you are interested in finding out more.