Top Shopify Sites: Part 1

Shopify is one of the fastest growing ecommerce platforms despite being relatively new to the game and for good reason. The Shopify of today is a completely different monster than even 4 years ago when it was mostly viewed within the ecommerce ecosystem as a strong SaaS hosted solution for “mom and pop shops” looking to dip their toes into ecommerce .
In just the last year many brands have utilized Shopify as their launchpad and with the advent of Shopify Plus the industry has seen more and more major players like Red Bull, Budweiser, Tesla, and many more are finding Shopify as the superior solution over bloated (and hugely expensive alternatives like Demandware, Drupal and IBM).
Here are a couple of Shopify sites that have caught our attention, feel free to share more great ones for the next installation of this series:

The Queen of Shopify: Kylie Cosmetics

 
Kylie Jenner literally broke the internet with one of her infamous flash sales as millions of consumers flocked to her site to make a purchase before inventory ran out (spoiler alert: it happened very fast).  Guided by our friends at Brand Value Accelerator, Kylie Jenner has been able to build an ecommerce powerhouse.
I caught up with BVAccel’s VP of Design & Development, Kenny Rosenberg to ask him, “Why do you think Kylie’s site has been such a success and what strategies/planning have gone into this great success”

Alignment. Alignment has been the defining factor between the launch of a successful campaign or the shame that accompanies complete failure. With so many teams integral to the Kylie Cosmetics organization, all intertwined under a high-pressure deadline, each who similarly strive for the same goal — customer satisfaction — it’s absolutely critical that expectations become owned across all touch-points. Within minutes, a single mistake may potentially lead to revenue losses greater than you or I could even imagine.
It took months to find synergy. I attribute this to our ability to identify mistakes and foster an open dialogue of solutions with project stakeholders – both client and agency. The ongoing conversation of refinement cultivated a foundation of trust between us and the Kylie Cosmetics team – a foundation where the context of failure was seen as a courageous act. Flash sale after flash sale, we closed the gap to mitigate risks and the momentum snowballed overtime.
Honestly, there was really no concrete plan that was considered an “end-all be-all” strategy for success. Under a 72 hour deadline things move fast, plans change, details are overlooked and millions of dollars are on the line. Manufacturing, fulfillment, customer service, product development & marketing teams all increase the risk of error — And alignment was and still is the major key to our success.

Nescafe

The team at Nescafe managed to combine an amazing branding opportunity with their “Adult Helpline” concept alongside ecommerce sales with their 1 page scrolling Shopify site for their K-cups.  The site seamlessly pulls the visitor into the brand without pushing products or sales too hard, a truly difficult balancing act to pull off well.  This awesome limited release product site featured one page scrolling to increase conversion alongside an integrated marketing campaign targeted at acquiring millennial consumers through relating to the life transition to “adulting”.
The site’s launch marked the start of a unified marketing program that garnered quite a bit of attention as Nescafe sought to expand their consumer demographic to skew a bit younger.  One such social post can be seen to the left where Nescafe played with the notion of tax season.

 Mansur Gavriel

There are a couple sites that highlight Shopify as the only platform to consider for retailers with a rich branding and a select group of products that deserve to be put on display online as well as they are represented in-store. Mansur Gavriel is one such company.
There is no mistaking who the stars of this website are with the beautiful design; it’s the products.  The design team behind this site harnessed the power of Shopify to allow them to bring this elegant and decidedly beautifully simple site to life by boldly drawing attention to the products.  As this is a specialty brand, I imagine the company enjoys very strong conversion rates with the minimalistic nature of this site that drives consumer straight to product discovery and ultimately purchase.