Hotter Shoes has launched a new website as it prepares to expand into Europe and the US.
The retailer, ranked Top250 in RXUK Top500 research, says the site was designed to give a customer experience that is easier to use and better represents the brand.
The responsive, mobile-first site has been designed by Wunderman Thompson Commerce on HCL WebSphere 9, underpinned by a headless commerce platform on Google Cloud. The new site includes improvements to on-site search, personalised merchandising and search recommendations. The new site was built in order to be easier to navigate, to reduce response times and to improve the experience across channels for customers, regardless of whether they access it via a mobile phone, tablet or desktop. Much of the site was developed remotely during lockdown and so far, says Wunderman, it has significantly reduced its operational costs while cutting page speed times by almost 50%.
Victoria Betts chief commercial officer at Hotter Shoes, said the new site had been launched in time to enable locked down customers to buy online from their own homes. “We now have a new and improved ecommerce platform and website that’s already proved valuable, with increased sales and improved search engine rankings in its first week. We can’t wait to see the new site go from strength to strength.”
Andrew Waugh, business services director at Wunderman Thompson Commerce, said: “The coronavirus outbreak has changed the way consumers shop, and now is the time for retailers to finely tune their digital offerings in order to retain customer loyalty and drive sales. Hotter’s new digital flagship site is now far easier for customers to navigate. In fact, by moving to a modern website architecture and hosting, we’ve been able to create a much faster digital delivery pipeline that can be scaled to meet Hotter’s needs both now and in future.”
Wunderman Thompson Commerce has been working with Hotter since it developed its first website on IBM WebSphere Commerce in 2009.
Hotter, founded in 1959, is now one of the UK’s biggest footwear manufacturers and aims its footwear at a target audience aged 50 and above. It has more than 4m customers around the world.
