Key Outcomes
- Research-driven e-commerce strategy and complete website transformation, from navigation and checkout to product pages and order tracking.
- Modern, scalable Magento platform with new customer-first features that cut service enquiries and improved satisfaction.
- Navigation redesign and filtering improvements that unlocked new audiences and lifted transactions across all categories.
- Streamlined checkout and enriched product pages that removed friction, increased conversion, and reduced support requests.
$60m
Annual revenue uplift
74%
Uplift in transactions
Introduction
Restive partnered with a leading homewares retailer to transform their online presence and customer experience. Through in-depth research, we defined an e-commerce strategy and delivered a new end-to-end website experience, from navigation and checkout to product pages and order tracking. These improvements elevated the digital experience and also drove a dramatic revenue uplift.
The problem
A leading Australian homewares retailer set out to elevate its online experience to match the premium quality of its products. While the business had a strong store network and loyal customer base, its digital channels were underperforming – with gaps in navigation, product discovery, checkout usability, and customer service functionality.
The retailer needed to develop a cohesive e-commerce and omnichannel strategy, modernise its website, and deliver features that could drive growth, improve customer experience, and reduce pressure on service teams.
Our partnership
Restive partnered with the retailer to design and deliver an end-to-end digital transformation. Our involvement spanned:
Building strong foundations for the client’s digital transformation journey, which spanned platform migration to capability building.
Customer research and segmentation.
E-commerce and omnichannel strategy development.
Experience design and usability testing.
Magento implementation and feature delivery.
Ongoing optimisation and CX improvements.
This research-led approach enabled the retailer to modernise its site and identify gaps in its experience and offerings, unlocking new revenue streams.
Laying the foundations
Restive partnered with the client to lay the foundation for their new e-commerce platform and digital growth, including:
E-commerce evaluation & strategy: Assessed the client’s existing platform and digital capabilities (online, marketing, customer service) and delivered a roadmap with clear ROI projections.
Platform migration: Moved the website to Magento in order to enable new e-commerce features.
Capability building: Established an in-house digital team, introduced modern engineering practices, and embedded agile ways of working.
Customer research and strategy
Following the replatform to Magento, our first step was to conduct in-depth customer research to identify core segments and shopping journeys. We developed a comprehensive report and customer journey map outlining insights and opportunities at each stage of the shopping journey. Some key insights included:
Younger demographics were looking for home décor and apparel; however, these categories were hidden within the navigation.
Checkout and payment friction were key drop-off points.
Customers highly valued detailed product information and imagery when shopping online.
Order tracking and customer service enquiries were major points of frustration, as help desk teams were overwhelmed by order enquiries that could be automated or self-served.
From this research, we developed a comprehensive ecommerce strategy focused on:
Elevating under-served categories to unlock growth.
Removing friction from high-impact customer journeys.
Reducing service load through digital-first functionality.
Navigation and product discovery
New navigation
We redesigned the website’s navigation experience to enable better product discovery, creating more detailed subcategories as well as new parents categories such as home décor and apparel to target younger demographics. This strategic shift delivered immediate impact:
Up to 900% increase in sessions to underserved categories such as home décor and apparel categories.
Up to 74% increase in transactions across all product categories.
By rebalancing the navigation, the retailer was able to capture a younger, style-conscious audience that had previously been overlooked.
New filtering experience
We improved the filtering experience on product listing pages, with a special focus on the mobile usability. This included redesigning the UI to make filters easy to apply and remove, and also using user research data to map new filters for different product types based on customer considerations. This work led to an 11% increase in conversion for users who interacted with filters on the website.
Checkout optimisation
The checkout process was identified as one of the biggest pain points due to confusing options, lengthy steps and slow loading times. We gathered detailed requirements from the user research, designed a new end-to-end checkout journey, and conducted iterative usability testing to refine flows. Some key improvements we made include:
Simplifying the number of checkout fields.
Allowing for easy sign-in whilst maintaining the option of checking out as a guest.
Resolving key usability issues (such as the fact that updating product quantities from cart often led to errors and confusion).
Improving error handling.
Integrating a wider range of payment methods including Apple Pay, Google Pay and AfterPay.
Adding gift card and promo code integration.
Optimising mobile usability.
The streamlined checkout simplified the number reduced drop-offs, increased conversion rates, and aligned the experience with customer expectations of modern e-commerce websites.
Product pages and visualisation
To meet customer demand for more information and confidence when purchasing online, we designed new product listing pages and product detail pages. Key enhancements included:
Larger imagery and multiple product views.
Richer descriptions and detailed item information.
Easier item selection.
Better representation of member vs non-member prices.
Improved positioning of cross-sells.
These improvements increased conversions and reduced reliance on customer service by answering common pre-purchase questions directly on the site.
Service and account features
We delivered a suite of customer-first features that improved satisfaction and reduced service costs:
Order tracking: Allowed customers to self-serve delivery updates, get accurate delivery estimates and track multiple parcels.
Help desk: A new customer service portal was created in Freshdesk, centralising FAQs and customer service support.
My account dashboard: A new customer service portal was created for signed-in members, enabling customers to manage orders, details, and preferences with ease, as well as centralising their membership and loyalty information.
Overall, these features led to a drastic decrease in customer service enquiries, allowing help desk teams to focus their attention on those that need it most and leading to improved customer satisfaction and return purchases.
Additional enhancements
Aside from the above, we also launched a suite of other features to help modernise the broader experience. This included:
A new content-managed homepage for greater flexibility in campaigns.
A redesigned sign-in and sign-up journey, making membership easier and reducing drop-offs.
Ability to purchase and redeem gift cards online.
A new blog and inspiration hub, connecting content and commerce.
An improved wishlist experience, supporting supported browsing and saving for later, especially on mobile.
The result
Through this multi-year partnership, the retailer transformed its digital channels from an underperforming sales tool into a primary growth driver.
$60M annual revenue uplift.
Navigation redesign delivered a 900% uplift in sessions and 74% uplift in transactions in key new categories.
Order tracking and help desk significantly reduced customer service load.
The website now reflects the premium brand experience customers expect – while supporting scalability for future growth.
