Montreal-based Aldo Group is one of the world’s largest retailers -- with nearly 2,400 stores around the world, and 200 million customers. ALDO has long reigned as the leader for on-trend shoes and accessories. It was an early mover into e-commerce (almost 15 years ago) but hadn’t fully refreshed its site in nearly a decade.

When it came time to create a fresh experience to launch in 2017, ALDO started from scratch, Staying on top today demands a fully-connected retail experience optimized for every channel and device.

We knew that 70% of shoppers do research on digital before coming into stores, and that the path to purchase changed. Another thing? Expectations have never been higher -- retailers are expected to deliver an experience that does everything: offers quality products, tons of products and at competitive prices.

So we built a digital experience that's beautiful, fast and responsive.

Our goal? Elevate the brand via an improved e-commerce that caters to customers no matter where they are -- in stores, on the web, or on mobile.

The new storefront also had to work at scale. It was critical to deliver a modern, beautiful shopping experience across the U.S, Canada and 10 major markets globally.

We developed a crisp new feel, including a new custom typeface by type foundry Grilli Type. We also developed a photography styleguide for the retailer to use across thousands of SKUs - with a focus on motion to create engagement and excitement for products versus just static images.

Design and the engineering behind the site went hand in hand. After all, customers are obsessed with speed. Our tech behind the site was critical. "Let's hope this site works slower" -- said nobody ever!

Our goal was to make the site easy to use for Aldo shoppers all over the globe -- which are split 50-50 male and female. Two top goals included:

--Making check-out blazing fast:

While most clients and agencies concentrate on the homepage during an e-commerce revamp, we strategized based on the way customers shop (coming in through search). We focused our time on designing and developing the most important shopper flows: the product detail page and the checkout flow. Checkout was streamlined into an easy, four-part process allowing users to complete a purchase in under a minute.

--Making the experience human:

Digital cannot and should not take place of human interactions. Beyond being easy to use, whenever possible we inserted human moments. These include the copywriting in the checkout flow, images of real people wearing ALDO looks pulled from social, and digital in-store tools designed for use by associates and shoppers together.

The impact was immediate - increasing consumer engagement, and ultimately, revenue.

Checkout was streamlined into an easy, four-part process that allows a user to complete their order in under a minute.

--There was a 17% lift in brand perception in the first quarter of launch.

--Conversions shot up. In the US: a 10% increase in online conversions.

--Mobile traffic is up. It’s now 75%. Mobile transactions are over 50% of all transactions.

Further, as part of our continuous enhancement philosophy, we keep on optimizing it on a regular basis.

In addition to the new global storefront, they are partnering with us on a range of aspects ALDO’s entire digital ecosystem, including new digital tools for their in-store experience, new employee apps and work for other parts of The ALDO Group’s portfolio such as Call it Spring.