How do you curate a bespoke wedding shopping experience globally?
The Back Story
Vemanya, an uber luxurious range of wedding clothing that was doing well for itself, wanted to expand its horizons and go digital. Based out of New Delhi, the brand wanted to reach out to the world while keeping intact the essence of celebration associated with wedding shopping. Vemanya stands for a motto - Every bride is different.
Bringing alive the essence this brand stands for, we had to weave together one single platform that could appeal, engage, delight and impress all these different brides.
To Bring Alive an Experience and not Just a Store
Now, there are many agencies that can design an online store and a supporting website but Olive had to take a leap forward. We had to design something that even the most reluctant online shopper could be driven towards. We did not have to put together an online store. We were not even aiming for that. We were to bring alive an experience and that is precisely what we put our heart and soul into. Since Vemanya was especially aiming to tap the NRI market, our online initiatives had to have a global approach and the power to convince someone sitting on the other side of the globe.
The team at Vemanya hired a specialized consultant to prospect with top agencies across India to finalize a list of 3 to shortlist from. Olive made it in the top 3 within a month of their research. Olive’s Vice President, Strategy spearheaded the pitch and took to them a vision that outlined a comprehensive brand strategy that touched upon the dynamics of the e-commerce industry including the challenges ahead that would need to be addressed from a brand positioning standpoint, pricing strategy, effectiveness of technology platforms and insightful content marketing ideas to fuel the brand right from the start.
That 4 hour discussion was our elevator pitch and we were already into our next step – envisioning a bustling online space for a niche market. Their designated consultant did not even see the need to evaluate the other two proposals.
Leave no stone unturned to enable engagement online
What is the one main thing that keeps people from shopping online? It’s the experience. Especially when it comes to weddings and functions, families treat shopping as a celebration, as a means to not just buy an ensemble but also to demonstrate different looks, seek opinions and share choices. Especially when it comes to luxury clothing starting from a range say 35,000, the tendency to trusting a brand increases with the level of engagement. So Olive decided to amalgamate the comfort of shopping from home with the excitement of shopping with one’s loved ones.
Unique to this ecommerce project were features such as:
Customize your garment online (This is far more evolved a solution as the product is intricately woven and color and pattern changes are fairly complex to demonstrate and capture online)
Have your friends and family members shop as a group with the group owner having the option to pay for everyone
Shop now – try garment at the boutique in New Delhi and pay balance post trial
Request for a particular style of garment in say different color or fabric through a request page wherein the user can enter her email id and get a personalized reply.
Save all your measurements for future use
The extra mile
Olive believes in owning the projects it takes up. We shoot our ideas, question the client’s thinking, discuss nuances and shoulder the complete responsibility of helping the brand achieve the envisaged success.
Right from designing the logo to being present at the catalog shoot at Neemrana with our own photographer, we kept reaching out to the elements of Vemanya, that as an agency we did not have the responsibility to look after.
As we had a vision as to how our designed portal should look like, our creative teams collaborated with the team at Vemanya so as to let the photo shoot complement the design of thought put into action while curating the web space. As a result, the pictures seamlessly blended in the space.
After the launch of the web site also, a number of interactive features (like being able to see the ensemble in different colors and requesting for specific personalized designs on personal email ids etc.) we added by our team.
We Know How to Put Real into Virtual
Having successfully launched a seamless market platform for Vemanya, we are more in sync with the thought connecting real to virtual. Real will never go out of fashion, the key is to put real into virtual. No matter how spectacular the design is, even if one element of the real shopping experience is missing, the portal might lose a lot of traffic.
On a lighter note, after successfully convincing and pleasing two independent, determined, accurately business minded women in terms of creating value in the fashion industry, we know we can convince pretty much everyone else.