The transition from offline to online retailing is a significant undertaking that involves adapting to a new set of rules, technologies, and customer expectations. While it can be complicated, with careful planning and a commitment to learning and evolving, large offline retailers can successfully establish and thrive in the online marketplace. We knew creating the first online store for Jashanmal was going to be a challenge but we were more than ready for it. The 2 critical things that Jashanmal team briefed us about were:
Other requirements from the project were:
At Kloc, we treat each project differently and ensure that we don’t apply the “one size fits all” approach. We knew we had to customise a lot of what we do for Jashanmal in order to deliver a superior outcome.
Shopify makes maintenance of any ecommerce website a breeze as it has a feature-rich intuitive interface that enables even merchants with no technical background to navigate the admin dashboard and change content or manage products and orders. Hence, we knew Shopify would be the right choice for Jashanmal. Shopify also has one of the best repository of distinguished 3rd party apps to help manage complex inventory systems and environments.
It provides a large set of well documented APIs that could help us integrate with third party solutions like ERP, Loyalty, and Logistics.
We also emphasised on the need for creating product pages showing rich information and best experience using search and filter options on collections pages.
Jashanmal was going to list more than 200 brands on their ecommerce store and hence subscribing to Shopify Plus made complete sense. Considering the scale at which the brand was already doing its offline business, the unlimited bandwidth provided by Shopify plus would also be a huge advantage in managing large online traffic.
Out of all the Shopify plans, the amount ecommerce brands can do with Shopify Plus is unparalleled in terms of adding value. Ecommerce businesses can benefit from the greater functionality, productivity and api limits in a plethora of ways. Paired with the financial savings and increased revenue generation opportunities that come with using the platform over other legacy systems, the benefits pretty much pay for itself!
The most important section of the website was going to be the product listings. We used metafields for each product sections so that it would be easier to maintain and manage them. Showing elaborate product descriptions would also help increase conversions rates.
In order to be more relevant in 3 of their biggest markets which were UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain, we used an app called Webglot which manages translations into multiple languages.
The critical part of designing any Shopify store is identifying the theme. Considering the potential scale of Jashanmal business, we decided to go with the “Warehouse Theme”. Their powerful collection pages are built to organize, present, and filter catalogs with 1000s of products. The theme also offers highly versatile and custom settings giving you the power to create a truly unique display of your products, content, metafields, and more!
We added roadblock banners which helped the brand promote seasonal products. These are managed easily using custom sections through the theme editor. We also introduced the use of a megamenu. Mega menus are incredibly helpful for Shopify stores because they allow merchants to display a wide range of product categories, subcategories, featured products, and promotional content all in one dropdown.
We are beyond thrilled to have collaborated with Jashanmal in launching their first ever ecommerce store. This collaboration proved the fact that Kloc had the ability to create ecommerce powerhouses in different geographies across the world. With this online store, the brand was able to cater to all GCC countries seamlessly. We also managed to create a perfect omnichannel experience. While the brand continues to largely remain an offline brand, the online store not only contributes to a significant revenue but also helps the brand constantly stay connected with their consumers.
