E-comm replatforming for 15 of the world’s largest shoe brands

the opportunity

Footwear giant Wolverine Worldwide has an impressive global footprint. But as the parent company expanded, their portfolio suffered from a lack of clarity and definition, particularly for the brands that now had competing product offerings (e.g. boat shoes, work boots, etc.). Additionally, each operated on a different ecommerce platform, which caused massive inefficiencies and complicated internal management.

We were brought in to align Wolverine’s entire portfolio through their digital properties. We started by understanding each footwear company’s unique offering through robust customer journeys and user personas. Next came the ultimate e-commerce assignment as we migrated all 15 footwear giant brands to Salesforce Commerce Cloud, an enterprise e-comm platform. We successfully re-architected, re-designed, and launched each site with reusable modules to increase efficiency. As digital partners, we worked with each brand’s marketing team to create a unique series of sites that have an incredibly strong, shared foundation, but tell wildly different stories.

the outcome

Over the course of two and half years, we designed and developed a single solution for 15 unique brands – essentially working as part of the internal Wolverine Worldwide digital team. Rooting our strategy in consumer journey maps for each brand’s target, we mapped out all customer touchpoints from brand awareness to post-purchase, and highlighted areas for opportunity and improvement throughout their experience.

The resulting network of flexible pages allowed us to fully execute each brand’s specific vision, clearly differentiating their product offerings and brand DNA. Since the portfolio includes everything from military boots, to running shoes, to casual sandals, we customized the sites to fit brand and consumer priorities. Simply put, our system put into practice was greater than the sum of its parts.

verticals

• Retail
• Footwear

services

• Stakeholder Research
  • Stakeholder interviews with leaders across WWW and each of the 15 parent brands
• Consumer Research
  • Surveys and interviews with existing customers to understand unique challenges and goals with existing site experiences
  • Working sessions helped us define the various customers for each individual brand, and more specifically, for each brand’s product categories (getting to the consumers’ core)
• UX / Site Architecture
  • Development of templates to be used across each brand site
  • Content strategy specific to each brand
  • Implemented content areas in key areas to allow for customization throughout the shopping journey
• UI / Design
  • Brand design applied to each site for a branded experience from homepage to cart