Lower TCO Enables Launch of Unique Experiences, Storefront Delivers Decreased Time-to-Value

Shopify’s Lower Fees Free Budget for New Experiences, Decrease Time to Value

Moroccanoil had been platformed on a custom legacy stack for years and while the platform had served them well, the reliance on IT to do everything was slowing down their feature rollout. The unpredictable and expensive licensing costs were taking budget away from creating differentiated experiences, and the frequent patches and maintenance required to simply keep the platform functioning were becoming expensive and taking too much of their developer’s time. 

Switching to Shopify was a fundamental shift in how the digital arm of their business functions. The licensing costs became predictable and lower. Patches and maintenance are automated and handled by the platform. The UI and UX is business-user friendly, allowing marketing team members to push content updates and content blocks on the website in seconds. 

The switch gave Moroccanoil more budget to create unique and differentiated experiences, which they capitalized on aggressively launching a new perfume line 10 years in the making and launching a CRO program with huge results. The easy-to-use interface allowed more team members to push updates to the website, freeing developers to work on the big ticket items only they can develop, which decreased the time-to-value of Moroccanoil’s investments. 

Replatforming to Shopify empowered Moroccanoil’s employees, gave them strategic flexibility, and lowered their cost of doing business.

The first order of business in Moroccanoil’s digital overhaul was to change their platform provider to free up costs away from licensure and general maintenance. The move to Shopify is beneficial because it gives Moroccanoil access to Shopify’s robust native functionalities while lowering the general cost of upkeep. 

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Perfume Line Launch

‍The executive team of Moroccanoil had been dreaming of launching a perfume line for nearly a decade. Previously, the cost to keep the digital arm of the business running was prohibitive to launching any big investments like a new product line. Moving to Shopify made the licensure and maintenance costs lower and more predictable allowing Moroccanoil’s executive team the long-term strategic insight to launch their dream product line. 

Now, Moroccanoil’s dream is a reality. They launched an original perfume line, L’Origanle Eau De Parfum, on a series of pages created by our design team. The process started with Moroccanoil executives talking to our team about the spirit, look, and feeling they wanted the perfume line to have. Our design team took that input and built a site specifically designed to embody the feeling and experience Moroccanoil wanted their product to embody. 

The launch of the product was a huge success, doing massive business over its first available month. The success of the initiative is a testament to our partnership with Moroccanoil, to their clear and powerful vision of their business, and to the empowerment Shopify delivers to merchants who use the platform’s predictability, agility, and long-term roadmap to their strategic advantage.

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CRO Program Sees Big Results, Fast

‍Another initiative implemented through the lower TCO of Shopify was a robust and effective CRO program. CRO is one of the most effective initiatives an organization can deploy because it offers quick win revenue lifts and long-term, positive impacts to bottom line KPIs like total revenue, conversion rate, revenue per user, and average order value. 

Experiments conducted and established on Moroccanoil’s website include a promotional bar at the top of the homepage able to be updated by team members in seconds. This promotional bar can showcase new product launches, flash sales, shipping specials, and more. The inclusion of the promotional bar increased conversion rate sitewide by 12% and increased revenue per user by 9%. This is a tiny UX change with massive bottom line impacts.

Other experiments include changing the navigation tool from product images to text-based product filters, including upsell and cross-sell opportunities on add-to-cart notifications. Experiments are also run device-specific which allows insight into what UX features perform well on desktop, and which on mobile. Creating similar but different experiences based on user devices is proven to drive bottom line KPIs. 

The choice to use Visualizy as the CRO software has also paid off because it empowers business-users to make quick changes to PDPs and PLPs which gives the organization agility and an ability to monitor the success of their own experiments. By combining our CRO strategic expertise, Shopify’s user-friendly interface, and Visualizy’s quick change ability, Moroccanoil offers a unique customer experience that they can modulate, manipulate, and improve in minutes. 

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Expanding Digital Storefronts Globally

‍‍A key initiative in Moroccanoil’s growth strategy is to have as many customers experience their special products as possible. In order to do this, they needed Corra to help iterate their storefront to international markets. Shopify is natively equipped to do this, offering an ability to exchange currencies and translate the page from its native language to most other languages a brand may want the site to be presented in. 

However, there were a few bumps along the way that Corra smoothed out. Namely, some of Moroccanoil’s third party extensions, such as their loyalty offering, had trouble calculating rewards points earned in USD to other currencies. Corra built out a custom logic to assist Moroccanoil’s loyalty program to translate customer’s rewards points no matter which currency they’re using to purchase their products. 

At the time of publication, Moroccanoil’s site is up and running in the US, UK, Israel, and all over the EU with plans to launch the store in many more markets. We built Moroccanoil a reference storefront, and with that heavy lift over, they can now easily and quickly launch international storefronts without heavily involving developers. This added agility and scope increase of their business is directly attributable to the lower TCO and business-user friendly admin of Shopify. 

A Quiz with Only Right Answers

It’s important that a brand's commerce solutions provide one-of-a-kind experiences that resonate with why the brand’s products are successful. Moroccanoil is known for their argan-oil infused hair products that help any hair style or type look its healthy, shiny best. 

Because part of Moroccanoil’s success is the wide number of hair types their products can serve, it makes sense for Corra to build them a hair quiz that allows customers to interact with the website in order to find the best product for them. 

Users are prompted to answer several questions that pertain to hair type, texture, color, and desired style before they’re shown multiple Moroccanoil products that will work best with their hair to help them achieve their desired look. The quiz is also connected to the salon locator, so after users are informed of the products that will work best for them, they can see where the nearest location is for them to try or purchase the product. These types of omnichannel interventions help a brand build its voice and create loyalty among customers. Special and unique experiences build customer retention, and Corra is dedicated to helping our clients build the perfect experience for their brand.

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TotalCare is like Having a Stylist Strategically Guide Your Look

TotalCare is Corra’s budget-flexible managed services program that achieves frequent updates and enhancements through Agile methodology. More than merely a series of technological enhancements though, TotalCare is a strategic partnership that creates an achievable roadmap centered around client needs.

Moroccanoil’s roadmap includes all the features and stability optimizations listed above, and it also includes an ERP fix. 

ERP systems are a crucial part of any commerce solution, and through TotalCare Moroccanoil had an issue fixed where inventory changes after sales were slow to update to their ERP. Through our agile methodology, Corra noticed this issue, rearranged the priority of tickets, and resolved the issue. TotalCare is a one-stop shop for improvements, upgrades, enhancements, and general solution stability.