New Interactive Website Drives 173% Revenue Growth
An Immersive World of Content and Commerce
Sanrio Inc.
Replatform to Shopify Plus
Digital Experience Strategy & Design
Back-end Integrations
Custom Development
Shopify Plus
Klaviyo
Avalara
Signifyd
Microsoft Dynamics AX
3PL WMS
RECOGNITION
Ava Digital Awards, 2021
Gold, Web-Based Production,
Creativity (Web Design)
BACKGROUND
Sanrio Co. is a quintessential part of Japanese pop culture. They are famous for Hello Kitty but the company also has a whole host of ‘kawaii’ characters (known as the culture of cuteness in Japan). Sanrio envisioned more for their site than just a store to purchase their products (stationary, toys, gifts, apparel, accessories, homeware, etc.). They wanted a central location where fans and newcomers can immerse themselves in the brand, discover characters, events, social content, download Sanrio wallpapers and crafts, learn new recipes, visit the Hello Kitty Cafe, and more. Corra completely redesigned the experience, performed complex back-end integrations, and launched Sanrio on Shopify Plus just in time for Hello Kitty’s birthday.
Together, Corra &
Sanrio Inc.
achieved:
Challenge
INCREASE IN AOV YOY
Sanrio’s previous UX was dry. It lacked the playful personality the brand is known for. In its original state, community events and social media were siloed from their commerce experience. Corra’s goal was to take the site experience from a vending-machine-like transaction to an engaging mix of content, commerce, and events. There were also complexities we needed to solve on the back end to accommodate Sanrio’s multiple sources of inventory, vendors, B2B and B2C business models, and complex architecture.
Sanrio chose Corra because of our strong design capabilities, backed up by our technology expertise. They trusted us to completely revamp the site’s look and feel and bring their vision to life. But they were also confident in our technology background (17+ years of site implementations) – which is why we were an ideal partner for their complex requirements.
Various Sanrio character pages.
Solution
WHERE CONTENT AND COMMERCE PLAY TOGETHER
With so many Sanrio characters, the opportunities for storytelling throughout the customer journey were endless. While Hello Kitty is an iconic name, Corra also wanted to introduce visitors to other adorable characters like Cinnamoroll and Gudetama by creating their very own pages to live and breathe.
Preview of Sanrio’s new homepage and goodies, including mobile wallpapers and user-generated content.
Solution
The new site is full of goodies to delight fans. The goodies content block on the character pages provides a fun assortment of content mediums and engaging touchpoints – such as a Hello Kitty memory game, mobile wallpapers, origami, coloring book pages, and more.
Additionally, there’s also a section to highlight events specific to that character and a social media block showcasing user-generated content with a CTA to tag the brand to be featured.
Design is where I feel Corra truly excels. Hello Kitty is one of the world's most popular characters, and Corra was able to reimagine our brand heritage in a clean and modern way, all with the approval of our overseas design team, which is no small feat.
Sanrio’s product landing page.
Solution
Consumers are able to discover local events and add them to their calendar seamlessly – or even track down and follow a cafe truck across North America. We wanted to bridge the gap between online and offline with one destination where different marketing channels and brand experiences converge.
Truck location and events calendar for the Hello Kity Cafe.
Solution
Corra’s designers completely revamped the design of the blog, improving the usability of the page. We added filtering options for visitors to easily find the content or characters they’re looking for – such as recipes, crafts, interviews, and more. We also designed badges to convey the different categories of blog posts that correspond with the filtering options.
Sanrio’s blog with filtering capabilities.
Solution
SHOPPING MADE SIMPLE AND SWEET
The Sanrio team was dissatisfied with their current site and wanted a complete redesign on Shopify Plus. Corra delivered a digital style guide that included colors, fonts, animated button styles, custom iconography, and badges like sale, trending, and best seller in seasonal sets for holidays like Halloween.
Sanrio’s style guide.
Solution
THE TECHNICALITIES
The new Sanrio site looks beautiful on the outside, but sometimes it’s what’s on the back end that counts. Their previous architecture was riddled with inefficiencies and limitations – the advancements Corra made drastically modernized their fulfillment process. We designed a custom API integration, for accurate and timely transferring of data, and we implemented a middleware solution, which the Corra team affectionately called Heysuke after one of the Sanrio characters. Heysuke includes advanced reporting of orders, transactions, fulfillment, and inventory reporting all baked in, giving the Sanrio team more visibility into their Shopify Plus data.
Corra also streamlined the Sanrio US team’s operations with Japan. The incoming product information from overseas that arrived in their ERP wasn't marketable or consistent. Previously, Sanrio US had to export all of these Japanese products into another application to edit and then reupload them manually. Corra’s solution was to create custom fields in the ERP so their team could make changes right then and there.
Results
Corra successfully redesigned and replatformed Sanrio.com. Our goals were to enable a stronger connection between consumer and brand, set Sanrio up to grow their audience and cultivate their community, as well as refresh their digital branding and UX to look good on every device. Corra’s technical team was also tasked with alleviating inefficiencies on the back end—that ultimately led to minimizing frictions in their customer experience. Through our TotalCare program, we will continue to support Sanrio.com and further unify their revenue channels by implementing Shopify POS in physical locations—creating a more seamless experience for their customers.
"The Corra team was extremely organized from our initial engagement all the way through go-live, and I highly recommend them for eCommerce development projects of all sizes. All questions, big or small, were often addressed within one business day, and there was a clear plan to resolve any issues that came up throughout the project."
Head of Ecommerce, Sanrio
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