Shopify web design for a Malaysian condiment brand in New York, with a shop organised by recipe

Auria's old website was costing her sales and time. It crashed when traffic peaked, so orders were lost at the busiest moments, and very few visitors went on to buy. Most of her visitors were on their phones, where the site was at its weakest. Behind the scenes, the back end was so awkward that processing each day's orders took hours. And the dated design didn't show the colour and character of condiments made from family recipes passed down through generations.

A new platform, with every record carried over

Our ecommerce website design started with the platform. We moved the store to Shopify because the old site couldn't cope with its busiest moments and made every order a chore to process. Every customer record, past order and product came across, so nothing was lost along the way.

Illustrations instead of stock food photography

In a crowded speciality food market, generic food photography makes one brand look much like the next, a common trap in food and beverage marketing. We commissioned custom illustrations inspired by Malaysian culture and its visual traditions instead, which give the brand a look of its own and bring back the colour the old site was missing.

A shop organised by recipe

Someone new to Malaysian cooking is more likely to know the dish they want to make than the condiment it needs. So instead of traditional product categories, we organised the shop around recipes such as 'Make Nasi Lemak', 'Authentic Satay Dinner' and 'Malaysian Breakfast', and each one leads to the condiments that go into it.

A shorter checkout for phone shoppers

Most visitors were shopping on their phones, where every extra step at checkout is another chance to give up. As part of our conversion rate optimisation, we cut checkout from four steps to two and added guest checkout, so a first-time buyer doesn't have to create an account. A shipping calculator and trust signals help people finish their order, and suggestions for products that go well together encourage them to add to it.

Within two months of launch, the conversion rate had nearly tripled. Processing the day's orders, which used to take two to three hours, now takes under 20 minutes, so running the shop takes far less of Auria's time.

Auria's is one of several New York businesses we've built for, and you can read more about our digital marketing in New York.

If your products are new to many of your customers, organising the shop around what they want to make can help them find what to buy. A shorter checkout with a guest option removes reasons for a first-time buyer to leave before paying. When the back end of a shop is slowing the business down, moving platform can give time back every day as well as making the shop easier to buy from.

Read more about our web design, conversion optimisation and branding services, or see more web design case studies and other food and drink projects.