Website Redesign, Rebranding, and Social Media Optimization for a Retail Store

As a consignment and boutique store,  the client operates using a resale model with a carefully curated product selection from sought after brands at about 60% off store prices. The store sells women’s clothing, handbags, jewelry, and shoes along with seasonal items such as Christmas decorations and winter gear. The company is also a supplier of Dixie Belle Paints and sells home decor & furniture. The furniture is hand-painted and can be customized according to customer specifications. The establishment also hosts painting and craft events.

Situation: 

Consignment stores thrive on in-person traffic as people browse the store’s offerings and come in person to sell their own items and then often shop afterwards.The nature of consignment stores makes the impacts of COVID-19 particularly pronounced on our client and many other similar stores.. 

Our client is looking to transition from typical consignment store items such as women’s clothing and shoes to selling items with higher profit margins including furniture, custom-made items, and seasonal products. 

Since the beginning of COVID-19, our client has focused on shifting her business online, mainly via Facebook and a recently developed Instagram page. The client also is looking to rebrand to shift customer focus towards furniture products without losing her existing clientele. With a lack of experience managing an online business, she needed to revamp her website and social media in order to attract new customers and boost sales by keeping existing customers up to date on product offerings

Challenge: 

Our focus consisted of two different aspects: redesigning her digital strategy in order to effectively reach out to customers in light of reduced foot traffic and rebranding the business to focus on furniture while maintaining her customer base. 

The client had inherited their website from the previous owner years ago. It was visually unappealing and inefficient in using the capabilities of the Wix platform which it operates on. In addition, her inventory management was done manually using an Excel spreadsheet disconnected to the cloud. 

Their website, in-store business, and social media accounts were all separate and led to added work in order to update each area one at a time. 

As a consignment store, the client struggled with brand positioning. There were issues of how to correctly position their brand; it wasn’t a thrift store, but it also wasn’t a luxury goods store, nor was it solely a furniture store, even if the goal was to sell more furniture items.

Approach: 

Our client had wanted to move away from items with smaller profit margins like clothing and shoes. The reduced foot traffic as a result of the pandemic accelerated the need for this transition. Our team determined that first and foremost, we needed to redesign the website, change how the client sold products and streamline their inventory management. Regardless of what the client wanted to sell; these were essential steps for their business to succeed in pandemic times. A member of our team with experience in web design took the initiative to redesign our client’s logo and made mock-ups of her website with a new more visually appealing and organized design. 

Our client needed to better understand her current customers and identify target ones. With a university in town and New York City under an hour away, we identified three different segments. The first was college students looking to furnish new apartments. The furniture offerings and trendy items such as album posters and guitars could appeal to this younger university student demographic. Secondly, we looked into the current trend of consignment and thrift shopping and identified younger couples who recently moved into apartments and working professionals. Finally, we looked at the older demographic that like antique items that our client can offer with her furniture products. 

This shaped our approach to designing the website and offering guidelines to her social media strategy. We grouped similar products together and emphasized her more trendy products and high-quality furniture. We worked to optimize her SEO capabilities and rebranding by researching current trends. 

Impact: 

COVID-19 accelerated the process of e-commerce and so the issue for our client was more a lack of technological expertise than anything else. 

We leveraged the Wix platform to implement free tools that she had previously paid for using other platforms. This saved her hundreds of dollars a year and helped optimize her SEO and website engagement. This project was unique in that we worked together with her to set up these changes, knowing that certain technological capabilities were more challenging for her to implement on her own.

The client used our recommendations and guidelines to best leverage Facebook and Instagram in order to attract new customers and drive business on her website. With the secondhand nature of her business, emphasizing concepts such as sustainability helped appeal to new market segments. 

Following our consulting work, the client will have a fully redesigned and streamlined website that showcases her best products and new brand. Our team also made sure that this rebrand did not take away from the essence of the store, and that the client had substantial input in the design process. Upon showing our design and presenting our strategy, the client approved the proposed designs and continues to use the advice and suggestions we had proposed. 

Team Breakdown:

Team Lead: Sebastian Ramirez-Etienne 

Strategist: Kai Eckford-Vea

Strategist: Sean Kim

Strategist: Aylin Amasya

Relevant Background Information:

Business Type: Small Business 

Industry: Resale / Consignment

Location: Hackettstown, NJ

At Rem and Company, we're on a mission to keep doors open and dreams alive. Rem and Company started as a social impact initiative offering free consulting services to small businesses impacted by COVID-19. Rem and Company has become an information hub and digital community platform for small businesses in need. At Rem and Company, small businesses stay up to date on trends in their industries, learn new approaches from peers, build a network, and develop the capacity to adapt as the world around them changes. Our consulting teams provide small businesses with the opportunity to identify and prioritize issues facing their business, propose innovative strategies and facilitate execution. If you are a small business owner and want to learn more about how we can help, request a free consultation.