Shiseido : The future of e‑commerce
The Shiseido customer wanted an experience that would rival coming to the counter. With online sales becoming the new norm, a new approach to e-commerce had to be adopted. Impactul imagery, interactive experiences and extensive information of the products and its uses were the key ingredients in creating a new, compelling online experience.
Bringing digital life to a century of cosmetic history
Let the product speak for itself, with the help of a metaphor. The new web enabled a reactive and tactile experience with the product – something familiar with how we interact with tangible objects. To get to this level of interactivity, elements had to be easy to understand and designed in a way that would entice the customer to discover a new way of shopping.
Omotenashi, or understanding the needs of your customer
Omotenashi is the concept of understanding what your guests need, without having to ask them outright. Shiseido has been embracing this japanese concept for years. It was a natural path to walk to deepen the brand’s relationship with the market.
The redesign required an in‑depth, long-term study of the cosmectics market, its customer’s needs, and future projections.
We created discovery reviews about customer behaviour and data across time and locales to lay the stones for the creation of personas, design approaches, and eventually UX recommendations and content strategies.
US Shopper Trends study
US Beauty Market Facts
Mobile Audience Study
Personas
Content patterns and customer expectation design
Building the solution in reverse, by making destination pages beforehand, allowed us to pin-point redundant solutions and repeating patterns across the proposal and find new ways to solve the issue of variable content per product.
Each persona had related needs that were linked to each content block. With this step, we ensured that solutions were followed-through with market studies and that details were not lost along the route.
These personas were the fruit of in-depth customer behaviour studies (via SEO statistics, polls and industry trends).
Designing with modules
The rest of the solution was designed around the principle of modular design.
Following the exercise for the product pages, we did the same for the rest of the platform. Each page was able to be built using various flexible modules depending on the customer’s needs for that section and applied evolving business strategies.
Particular consideration was given for the homepage to include a personalized experience on recurring visits, with the implementation of sought-after features such as recommendations based on past purchases or behaviours, like sunscreen product spotlights dependent on the weather forecast, for example.
Designing with systems
By eliminating variables and standardizing elements, the design shows a new level of cohesion and ease of understanding. Building a new solution is simplified and work can be concentrated on delivering the best experience possible. The Shiseido digital design system was designed with accessibility in mind (with a WCAG 2.0 AA compliance) and is adapted for the responsive web and mobile applications.
Home page concept
Product page concept
Designing for the future and for today
The previous two concepts were the start of future content strategies following the roll-out of the new Shiseido e-commerce platforms in the US markets. The modular approach allows Shiseido to project ideas into the future, create new ways of consuming content, and opens the path to internationalization through thoughtful crafting of every component used online.
Timeline
2014-2017
Role
Creative Director and Experience Consultant at Armstrong Agency NYC
Team
Aaryn Anderson, Morgane Stab, Pierre Laromiguière, Agnès Castellan.