Heirloom Linens

The Client

Heirloom Linens are an in-person and online retailer specializing in bedding, bath, and home décor products. located in Broadmead Village Shopping Centre, in Victoria, BC. They provide quality products with exceptional customer service, hand selecting collections from across a wide range of classical to chic modern styles, all offered at discount prices.

The Situation

Many clients come to us and present a similar situation to the one we saw with Heirloom Linens: a website that had become outdated and impractical, without many of the features an e-commerce business website requires, such as fully automatic card payments. The design was clunky, unresponsive and not mobile or user-friendly, which resulted in declining online sales, losing on average 10% each year. As a local business competing online with larger national and international businesses, getting their website right was the only way to compete.

Our Work

After considering the target demographics and brand identity of Heirloom Linens, we decided on a few key design principles - we wanted something that was easy to use, especially for those customers who may not be as well versed with technology, and something subtle but distinctive that matched up with expectations for an e-commerce website.

To achieve this, we designed a light website with contrasting “punch” colours, and incorporated subtle fabric patterning throughout, to give the website a tactile feel without compromising on accessibility or user experience. To help further improve things in that area, we designed the website to be as simple to use as possible, with an intuitive and familiar layout for customers.

Special Features

How many different duvet cover options can there be? As it turns out, a lot! Colours, patterns, sizes, and more. And if we were overwhelmed by the choices on offer, we could only imagine how a customer might feel. This is one of the most common challenges when designing an e-commerce site, presenting the variety of options of such an extensive catalogue in a way that’s easy for customers to navigate.

Our solution was to narrow down these options to simple buttons that are easily clickable so that the correct end product goes into the customer's shopping cart. A simple solution that improves the overall user experience.

We also implemented a number of other features, including:

• A mobile-first responsive design, optimized to display well on all devices from smartphones through to desktops
• An easy to manage CMS (Content Management System)
• Custom shopping cart
• Easy to remove old products from displaying on the website
• Improved and user-friendly shipping and billing address forms
• Improved credit card security protocols
• In-store pickup option at checkout - promoting the local location, and saving both the client and user on shipping
• Product schema, doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes for search engines
• SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) for enhanced security
• The ability to post new products, complete with images and descriptions
• The option to have multiple featured products on the home page, with a flexible display

The Future

Online shopping and websites are only going to become more important for businesses, and we look forward to maintaining and further developing Heirloom Linen’s online presence. We’re looking to streamline the increased order volume, and what new features can be implemented to update the website as necessary.

Heirloom Linens can come to us and bounce ideas around, and we talk through them and find a way to make them work. Our custom solutions are an on-going process, and we do little updates 6-10 times a year, for things that are specific to their business. For example, we came up with an innovative way to bundle products; instead of single items a shopper can find a selection of items with the same design, and they can order them as a bundle, which makes things easier when it comes to selection, packaging, and shipping.

Our Thoughts

This was a challenging project because of the sheer number of variations and products available, but we were able to give them a custom solution that means they can compete with much larger businesses and are well-positioned for the future.

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“Our old website was inefficient, and not up to the standards required by a modern business. We knew things needed to change, and thankfully Radar Hill were able to step in and transform our web presence. The most important factor in our decision to go with Radar Hill was that we wanted to work with someone who understood our business, and really understood how the website building process worked. The real game changers for us has been the features that Radar Hill installed on our website. Our new website was easy to use, with a number of helpful features, meaning we were able to grow our online sales numbers hugely and position our business for future success. And because of our website, we were able to handle the increased online orders due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Working with Radar Hill has been a pleasure. Particularly, how easy they are to reach and how quickly they respond, as well as the concise and helpful way they communicate information. All of this makes it easier to make decisions, and to ensure our website is helping our customers. Radar Hill has been a terrific asset for our business, and we are delighted with the relationship we’ve developed with them. If I had to do it again, I would choose Radar Hill every time.”

Bob Ianson