The Client:
A stunning heritage-listed bar based in South Brisbane brings exquisite wine and a European inspired menu with the new addition of hand-selected wine subscriptions, bringing Australian and International artisanal wines to customers’ homes.
The Brief:
Maeve Wine had an existing site showcasing their beautiful wine bar. With the addition of their new wine subscription packs, they wanted to expand their website by adding a shopping experience to sell these new products. As a Shopify Partner, we proposed a complete site rebuild with the same design with an eCommerce platform based on Shopify. The idea was to utilise the current foundations and feel of the site so that regular customers still had a familiar experience when shopping for these new products. The site rebuild was also proposed to improve the experience for the client; rather than operating multiple Content Management Systems, the migration to Shopify meant they could edit content and update products in one platform.
The Process:
Since the website had a pre-existing style, we utilised those designs to mock up the eCommerce features of the site while also simplifying and improving minor aspects of the current website, such as text hierarchy and iconography.
The client also requested additions to the site, including a Gallery page (with a range of images of the dining and wine experience at the bar) and a Functions page (for booking or enquiring about events at the venue).
Since we were adding new sections to the navigation, we also decided to simplify existing parts of the website to improve user experience; this meant combining the About and History pages to reduce the complexity of the primary nav. We also needed to add a range of familiar eCommerce patterns to the website, such as an account section to manage subscriptions and orders, a cart, checkout and store policy pages.
After the design phase, we started development. Utilising the Shopify eCommerce platform, we created a custom theme to rebuild the whole website from the previous form into a dynamic site for editing content directly in the Shopify CMS. Since we weren’t just building a standard eCommerce store, we also had to add the functionality of subscriptions and the ability to manage them through the account section.
After development, we went through a rigorous quality assurance testing phase to ensure the website functioned appropriately, sent orders, and was free of bugs.