A fresh web and mobile site to enrich the shopping experience and enhance engagement

Services

  • User Experience Design
  • User Interface Design
  • Mobile Design & Development
  • Content Strategy
  • User Experience Strategy
  • Custom Software Development
  • Marketing Strategy & Campaigns
  • Video Production
  • Usability Testing

BI-LO is a Southern supermarket chain with a rich heritage and a new lease on life. After emerging from bankruptcy, the company committed to a transformation of its brand and retail stores, with new positioning focused on “savings without sacrifice.” The website sat at the heart of these plans — and BI-LO aspired to have the most innovative site in their industry. We were up for the challenge.

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Your neighborhood grocery store

The eHouse team took a field trip to one of the newly redesigned BI-LO stores, with a warm, bright, modern and fresh interior. On the website, we needed to find a way to embody the experience of a friendly neighborhood grocery store — inviting, personal and convenient. Based on in-depth interviews with customers and company leaders, as well as sales and market data, we determined the site needed to complement the in-store shopping experience with content and tools to help shoppers plan, get inspired and save money.

User Experience Interview Icons

We conducted interviews with customers and company leaders

User Experience Analysis

We analyzed direct competitors, as well as market leaders

User Experience Research Research

We studied and evaluated the latest industry market research

More ways to save

BI-LO’s promise is that they have more ways to save than any other supermarket. Bringing that promise to life for shoppers required clearer communications and some design and UX ingenuity. eHouse created custom iconography and graphical mega dropdowns to present a “dashboard of savings” that showed at a glance all the ways shoppers could save at BI-LO.

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Dramatically improving the user experience

Creating a new digital experience in large part required us to redesign the online processes and content related to BI-LO’s savings programs — its loyalty program, fuel savings program and e-coupons. There was a glaring disconnect between in-store processes and online processes. The goal was to encourage shoppers to visit the website to plan their shopping trip, and to get that to happen, we needed to rethink and streamline the user experience.

We audited the online BI-LO loyalty card signup process and consulted with BI-LO to redesign not only the online user experience, but also the back-end processes required to make signup smooth and seamless for customers. We also integrated BI-LO’s e-coupons tool into the new site.

A platform for the future

Underlying the need to create a better brand experience on the website was BI-LO’s need to migrate to a new, more cost-effective platform for managing the site. The company’s existing content management system cost six figures a year, and it was cumbersome and inflexible. We helped BI-LO evaluate and select a CMS that cost only a few thousand dollars total, and provided easy, highly usable management for the marketing team.

Making it easier to shop

After helping BI-LO launch a successful new website, the supermarket turned to eHouse to create a mobile version of the website. Since this was prior to the capability to create responsive websites, we set out to create a mobile website that provided customers with an easy way to manage their shopping and save money while on the go.

We focused on the key ways customers could use the mobile website to improve their BI-LO user experience: managing their weekly shopping list, checking their fuel rewards, viewing the weekly ad, finding a store and accessing e-coupons. We conducted usability tests throughout the web design and development so we could gauge customer behavior and expectations. Working with BI-LO’s internal development team, we created an intuitive user experience that made it easy for customers to navigate from Apple iOS, Android, and Blackberry 6+ smartphones.

Usability Tests

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Aligning with customer expectations was paramount, as we were introducing a number of new features to the Bi-Lo site. We administered usability tests with prospective customers throughout each phase of the web design and development for both the desktop and mobile sites. We were able to then implement that feedback to create optimal user experiences.

Conversion Rates

x5

Within the first year, the website experienced a 500% improvement in marketing conversion

Website Traffic

x2

The website traffic doubled in the first 6 months, due to organic search (SEO) rankings and e-coupons

Bounce Rate

50%

The website's bounce rate saw a drastic decrease of 50% with the launch of the new website


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