Elevating the eCommerce experience for an innovative tech accessories brand through a full-site redesign

Twelve South is one of those companies whose product designers create ideas for things they love to use — which in turn has helped them build fiercely loyal customers who adore their products. With an unflappable commitment to design only for Apple products, Twelve South has created a portfolio of high-quality, clever and attractive accessories that enhance the Mac and iOS device brand experience.

As they considered their website redesign, Twelve South was expanding their offerings — selectively and methodically expanding, but expanding nonetheless. They needed an eCommerce website that would support their current products and foster this steady growth, and one that could be accessed easily across all the devices their products are built for, namely the iPhone. On the back end, Twelve South was continuing to optimize their operational processes and wanted a site that would allow them to automate and integrate those processes into the eCommerce website to support efficiency.

Broadening the fan base

As the iPhone and iPad user base grew globally, Twelve South's reach expanded. They saw an opportunity to clearly communicate the breadth of their offering and how their design-focused products differed from competitors, especially to consumers new to Twelve South.

At eHouse, we conducted in-depth customer interviews to understand the purchase cycle for Twelve South products. We also analyzed competitor eCommerce websites and interviewed Twelve South leaders to understand industry best practices and business goals.

Creating a user flow and removing barriers

Another major goal of the website was to offer a continuous, enjoyable customer experience across platforms, ultimately driving more sales. This required a mobile-first responsive web experience, in which the site is easily accessible and beautifully rendered across all desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices — a no-brainer for a company specializing in mobile device accessories. We used user experience design and combined eCommerce web design best practices with responsive web design to achieve this.

Our ultimate challenge was to make the site feel like a strong brand site that showcased the products, rather than simply creating a great eCommerce design. We focused on removing registration barriers that previously tripped up prospective buyers, and streamlining the purchase flow so that it was clear, quick, easy, and aesthetically pleasing.

Clean and beautiful UI design

Aesthetically, we had plenty of opportunities to communicate the look of the brand: beautiful, well-made, minimalist, modern and functional. A big part of our user interface (UI) design was to create custom templates that are responsive across all devices that the Twelve South team could edit and publish using a CMS. With these templates, any new and updated content is displayed beautifully across all devices, without needing any help from our developers or designers.

Streamlining eCommerce systems behind the scenes

Much of the work we did for Twelve South is largely invisible to the eCommerce consumer — until they have an exceptional issue. We helped Twelve South bundle all of their existing business systems, including their day-to-day customer eCommerce orders, accounting software, order fulfillment communication, wholesale and sample ordering systems, credit card authorization software, and retailer database into one automated system. We also help them set up an efficient return and exchange system.

All of these systems are integrated in a dashboard on the site for the Twelve South team, making it unnecessary for them to have to dig into CMS records or constantly update spreadsheets. Their information is displayed in real-time on the dashboard.

It is always a challenge to tailor a site to fit in with a company's established business process, especially when there are so many moving parts, as was the case with Twelve South, but by working closely with the Twelve South team throughout each design and development process, we were able to weave in their established processes while making them more efficient through automation.