Brief
Rip Curl is one of the world’s most recognised and respected brands. It has been at the forefront of the surf and snow scenes since its creation in late 1960’s. Rip Curl’s mission was to continue developing a brand image that truly reflected their core values; and the attitudes and aspirations of those people on The Search.
As such the project’s objective was to provide an online shopping environment and experience that provided customers with an intuitive, user-friendly and highly reliable online shopping experience. The eCommerce shop was launched in February 2010, as an addition to the existing Rip Curl Web site.
Design & Strategy
The Rip Curl online store has been designed with usability and conversion maximisation at its core. Best-practice eCommerce principles have been applied to ensure a user–friendly experience that instils users’ confidence in the process.
Consideration was also given to the accessibility of the site, with CSS being used wherever possible instead of Adobe Flash.
The Rip Curl brand has a different look and feel for guys and girls and this is reflective in the sections in the online shop. Detail in the way the tea-bag textured rollovers in the girls section gives each section a unique touch while being housed seamlessly in the overall design.
There is also a clear distinction between browsing and shopping modes through the site. The browsing mode offering spectacular emotive banner imagery whereas as product level, the emphasis is on the product and its features.
Product features and relevant information pertaining to a purchase is tucked away in an accordion style structure. This allows for significant amounts of content to be displayed without being overwhelming for a user.
In addition, Rip Curl has tied in the use of its internationally high-profiled Pro team almost in situ with the online store (e.g. products tagged as part of the Mick Fanning range). Awe-inspiring banner photography engages users and the display of products certainly pays homage to the philosophy that “product is king”, all reinforcing Rip Curl’s brand values.
Solution
The eCommerce software (cStore) and CMS (cManager) is built using a Microsoft .Net and SQL platform. It offers Rip Curl a high degree of flexibility enabling the eCommerce offering to grow over time.
The Microsoft .NET eCommerce platform sits on the same server as the Web site content management system, which is an open source PHP solution. This cross-platform integration is seamless to the user.
The site integrates with Rip Curl’s stock management and ERP software, providing real-time pricing and stock availability.
Results
The online shop launched in late February 2010, but early results are promising with a very high average order value, low bounce rate and long dwell times on the site, resulting in strong conversion rate and sales.