Aparici case study
Don’t you find it exiting to get behind the scenes of something great?
Today we are sharing a story of a challenging and long-lasting project designed and developed by Ester Digital. Let's go!
Intro
We partnered with Aparici to redesign their website completely and create an elevated eCommerce experience focused transactional funnel. Aparici’s needs were based on on rethinking the visual language as well as positioning the company as a manufacturer of luxury floor and wall tiles whose product quality, customer relationships and after-sales service have been proven over the years.
Client
It was in the 1940s that Maximiano Aparici started producing handmade red bodied bizcocho tiles in a small kiln in the Spanish town of Alcora, known since the sixteenth century for its important pottery tradition. These tiles were manufactured with the same local red clay that was used back then, and that is still used today, and then sold on to glazing studios that would apply colour and designs on the unglazed surface.
More than fifty years and three generations later, Ceramicas Aparici has grown into a company exporting to over 140 countries worldwide and with different production plants in the town of Alcora and its immediate surroundings. The essence and values of Aparici’s company are the same as those inherited from Maximiano Aparici.
A new digital home for Aparici
Aparici needed their website redesigned completely. They aimed to create an elevated eCommerce experience focused transactional funnel.
While testing the existing website we found a lot more room for improvements than the client had outlined. During the first few meetings, we helped the client in establishing crucial goals based on their needs and our analysis.
Digital Aparici Experience
Aparici has an impressive catalogue of tiles consisting of more than 450 collections and 4600 products. We had to come up with a simple & elegant way to structure all the products, so customers could easily find the perfect tiles for their needs.
After conducting user tests and collecting their feedback we started with rethinking the overall user experience and creating an informational architecture from scratch.
We took user-centered design principles and brought them to the all-new Aparici digital storefront. This improved the home page and category page structure, making it simple for customers to navigate the site, explore categories, and find products that would best suit their needs.
Technology that impacts experience
Using cutting-edge technologies our development team implemented a set of features to support Aparici workflow. We do care a lot about the usability of our products, and always think one step ahead when it comes to the architecture of web applications. That’s why we decided to integrate the corporate part of the website with additional functionality to provide as much flexibility as possible.
All these features are specialized for the b2b part of the website, which contains tools for both Aparici agents and their clients. This includes file sharing between users, special promotions, recent collection updates, additional data about products etc
Sell the Impression
All functionality was built around big beautiful pictures — the most engaging part of the website. Aparici sells not just tiles, but the impression of comfort, coziness and luxury. The website is easy-to-use and clean — all of that accompanied the main idea. The new site is redesigned in a way that allows the personality of the brand to shine through.
Aparici is raw, refined, and beautiful and so is the design system of the new eCommerce experience. From its minimal elegance to bold typography and images, the design system is solely focused on highlighting the lifestyle of the brand and how it aligns with those who buy their tiles.
Design Language
The tiles have inspired our font choice. On the one hand, “Lato” has a strong structure which provides stability and seriousness reflecting the tile shapes. It has classical proportions to give the letterforms a familiar harmony and elegance.
We established a design language rooted in simplicity that brings products and content front and center.
Homepage
The homepage is a conversion magnet which encourages customers to browse further and this is where you allure, mesmerize, convince, coax, or seduce the visitor down the funnel.
Renders of interiors were extremely professionally done, it seemed to be the only option to make them a focal point. So, we ended up with a simple and clean layout where the images of collections and products are emphasized to deliver a delightful experience.
Mobile-first approach
With a significant amount of Aparici’s site traffic coming from mobile, we established a responsive site framework focused on mobile-first design and intuitive navigation. The new eCommerce experience elevates the brand’s digital presence, and guides users to revamped collection detail pages, through a streamlined site architecture.
Collections
Collections were organized into a tile-based grid to allow users to easily scan through all the products on the page. Sidebar filters simplify this process further.
The new approach focuses on highlighting the beauty and breadth (diversity?) of the collections. 3d renders of each collection show possible variations of tiles in real interiors to inspire and pull customers through the shopping funnel
Outcomes
After successfully A/B testing the new design against the previous site? , Aparici’s reinvented site was released. Aparici announced an IPO following two successful quarters running the new site. It has exceeded performance goals in the following areas:
Two Offices. One Team.
Our main intention was to build close relationships with Aparici Dev and management team to achieve valued results. The workflow included weekly sprints and frequent meetings to make sure that collaboration went effectively and smoothly.
