Overview
Located in Topsham, Maine, Village Candle is a large manufacturer of scented candles. Their candles are sold in a variety of outlets, ranging from gift stores to large grocery chains, and plans called for a larger impact in the candle industry.
While products had continued to improve and market share increased, the company's web site had not evolved in tandem with other growth. Based on the company's gift catalog provided to retailers, the Village Candle web site had not been developed with online shoppers in mind. Also missing was an understanding of how to use the web to best market scented candles. The web site did not offer an e-commerce experience; online shopping was provided through an affiliate, the Village Candle Factory Store (VCFS).
Village Candle asked Image Works to guide them in transforming their web site into a compelling shopping destination for candle buyers. They also asked us to facilitate an e-commerce experience that continued to make use of the existing checkout on the VCFS, but that merged the two identities over time.
The result would position Village Candle as a leading scented candle web site, poised to jump ahead of competitors.
Solution
Our first task was to research the scented candle industry. We conducted a competitive review of key candle manufacturers and evaluated a variety of factors, like content, features and design. We also dug into marketing research reports on the candle industry, which identified trends in the industry and characteristics of major players. Several meetings with key stakeholders focused on understanding the business goals of the web site and on product differentiators. These meetings also identified supplemental content that would enhance the product offerings, including an explanation of the innovative two-wick candle, a Village Candle original design.
With the critical knowledge gained from this research and discovery, our information architects developed wireframes (page schematics) of all key pages and a site map that showed how the new web site would be structured. With that roadmap in hand, we turned our attention to the site's graphic design.
Here, we were challenged. The site's design needed to strongly reflect the brand, but also convey multiple compelling messages:
- Distinguish each of the company's four candle collections in a dynamic way
- Make shopping by color and by fragrance a global theme
We explored approaches with the Village Candle team and decided to emphasize high impact product designs using large-sized candle images with evocative backgrounds. These dramatically convey the sensual appeal of candles, emphasizing that draw for candle buyers. We used Flash animation to convey the characteristics of each collection.
Our web developers programmed the site in ASP, using Cascading Style Sheets, and made distinct modifications to the look of the VCFS site to bring it more in line with the new Village Candle web site. We set up administrative interfaces that allow Village Candle staff to maintain product pages with ease.
User Benefits
Candle buyers can shop in several parallel and complimentary ways, including by fragrance, by color and by type of candle. Each browsing path is organized into one of four primary fragrance attributes, like florals and fruits. This enhances the shopper's ability to quickly find a candle that has the scent they're searching for. We simultaneously show a color swatch, making it easier to quickly associate scent with a color.
We counseled careful attention to language used both in meta data and on page-level content to assure that the site was optimized for search engines.
Innovative design using rich colors and large-sized graphics sets Village Candle apart in the candle industry.
Our administrative interfaces give Village Candle the ability to independently update and maintain their content without needing to contact us.
Client Success
Village Candle's web site launched on December 30, 2009.
It has dramatically changed the company's presence on the web and positions Village Candle for growth and expansion online. Gift shop retailers have been drawn to the new site, and it has been positively received by its primary online audience of women shoppers.