After 12 weeks of migration, Alessi increased page views by 233%

Founded almost 100 years ago in northern Italy, Giovanni Alessi’s eponymous brand has produced countless icons of contemporary design. The Alessi universe consists of over three hundred designers around the world and covers various categories of household products, from tableware, kitchen and home accessories, kitchen utensils and lighting. Alessi can also be found in exhibitions at leading museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

For Alessi, there is nothing more important than design. So when the former e-commerce platform announced that it was phasing out its open source version, the company saw an opportunity to migrate to a solution that better suited its aesthetic needs. With Shopify Plus, Alessi enjoyed:

• A beautifully designed website that went live within 12 weeks
• Increase in page views by 233%.
• Dramatic improvement in conversion rate (109%) and over 200% increase in transactions and revenue

Challenge

Alberto Alessi, president of Alessi, said that “true design work must move people, convey emotions, evoke memories, surprise and contradict common expectations.” Clearly, having its own design, regardless of channel, must have been paramount to the brand.

However, while the company’s products and in-person experiences focused solely on design, the homewares brand relied heavily on third-party agencies to create the aesthetic of its online offerings.

Since the previous e-commerce platform retired the open source version, all sellers had to migrate to the newer version, and an update was simply not possible. Instead, Alessi used the situation as an opportunity to explore other options.

The challenges were obvious: due to the global lockdown in 2020, Alessi had to face major changes as the new digital director was based in Spain, most of the business operations were based in Italy, and everyone was working towards the ambitious goal of replatforming in just 12 days. weeks.

Solutions

Creating and developing a carefully planned and detailed migration plan, Alessi eagerly began the replatforming, despite the fact that remote working and lockdowns in much of Europe made life difficult.

Ironically, what turned out to be out of the box was the way the brand customized its online stores, taking control and ensuring that its online design remained consistent with its own preferences and aesthetics.

Despite migration efforts from around the world, disciplined project management and increased internal communication enabled the Alessi team to migrate their 99-year-old company in less than three months.

Results

Since the migration, Alessi has seen a 233% increase in page views, and Alessi can finally feel confident that shoppers are interacting with a website that reflects the brand it has spent a century building.

With Shopify Plus, Alessi can operate the site himself and maintain control over the brand’s strict design principles – without the need for third-party support. The proof is in the numbers: 109% improvement in conversion rate, 222% increase in transaction volume and 210% increase in total revenue.

The company attributes its migration success to a mammoth company-wide effort, combined with an easy-to-implement solution, the prior experience of the internal technology team, and the knowledge that – as the plan for the next century of contemporary Italian design suggests – a little flexibility in difficult times can go a long way.