NORRGAVEL

The journey to an accessible and personal online range

How do you sell exclusive furniture online, when the customer is used to slow decisions and shopping in a store? For the skilled furniture company Norrgavel, two solid solutions were required: e-commerce with stylish and clear product fronting, as well as a configurator that allows the customer to digitally build their own dream furniture. In combination, the solutions created an e-commerce that conveyed the stores' premium feeling and also gave the brand added value - which in turn led to increased digital sales.

Background

Norrgavel has gone from a small company that sells furniture by mail order to include many stores spread across Sweden and Norway. Based on co-creation, the company decided to grow further by making a major investment in its e-commerce. 

From mail order to pioneers in the environment

With a great love for healthy natural materials and functional simplicity as a motto, Norrgavel began selling furniture via mail order in 1991. In 1994, their first store opened and four years later, the brand became Sweden's first to be awarded a Nordic Ecolabel in the home furniture category. The following year, Norrgavel received the furniture industry's environmental award - an award that was presented in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF. Norrgavel continues to grow and the number of stores is gradually increasing, but the company's values are still based on the cornerstones of "humanistic, ecological, existential".

Digital update ahead of international expansion

With its environmentally friendly and timelessly designed high-quality hand-crafted furniture, Norrgavel's products end up in a higher price range and belong to the premium segment. Their target audience consists of thoughtful people who choose their furniture carefully instead of making impulse purchases. That's why there was a need for e-commerce where the target group could find inspiring pictures online at their own pace and then shop in stores. Or the other way around: browse in the store and then order the furniture that best suits the living room. That's why Norrgavel wanted ordering to be directly in their e-commerce, thus requiring a large investment. The goal of our e-commerce was not only to strengthen the bond with existing customers, but also to find new ones.

They wanted a serious e-commerce that didn't lean towards price campaigns

Norrgavel already had a product website. Although not for sales. There was a need for clear improvements in the inspiration category and many of the page's other functions. When the plans for the new e-commerce began to take shape, it was clear that the new site would work for inspiration and clear fronting of products, instead of campaigns with no purpose other than price.

+26%

converting
Q1 2019 vs Q1 2020

Norrgavel's furniture exudes quality and long-term perspective, and we wanted that feeling online. It's important that each customer can use the layout and feel comfortable in it.

Daniel Petterson Project Manager, Norce

+34%

trafic to the site
Q1 2019 vs Q1 2020

We chose Norce so we wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel and start all over from the very beginning. Norce is a good partner with broad knowledge that has guided us in the right direction.

Isabelle Bexenius eCommerce Assistant Manager, Norrgavel
Norrgavel-PK-stol kopiera

Norce x Norrgavel

With Norrgavel's choice of Norce's elastic business model, a close collaboration was established at an early stage, with the shared goal of achieving profitable growth. Here is a selection of what Norce Elastic involves:

Norrgavel-bord

  • A cloud-based Software as a Service platform (SaaS) always provides the latest version, fast time-to-live etc.

  • Open front-end provides unlimited possibilities for easy construction and updating.

  • E-commerce Strategy Managers analyse current performance and identify areas for improvement.

Norrgavel-Webshop

Challenges

Norrgavel sells premium products, which are generally more difficult to sell digitally. A major challenge was ensuring that the online range wasn't overshadowed by the stores. Another challenge was to achieve high goals in conversion and sales in a cost-effective way.

To ensure good conversion and profitability

There were quite a few resources for marketing and to create sales-driving measures. Norrgavel required that everything that was carried out for e-commerce should show ROI (Return On Investment). A milestone was to develop an e-commerce that accounts for 10% of total sales within 3 years.

Customers want to be able to touch the material

Customers who buy premium products often want to see the material in real life before deciding to make a purchase, so e-commerce could be seen as a risk. That's why it was important for e-commerce to provide useful information and at the same time let the products convey the same feeling as they do in stores.

Norrgavel-Bänk

Why Norce

The choice of Norce was mainly based on updated functions and the combination of knowledge partners and their SaaS platforms.

In addition to technical services such as the SaaS platform, Norce has a unique role as a knowledge partner. Considering that Norrgavel's e-commerce investment was a project that required well-thought-out investments, Norce was seen as a good partner in terms of both advice and technical functionality. Something that suggests that Norce's model works is that their customers on average grow twice as fast as their industry colleagues.

Solutions

The solutions are based on two comprehensive projects: partly aconfigurator that allows the customer to build their own furniture, and partly an updated e-commerce based on a clear sketch plan that was implemented via Norce Commerce. Both projects created unique opportunities for Norrgavel to inspire and tailor the choices for their customers.

herbarium-kuddvar

A configurator allows the customer to build their own dream furniture

To give e-commerce added value that would merge it with the stores, a "create self-configurator" was chosen, which would be compatible with mobile, tablets and regular screens. In this way, the feeling of co-creation was strengthened, which is an important part of the Norrgavel brand. The solution would also lead to more expensive online purchases.

The configurator was designed and implemented to first let the customer choose a piece of furniture and then offer a variety of options - such as knobs, handles or upholstery. Once the customer has decided on all the options, it's easy for the customer to order the personally designed furniture.

Boka möte
Norrgavel-easychair kopiera

From sketch to implementation

The design agency, Norrgavel and Norce produced sketches of the start, category and product pages. It included a well-thought-out menu, clear sorting and thorough filtering. The sketches were based on Norce's responsive checkout, which is developed to create the best possible conversion rate.

All sketches were implemented via Norce Commerce. Norrgavel then took the project further through administration.

Norrgavel-Omslag kopiera

Integration between Norce and Pyramid

An integration between Norce and Pyramid was implementation where product data was sent to Norce and orders were retrieved to Pyramid. The entire integration was built by Invid, which had access to the Webservice API.

The following points describe some of the sections that were built:

  • For the choice that will add an item to the checkout with the actual price, a product must be created in Norce.

  • The products that are part of a configuration and that aren't available for purchase must be marked up so that they are not searchable in Norce.

  • Products that do not need to be configured must also be created. 

  • Products to be categorised.

  • Price and balance. 

Implementation configurator

Some steps in building the configurator were:

  • Functionality and presentation of the various choices for the end customer were implemented.

  • When a product is selected, both information and image are displayed.

  • When a choice is not a product but a material or colour, the colour ID is linked to the image in Norce.

  • When a configuration is complete, Norce adds the product at checkout and the end customer can complete their purchase.

  • The configurator's steps are dictated by the XML file and Norce only follows the structure of it.

  • Allows you to save or share your configuration.