The Cartridge Shop
A rebrand and effective positioning for online selling, with a fully functioning and easy to navigate e-Commerce website to help boost sales and grow brand awareness.
The Client
The Cartridge Shop is an online retailer and supplier of a wide range of office supplies specialising in ink cartridges, toners, and printers.
The Challenge
The Cartridge Shop reached out to the marketing people because their previous web developer could not fulfil their requests when it came to the capabilities of an e-Commerce website. We could give The Cartridge Shop the tools they needed to make the most out of their investment and maximise sales capacities.
Our client brought attention to one key change in their business development, to sell their shop in Walsall, West Midlands and start selling online. They required support in order to strive, and this is where we stepped in and turned our client's e-Commerce nightmare into a dream.
Our Solution
Marketing & Business Consultancy
From day one, we talk business. Our approach is to get to the root of business problems and work from the centre outwards at the marketing people. We discussed their goals, frustrations, and requirements with The Cartridge Shop, not just what they wanted on their website, but about their business objectives and their plans for developing that business.
We agreed with our client it would be appropriate to reposition their brand as a high-quality provider of printing products that strive to take away the frustration of printing.
As The Cartridge Shop are moving to a primarily online business, it was crucial we developed their website to have a great user-experience and customers could find the products they were searching for with ease; reflecting a strong brand presence throughout.
Branding
Positioning
By entering an online trade space, we needed to ensure The Cartridge Shop's branding and positioning were suitable for the competitive and saturated market. We assessed The Cartridge Shop’s offerings and brand values to truly understand who they are and where they sit in the marketplace.
Positioning them as a provider of more than just ink cartridges, as a service-driven and understanding business that would stand out from its competitors while creating a brand that would show the transition from only a brick and mortar business to bricks and mortar and online e-commerce provider.
Following this and considering the information provided, we developed a brand positioning statement and strapline for The Cartridge Shop that encompassed their ethos and values: “Everything to print happy”.
Branding
We agreed it was important for The Cartridge Shop's branding to radiate their values, ethos, and expertise during our business and marketing consultations. In-depth analysis of our client's and their competitor's market space aided us when designing and developing their new Brand ID (logo) and creating a strapline.
The improved branding enabled The Cartridge Shop to competitively position itself in-line with and above competitors in the marketplace.
The style, fonts, lettering space, and colours were developed from our trusted branding process, to create a unique and professional brand that was tailored perfectly towards The Cartridge Shop’s business objectives.
Website Design
Domain Set Up
Before we could focus on developing the website, we considered using a new domain for The Cartridge Shop as their old domain was: thecartridgeshop.ink. Unfortunately for our client, the domain .ink is not well recognised and could easily be mistaken as a spammy website.
As The Cartridge Shop is a UK-based business and there is a sense of security related to a .co.uk domain, we therefore researched and selected a new appropriate domain, www.thecartridgeshoponline.co.uk.
We helped our client with setting up new Office 365 email accounts using their new domain and created separate and professional email addresses for their accounts, help line, and sales enquiries. We also provided bespoke, branded email signatures for the personal email addresses that had been created that featured the new Brand ID and tone.
Building the Website
From the marketing consultations and information gathered about The Cartridge Shop, we could scope the website and determine the most effective design that would be easy for customers to use, and boost sales for our client.
Once the new domain was confirmed and the website had been scoped, we could focus on building our client’s new website.
The layout and customer journey were a key consideration when designing The Cartridge Shop’s website because a key goal was to increase traffic to the site and boost sales.
Our planned website navigation helped simplify the purchasing process for customers as they could shop by search, by category, or filter certain elements including colour and brand to find exactly what they are looking for, fast.
e-Commerce
As a part of our wide service offerings, not only do we build websites from scratch, but we design bespoke e-Commerce platforms too. From a business perspective, we help our clients plan and manage their websites to achieve maximum sales and brand exposure.
From deciding what the navigation should look like, to the best payment gateways to use; our team helps our clients to implement the right plug ins for each individual website’s requirements.
The Cartridge Shop approached us because their previous web developer could not fulfil their requests when it came to the capabilities of an e-Commerce website. We were able to give our client the tools they need to make the most out of their investment and maximise sales capacities.
As an ongoing project, we have worked hard with The Cartridge Shop to organise and upload over 3,400 products to their e-Commerce platform. Our client has a large itinerary of products that we designed to be shopped-by-category or via an active search bar that updates as you type.
Our web development team have been dedicated to giving The Cartridge Shop everything they required for a well organised and easy-to-navigate website.
Graphic Design
Stationery & Digital Letterhead
To implement the new branding across a variety of touchpoints in the business, we designed stationery for The Cartridge Shop which presented their brand effectively and professionally.
The stationery was developed in line with discussions with the client to ensure a fit-for-purpose design across business cards, compliment slips, and letterheads. We continued this design onto email signatures and order confirmation emails to ensure professionalism once customers had placed an order.
The Result
We helped a business with more than just a shop-online facility. Before our meetings, The Cartridge Shop were frustrated and caught in a battle to get completed based on the specific requirements they had. A clear brand strategy and position, a meaningful strapline, and all the tools to start marketing are now in place.
The Cartridge Shop now has fantastic branding that sits them in a strong position above and in line with their online competitors. The new e-Commerce website has given our client more opportunities to sell across the UK and prove their position in the marketplace, and organically, online sales are already happening.
We additionally hosted training for The Cartridge Shop employees to show them how to edit product information and stock levels, meaning they can go to the website and make tweaks as and when necessary.