SeneGence Website Design

A New Era of Beauty Retail with SeneGence's Strategic
E-commerce Overhaul

Role: Creative Lead
Industry: Beauty, E-commerce, MLM, B2B2C
Device: Responsive Web
Year: 2022
SeneGence Case Study

Overview

Founded in 1999, SeneGence® is a global company that empowers women by providing high-quality cosmetics and personal care products through a network of independent sellers. Starting with its well-known LipSense® Long-Lasting Liquid Lip Color, SeneGence has grown to offer a wide range of beauty products and has earned a reputation for innovation and quality.

In my role as Creative Lead, I spearheaded the comprehensive redesign of SeneGence's e-commerce platform to enhance the online shopping experience. Tasked with leading the design team, I was responsible for allocating tasks, managing deliverables and deadlines, and creating sprint planning. This involved close collaboration with the client and key stakeholders, including lead developers, project managers, and business analysts, to ensure the project aligned with business needs while scaling effectively with the company’s growth. The goal was to make the platform more intuitive and efficient for both customers and sellers, accommodating the complexities of a multi-tiered sales strategy.

Results & Impact

The SeneGence e-commerce platform redesign has led to a remarkable boost in user interaction and sales performance which include:

Significant User Reach: The main site attracted over 6 million views, showcasing the platform's wide-reaching appeal and user interest.

Strong Sales Figures: The platform's efficient design and user experience have contributed to over 82,000 conversions, generating substantial revenue of around $7.2 million.

Leading Product Engagement: The popularity of products like 'LipSense® Lip Color' reflects successful visibility and sales strategies, making it the top choice among consumers

.Mobile-First Adoption: With the majority of users engaging through mobile devices, our mobile-first approach has paid off, confirming the platform's optimization for modern shopping habits.

Challenge

As SeneGence continues to expand, its digital presence struggles to keep pace. The existing user experience (UX) and infrastructure fail to support the seamless interaction expected today, significantly hindering customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. Legacy systems complicate the user journey across omni-channel touchpoints, necessitating a comprehensive digital transformation to align with the company's growth and customer service ambitions.

Solution

Mobile-First Approach: Recognizing the predominance of mobile usage among our audience, we crafted a responsive web platform and optimized the mobile app, making it easier for customers to shop and for distributors to manage their businesses on the go. This strategy directly correlated with the high mobile user engagement reflected in the analytics.

Streamlined Shopping and Checkout Process: Simplifying the user journey from product discovery to purchase, we refined the checkout process, which significantly contributed to the high conversion rates and substantial revenue generation evident from the data.

Data-Driven User Experience:
Leveraging insights from user behavior, we focused on creating a frictionless experience that encouraged exploration and repeated engagement. The enhanced interface design capitalized on popular items, driving visibility and sales for key products.

Process

Discovery

The initial phase of the SeneGence project was a deep dive into the existing digital ecosystem to fully understand and document the needs and behaviors of our users, the functional gaps in the current state, and the competitive landscape. This phase set the foundation for a user-focused and strategic redesign:

User Persona Development

We developed personas that included casual and serious distributors, as well as end-consumers, defining their behavior, goals, motivations, and frustrations to ensure our design solutions addressed their specific needs.

User Journey Mapping

By mapping out the users' pathways, we pinpointed key opportunities for enhancing their experience, identifying the need for quick and thought-requiring decision processes, as well as the primary device usage trends favoring mobile over desktop.

Feature Prioritization

Feature In redesigning SeneGence’s digital platforms, we strategically organized and prioritized features to enhance user experiences and achieve business goals. The prioritization was focused on three main areas:

User Engagement: Simplified the customer journey from learning about products to making purchases, with enhanced product discovery, streamlined checkout processes, and integrated social media features to boost engagement and repeat visits.

Empowerment of Distributors: Optimized features for distributor engagement, including easy access to business management tools, comprehensive training resources, and support systems to facilitate the growth and management of their businesses.

Operational and Conversion Efficiency: Improved operational efficiency and conversion rates through better back-office integrations, localized content for market expansion, and clear calls to action for increased user sign-ups and community participation.

Each feature was evaluated based on its ability to improve user interactions and contribute to SeneGence’s strategic objectives, ensuring a cohesive user experience that supports both immediate user needs and long-term business growth. for SeneGence was meticulously designed to align with the dual objectives of enhancing user satisfaction and driving business growth. Each feature was evaluated not only for its immediate benefit to the user but also for its potential to contribute to broader strategic goals, ensuring a cohesive and powerful user experience across all digital touchpoints.

Current State Analysis

An extensive review of the existing platforms was conducted, revealing opportunities for unification and simplification across SeneGence's various digital touchpoints.

Navigational Issues:
The SeneGence website currently suffers from a lack of cohesive navigation, leading to a disjointed and often confusing user experience:

  • Inconsistent Navigation: Users encounter varying navigation styles and feedback mechanisms across different parts of the site. This inconsistency leads to a challenging and sometimes frustrating experience as users navigate through the shopping process.
  • Multiple Sites, Single Journey: The user experience is fragmented across multiple related sites (such as SeneGence.com and its distributor sites) without clear transitions or back-links. This makes it difficult for users to understand they are still within the same ecosystem and complicates the shopping experience.
  • Redundant Purchase Flows: The product purchase flow is unnecessarily redundant across the main SeneGence site and individual Shop sites. Such redundancy not only confuses users but also dilutes the effectiveness of the conversion process.
  • Layout Discrepancies: There are significant layout differences between the sites that confuse the user, such as the inconsistent placement of side menus for product navigation—from the left-hand side to the right-hand side of the page.
  • Overly Complex Menus: The main site features overwhelming submenus that go three levels deep, complicating the navigation and increasing the cognitive load on users, which could deter them from completing a purchase.

User Experience Insights:
The analysis of the user experience on SeneGence’s digital platforms revealed critical shortcomings that need addressing to enhance user satisfaction and conversion rates:

  • Lack of Clarity: While SeneGence.com incorporates many useful features, they are not organized in a manner that is intuitive for the user. From the initial interaction to the final purchase, users encounter multiple points of friction that can lead to abandonment.
  • Confusing Content Direction: Instead of guiding users towards a specific goal, the content scatters focus in various directions, leading to user confusion and a diluted brand message.
  • Inconsistent Brand Presentation: The visual and functional disparity between different sections of the website suggests disjointed brand messaging. Each site component varies dramatically in layout, look, and feel, which may detract from brand cohesion and trust.

Creative KPI's

Throughout the design process, we established creative KPIs aligned with our strategic goals, such as increasing average purchase totals, increase sign-ups, and overall engagement. By setting clear objectives, we ensured that the redesign was measurable and aligned with both user needs and business growth.

Increase Average Purchase Total We're committed to increasing the average spending per transaction through targeted up-selling and cross-selling strategies. Personalized product recommendations and strategic promotions are key to encouraging larger purchases, thereby boosting overall sales performance.

Increase Number of Kiss & Tell Sign-Ups Our aim is to significantly grow the membership of the Kiss & Tell loyalty program. By highlighting its unique benefits and simplifying the sign-up process, we intend to improve customer retention and increase user activity levels on the platform.

Increase Engagement To cultivate a more engaged user base, we focus on enhancing the quality and accessibility of our content across all platforms. Our strategy involves utilizing analytics to understand visitor behavior, encouraging return visit

Design

The design phase translated insights into actionable design elements, ensuring a user-centric approach:

Information Architecture

The redesigned Information Architecture (IA) of the SeneGence website focuses on creating a seamless and intuitive user experience, enhancing accessibility, and organizing content in a way that aligns with user needs and business objectives. The structure is designed to guide users effortlessly through the site, encouraging exploration, engagement, and conversion.

Key Features of the Redesigned IA:

Mega Menus and Simplified Navigation:
The IA incorporates mega menus to efficiently categorize and display extensive product lines such as Skin Care, Cosmetics, and Hair Care, allowing for easy navigation across multiple product categories. This approach reduces the cognitive load on users by organizing products into familiar, easy-to-digest groups.

Streamlined Pathways to Purchase and Engagement: Critical pathways, such as "Join Kiss & Tell Loyalty Program," "Become a Distributor," and "Shop & Save," are strategically positioned to catch the user's attention and facilitate quick decision-making and deeper engagement with the site.

Unified User Experience Across Devices: The architecture ensures consistency across various platforms, maintaining uniformity in navigation and interaction patterns, whether the user accesses the site via desktop or mobile. This consistency is crucial for providing a cohesive brand experience.

Enhanced Support and Community Engagement: Features like "Host a Party," "Virtual & Live Events," and "Find a Distributor" are designed to integrate SeneGence's community-oriented business model into the digital experience, promoting user interaction and loyalty.

Focused Content Delivery: Each page, from product descriptions to blog posts, is structured to provide valuable content that is relevant to the user’s interests and needs, enhancing content discoverability and user satisfaction.

Takeaways

Leading the redesign of SeneGence’s e-commerce platform highlighted several crucial insights. Effective team leadership and collaboration were essential; clear communication, precise task allocation, and consistent sprint planning aligned team efforts with project goals. Focusing on a user-centric design proved fundamental in driving engagement and increasing sales conversions, emphasizing the importance of understanding user and distributor needs. A data-driven strategy enhanced the outcomes, particularly with our mobile-first approach, which catered to the predominant user trend and resulted in higher mobile engagement.

The comprehensive digital transformation of SeneGence’s legacy systems was crucial for supporting the company's growth and improving operational efficiency. Implementing a feedback loop post-launch helped identify areas for continuous improvement, ensuring the platform remains adaptable and aligned with evolving market demands. Lastly, setting clear, strategic KPIs ensured measurable success, validating our design choices and helping to refine the platform to maximize ROI. This project underscored the importance of integrating advanced technological solutions and strategic planning in modern e-commerce environments.