TL;DR
We created a premium e-commerce website for new brand Beorma Leather Company, to showcase their exquisite range of luxury leather goods and grow their web presence.
Project Overview
Beorma Leather Company were launching into the luxury goods market as a premium leather brand and required full digital services. From refining their visual identity to integrating with their enterprise software, we took care of everything digital to get them off to the best start on their e-commerce journey.
The result is a visually appealing brand and a user-friendly and secure website that showcases the brand’s products and provides an enhanced online shopping experience for customers.
Who are Beorma Leather Company?
Beorma Leather Company are keeping local leatherworking traditions alive; hand-sourced, high-quality materials are paired with the talent of local craftspeople at their base in Walsall, West Midlands – home to the leather trade since the early 19th century.
Beorma produce an exclusive range of the finest leather fashion accessories for ladies and gentlemen, from small leather goods such as wallets to hand-plaited belts and bags.
Beorma prides itself on the highest level of attention to detail, ensuring that products last the test of time with each piece having its own unique character.
Ballyhoo have been incredible from start to finish in helping us design and create, not only our website, but also brand guidelines and refining our digital assets such as our logo and imagery. I cannot thank them enough for such an incredible journey from a very welcoming and easy-going chat last year to our beautiful and fully functioning website.
Alex Simpson
Beorma Leather Company
Project Brief
Beorma Leather Company needed a website to showcase their high-quality leather goods, enhancing their online presence and expanding their customer base by allowing customers to shop online.
Beorma had few digital assets at the outset of this project, coming to us with just a logo, a domain name and a vision of their passion for leather translated to the digital world. They required our help to establish a foothold online and put the brand in a strong foundational position for future plans and expansion.
Our Proposal
After analysing the brief, we created a proposal that encompassed all requirements, including:
- Brand guideline creation to help the company consistently communicate the brand to the world;
- Sleek and easy to navigate website design to reflect the luxury brand;
- Comprehensive e-commerce platform with secure payment processing, shopping cart functionality and integration with order management systems;
- Product catalogue with detailed product information, high-quality images and pricing information;
- User account functionality for customers to create accounts, save their favorite products, view their purchase history and receive personalised recommendations; and
- Performance-optimised website with fast loading times and a smooth browsing experience.
Branding
Beorma came to us with a logo, however this needed some refinement to make it web-ready and more representative of the quality of the product. We also needed to create brand guidelines to help communicate how the brand should look to the outside world, taking into account colour, typography, imagery and more.
Logo Refinement
We analysed the existing logo, and carried out extensive competitor research to present the client with our suggested refinements.
This included reducing the weight of the main wordmark, resulting in thinner, more elegant serifs, as well as improving leading and kerning to create a sense of space. We introduced a new serif font for the secondary wording and thinned the linework on the graphic element of the logo, all combining to create a sophisticated logo which transcends tradition and is ready to take on the modern world.
We also worked on making the logo responsive, providing different versions to be used depending on the space available without losing brand strength.
Font Pairing
For the new logo we settled on Times New Roman Bold paired with Jost Regular. Classic and timeless, Times New Roman instantly adds a sense of heritage and sophistication.
We also benefit from Times New Roman being a system font – regular, bold and their italic counterparts are included as standard on the majority of computers and devices. This means that digital experiences like our website will be more lightweight and experience faster load times, which enhances SEO.
Our secondary typeface is Jost. Modern and highly legible, this font has been selected to contrast Times New Roman and add a sense of elegant minimalism to the branding. As such we mainly use lighter weights for our needs, semibold or less. As a variable font, Jost is incredibly lightweight and at the forefront of web typography technology. This also means we aren’t necessarily restricted to prescribed weights and can have more control over its appearance.
Colour Palette
Through a rich colour palette, inspired by the natural tones of oak and oak-bark leather, we achieve a sense of exclusivity and quality for Beorma Leather Company. Ebony, a rich blue-black, complements our accent colours alongside our preferred neutral colour, Old Lace, a creamy, pale tint derived from our Sunglow accent colour.
Each background and text colour combination has been carefully tested for accessibility, achieving a minimum contrast level as set out by WCAG 2.0 colour contrast guidelines for visually impaired users.
Website Design
The website needed to portray Beorma’s company values – quality, story and sophistication. It also needed to follow the branding closely to be recognisable. We kept the website design sleek and minimalistic, drawing the eye to high quality images and videos of the products, and providing a seamless user journey from landing page to checkout.
Additional Creative Services
As a new brand, Beorma did not previously have a website or other marketing materials so we needed professional photography and videography to capture the beauty of each and every product.
Photography
We sent along one of our trusted photographers to get hundreds of shots, and we also attended these shoots to provide artistic direction and to be on hand with set dressing and organisation.
In addition to the required e-commerce product shots, we recommended a combination of lifestyle and flat lay compositions to showcase the products and brand and evoke a sense of story. Image treatments including desaturation, vignettes and warm tones are used to achieve a richly hued, artisan aesthetic.
Videography
Along with photography, we knew that high quality videos would help to showcase the products and communicate their craftsmanship to customers. We brought along one of our videography partners to film Beorma’s company, culture and, of course, products. We used some of the best clips from the film to sit in the background of the homepage, highlighting the variety of products currently available.
The Technical Details
Web Development
We used the WordPress platform paired with WooCommerce to bring this e-commerce website to life. Using these platforms allowed us to gain the customisation needed, whilst also providing a robust foundation for anticipated high traffic and transaction volumes. A fully-bespoke theme was created for the front-end of the site, hand-coded from our unique designs.
E-Commerce
Primarily, the website needed to be an e-commerce site with functionality to allow customers to view products and purchase online. The checkout process needed to be seamless and straight forward, allowing customers to purchase with a click of a button.
The website showcases a comprehensive product catalogue that exhibits the brand’s range of leather products with detailed product information, high-quality product images and pricing information. Customers can also easily browse, filter and search for products.
Flexible Payment Options
We have integrated with Stripe in order to provide a safe, secure and robust checkout process. In addition to allowing users to easily checkout with their debit or credit card, this integration also allows us to provide Google Pay and Apple Pay where we detect the user has access to such facilities on their device. This means we can maximise conversion rates by providing customers with the most efficient and familiar payment experience.
Structure
The website also includes content that customers should find helpful and will help to boost the brand’s reputation by adding additional valuable information. This includes a page for product care, trust factors and reviews, worldwide shipping information and sustainability information. Often overlooked, these may seem like insignificant features, but they feed into the luxury brand and help to set Beorma above competitors.
Security
The website was developed with robust security features to protect customer data and ensure safe online transactions. It has also been optimised for performance – with fast loading times and smooth browsing experiences on all devices.
- #HTML5
- #CSS3
- #WordPress
- #JavaScript
Sage Integration
We have developed a bespoke two-way integration with Sage, an enterprise resource planner (ERP) used by Beorma to manage everything from their planning and purchasing of raw materials to bookkeeping and accounts.
When an order is placed, we push data, including details of the order, to a script which in turn writes the data to Sage so that the order can be processed quickly by staff and stock levels adjusted accordingly. Stock levels for all available items are also periodically read from Sage and sent to the website whereby we store them locally, meaning if sales are made elsewhere or more stock is products then levels are also adjusted accordingly.
This gives Beorma the option to warn users if stock levels are low or continue to take orders if the item can be manufactured quickly.
Google Analytics
As we always do with e-commerce projects, we have tightly integrated with Google Analytics 4 (GA4), sending live event data to allow us, and Beorma, to learn from the traffic and orders they receive.
We are tracking several events including how often a product is viewed (whether that be as part of a category or search result, or the individual product page), how often a product is added to the shopping basket (or removed), when a checkout session is started and when a purchase is completed.
Monitoring product views and “add to basket” events allows us to determine the popularity of products even before regular sales are made and can help to identify if prices or shipping options are a limiting factor, for example. We also log the value of transactions to allow us to determine the return on investment following any marketing exercises to drive traffic to the site.
“Ballyhoo have been incredible from start to finish in helping us design and create, not only our website, but also brand guidelines and refining our digital assets such as our logo and imagery. I cannot thank them enough for such an incredible journey from a very welcoming and easy-going chat last year to our beautiful and fully functioning website. It really was (and still is) a joy to work with them.
They took a rather erratic and uncomprehensive brief from me over a cup of coffee and really ran with it, sharing ideas and templates along the way to find the right feel and tone. What they have created for us is incredibly special and they should all feel immensely proud of what they have created for us, it is truly beautiful and unique!”
Beorma Leather Company
How Can We Help?
Whether your business is small or large, or requires a heavily customised website, contact our team now to chat about your requirements and find out how we can help your business grow online. We will partner you through the entire process and ensure we manage your project efficiently to create a website that converts your visitors to customers.
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