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Freedom Machine
A modern fresh Shopify Plus eCommerce website to strength the digital presence of an Aussie e-bike retailer and their Byron eco-tourism offerings.
With multiple stores located across New South Wales, Freedom offer customers a range of electric bikes, scooters and accessories both online and in-store, and is now the largest Northern Rivers Rail Trail tourist e-bike operator.
Ranging from e-bikes, scooters to traditional bikes and bike accessories, their physical stores not only offer a showroom of Freedom and popular high-end bike brands, but also premium bike maintenance, parts and expertise.
For this family-owner and operated business, high quality services and a great customer experience is paramount, which is why each retail product and e-bike hire service offers a unique experience to suit different tastes, terrains and budgets.
Freedom Machine recently embarked on a process of digital transformation. The founders wanted to transform their online presence into a more modern, and intuitive website solution that reduced the number of operational platforms used by the team, synchronized inventory across the online store and in-store point-of-sale POS, and tracked and connected the inventory used for bike hires with the POS.
The aim was to increase SEO and booking conversion rates, simplify website management to reduce internal administration time and improve the visitor experience.
Sold-out Daily Hires
Dramatic increase in online sales
Replatformed POS from Lightspeed to Shopify Plus
Eliminated inventory redundancy
Reduced operations systems
Our Approach
Every business has its own distinct needs, which is why we use a structured approach that creates clarity through design and technological choices. Learn more about Graham Agency's Brand Acceleration blueprint.
A unified system and brand strategy to provide a distinct online identity for Freedom and it’s sub-brands and services while streamlining inventory management across the retail and hires websites.
With multiple inventory databases across the Freedom brands, the challenge was to understand current systems, technological options, compatibilities, and what re-platforming and data migrations needed to take place as to streamline management and centralize inventory across retail and hires.
At the same time, there were many inspiring ideas around tourism offerings and how to tap into this market with the constant pivots and volatility of the tourism market.
With a marketing budget stretched across retail and hires, a solution that would ensure the best ROI was a centralized Shopify website designed to incorporate both retail products, tourism booking forms and in-store bike servicing.
Creating an central inventory, efficient management and a consistent brand experience across retail, tourism and servicing required careful planning. Here’s how we did it:
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We mapped all the current systems and their features and compatibilities, and also did the same for other technological options. For example light-speed was not compatibility with Shopify without additional plugins and Shopify was not compatible with the current hires booking system however another options was. Mapping and researching these systems provided clarity and an informed plan-of-action.
We conducted brainstorm, ideation and persona workshops around what could be offered in regards to the tourism offering from Rail trails to beach-rides and picnic packs and formulated ideas making them understood by the team visually through flows and charts, revisiting and refining.
We documented a design layout, system, and a brand strategy that was aligned with discover sessions and conducted research.
As part of the user experience UX design phase, we worked though design thinking strategies and created wireframe templates worked up the fidelity into realistic mockups, revisiting flows and maps when market changes required pivots in the design direction.
We then prototyped the design, got feedback from stakeholders and refined it to ensure it was efficient and effective across all offerings.
System mapping reveals how to achieve a central inventory: A closer look at compatibility issues and technological options.
Learn more about methodologies used when mapping current systems like websites, POS, booking systems, and their dependencies and interconnections.
Addressing the key challenges involved strategic design solutions as to accommodate for the retail vs tourist-user journey and an optimized marketing budget.
The inherent challenge was to ensure that the marketing budget spanned across retail and tourism. With the following restrictions:
Keeping retail and service offerings on same domain and platform
Clear differentiation between hires, retail, apparel, maintenance and eco-tours.
We overcame these challenges and strategically designed a solution that was brand consistent, and provide a cohesive user journey for the sub-sections of site, such as the retail-users journey vs’s the tourist-users journey. As a result, the marketing budget was optimized.
Leveraging Shopify’s e-commerce features and templates pages.
After finalizing the design systems with high-fidelity realistic page designs, and
Re-platforming the POS and fleet (bike hires) management systems
Migrating inventory data and establishing connectivity between inventory across hires and in-store, and
Prototyping and presenting the final UX design to stakeholders for approval
The next step was to build the site infrastructure and design into Shopify Plus e-commerce website. The central inventory and compatibility across hires, online, in-store, and fleet management and the modular easy to construct template features provided by Shopify streamlined the build process.
We transformed Freedom Machines digital landscape, boosting both management efficiency and user experience.
Digital Transformation Across the Freedom Brands
Today, Freedom Machine boasts a fresh, fun modern state-of-the-art e-commerce websites across their offerings. Their website, inventory and tourism fleet is not only easy to manage and administer, but they also provide a consistent approach to branding, messaging, and digital presence.
Fresh Brand Identity
Engaging Content
Retail vs Tourism User-Centric Journeys
Our design system introduces a fresh brand identity and clear distinctions between different service offerings across the website, all while preserving the shop’s unique style. This approach ensures a fresh, engaging, and user-focused experience.
Enhanced Visitor Experience & Increased Conversions
Freedom Machine saw a significant improvement in visitor engagement, including sold-out hires, increased web sales, and higher in-store sales. These enhancements are attributed to the improved user experience, clear navigation across offerings, and fully synced inventory between online and in-store systems.
Cohesive and Streamlined Central Online Solution
With the transformation of their digital presence and synchronization of inventory across online, in-store, and hires, Freedom Machine now boasts a cohesive and streamlined online solution. This advancement has improved operational efficiency, simplifying inventory and fleet management, reducing internal administration time. Consequently, Freedom Machine can concentrate on delivering exceptional service to their local, tourism, and online communities.
Have an e-commerce website to brand, design, and build? We’ve tackled plenty of projects and would love to tackle yours next! Drop us a line and let’s get started!