Skincare products abound on the web, thanks to small brands building their own sites and selling through larger ecommerce stores. However, many of these websites focus their energies on the products, rather than on the needs of the consumer. The customer is forced to go through seemingly endless pages of products that may not offer real solutions to their skincare concerns. But it’s not so easy to devise a system where consumers can get real consultations online. One-on-one consultation time is something special, which is why SkinTrends.com is such a unique website concept.
Skin Trends brings the benefits of personalized skin care assistance to the web, by offering customers the chance to receive free consultations via Skype. Real estheticians can recommend specialized treatment packages that benefit the customer’s specific skin conditions. Rather than giving customers vague descriptions of products, experts in skincare focus on the needs of the client to recommend professional grade treatment systems to combat skincare problems and worries.
In May of 2012, Skin Trends contacted Coalition, looking to find a platform that would work best for their unique services. As a newcomer to the world of ecommerce, Skin Trends was not seeking to find out whether or not ecommerce worked for them, but rather were looking to find a platform that afforded the best fit for their exceptional business model. Skin Trends wanted every feature that an enterprise shopping cart like Magento could offer. Coalition helped them choose the shopping cart and winnow the features down to only proven winners that would help increase conversions and drive sales. As a result, it is highly likely that the new and more effective website will be nominated for many awards.
To fulfill the goals laid out by Skin Trends, Coalition set up a full-scale ecommerce solution, using Magento Community Edition for site design and development. The site is mobile friendly, using the latest responsive design technology, and offers features like live chat, rewards and customer loyalty programs, integration with major shipping outlets like UPS and USPS, third-party email systems, social media, YouTube and Vimeo video, subscription billing systems, conversion optimization, jQuery slideshows and more.
Although we faced some challenges in completing the huge project and meeting the client’s expectations, the final result was a perfectly engineered system that affords both Skin Trends and their shoppers the best possible experience. If you’d like to check out the site for yourself, visit SkinTrends.com.
