Conran Shop pushes social media with new site

The retailer aims to increase online sales from £2m to £10m in the next five years, while making it the most profitable Conran store in three years.

The Conran Shop launched the new website last week, and has spent £250,000 in the last six months redeveloping it. Customers can now pick up products in store after ordering from the website, which features “enhanced functionality to improve the customer shopping and brand experience”, using high-quality imagery and “comprehensive product information”.

It also features a new Sketch Book tool that enables shoppers to pull product choices together, while showing the scale of the products. The new features will be rolled out to The Conran Shop’s websites in France, the US and Japan over the next year.

The Conran Shop global head of ecommerce and online marketing Liam Butler said: “We needed a website that showcases our product alongside our brand values - plain, simple and useful.”

A blog has been launched - the Talking Shop - with “key influential design bloggers” writing for the site in order to “develop an on-going conversation with The Conran Shop’s customers”.

The retailer will also communicate with customers via Twitter and Facebook, which will act as a “real time customer service tool” where customers can ask an online concierge questions regarding products.

Butler said the social networking strategy will help The Conran Shop set itself apart from the competition. “No one in our sector is doing particularly well at this at the moment,” he said.

He added: “We want to build a relationship with the online community, to drive traffic to stores and the website but also put interesting content out there.”

The retailer has also created shop-in-shops in its UK stores in London’s Chelsea and Marylebone, grouping together its value Well Considered range, which has expanded from its initial 100 lines to 180.

The Conran Shop worked with social media agency We Are Social on the new website.