Brompton grows ecommerce revenue by 122%

Brompton, producer of the iconic folding bicycle, is a brand that’s loved around the world. 

But the manufacturer recognised that the needs of its customers were changing. They were no longer content with a largely offline purchase journey and wanted a more emotional engagement with the brand.

Responding to this change would require a fundamental change in the business model and customer experience.

Brompton had a highly disparate digital presence, including a number of microsites, extranets, and blogs, that was divorced from its offline customer experience. 

Acquisition and retention journeys needed to be aligned to provide a scalable, world-class experience that supported the business’ ambitious growth plans and continued international expansion.

The main objectives were to:

• Define the end-to-end experience for Brompton’s key audiences (prospective consumers, existing owners, and trade customers) and the role that digital technology should play.

• Help users connect with a bike, showing them how it would fit into their lives and the benefits of using a folding bike.

• Create a lifetime customer journey to attract new customers and have them engage with the brand on an ongoing basis.

• Support localisation of messaging for international markets, covering every continent.

Brompton’s transformation into a lifestyle brand and D2C manufacturer began by spending time in stores trying to better understand customers. Then carefully considered customer journeys and used research and interviews to explore how these differed across personas and markets.

We worked closely with Brompton and its technical build partners to create a global digital presence for Brompton. Following a rapid, user-centred design process we iterated designs to ensure the structure and design was fully optimised and inspiring.

We began by immersing ourselves in everything Brompton. We spent time in the factory, ran workshops with key stakeholders, reviewed the site analytics and spent time in bike stores interviewing consumers. To ensure the site was going to meet the needs of their international growth audiences, we spoke to resellers and customers in the US, China, Europe and AsiaPac to understand differing attitudes and requirements.

One of the key research findings was that people would only consider buying a Brompton if their commute included a train journey. Consumers didn't realise the benefits of owning a Brompton and the positive impact on their lifestyle.

We worked collaboratively with senior Brompton stakeholders to define, and get agreement on:

• The end-to-end customer journey from acquisition through to retention
• An in-depth digital strategy and digital roadmap
• An organisational structure to support the ongoing success of their digital channels

We then based ourselves on-site, running a series of design workshops to collaboratively sketch out optimal user journeys and designs. We started with a wide range of ideas, simply drawn on pencil and paper, which we refined into a small number of design directions.

We then went into detailed design, running a number of rounds of user testing with participants across the globe. This validated our design direction and secured a truly best-in-class experience.

Key features of our designs included:

• Personalised web presence across multiple territories
• Rich product information using a variety of content types
• A ‘help me choose’ tool that will configure a bike for you based on 5 simple lifestyle choices 
• Integration of social feeds to highlight the diversity in product and customer
• The ability to build a bike online with seamless connection to store
• A store finder that better promotes Brompton’s own shops
• Shareable content designed to inspire users to take up cycling 
• An owner portal to push to self-service and product registration
• The ability to purchase products beyond the bike with dedicated landing pages

With our help Brompton was able to define an end-to-end experience for its key audiences hinged around several ‘key moments of truth’ such as when a customer first sees a Brompton and when they test-ride their bike. 

The final result was a globally-aligned customer experience that’s attracting new customers and emotionally engaging them on an ongoing basis.

Ecommerce revenue has more than doubled since the launch of the award-winning online shop and the sales process has been optimised, with 92% of people completing the online ‘Help me choose a Brompton’ journey.

Since the new website launched:

• Brompton can now sell direct to customers
• Ecommerce revenue has more than doubled (122% increase)103% increase in people saving bikes that they've configured online
• User numbers have increased by 33%
• Time spent on site has increased by 30 seconds on average
• The Brompton website was awarded a UX / usability accolade at The Drum’s 2015 DADI Awards in recognition of the industry-leading initiative.

Brompton's website, and wider customer experience, is now truly user-centred and forms a solid platform for the British business to continue its ambitious international expansion.