Iconic South Australian skincare brand Jurlique has relaunched its global website, powered by AI, underpinned by data and driven by a focus on the consumer. The relaunched site is now live across Australia, the US, Hong Kong, the UK and Europe.
The new site offers customers a highly personalised experience with Jurlique, as the e-commerce platform can now offer product and content recommendations, regardless of where the consumer originally made his or her purchase. The brand also offers online customers personalised samples and gifts, VIP offers, gift-wrapping and a seamless checkout experience, as well as additional payment options such as WeChat and AliPay.
The three-year digital transformation was spearheaded by Fiona Moylan, the global director of digital data and e-commerce, and her all-female digital and technology team.
“It’s important that our customers enjoy the same level of personalised service and value no matter the touchpoint, region, channel or device that they’re using to engage with Jurlique,” says Moylan.
“The impetus of the data transformation journey was to deeply understand our customers and build relationships with them. While technology was used to capture, connect, identify and even speed up communications with consumers, this in hindsight was the easy part. The challenge was how we could use AI and behavioural insights to emotionally engage with the customer. How do we offer value to their skincare journey?”
Putting in the hard yards
According to Moylan, a major focus of the transformation was on offering customers a shopping experience that was engaging, relevant and personalised.
Prior to Jurlique’s digital transformation, the previous platform was missing some key fundamentals, such as analytics, SEO and standard e-commerce processes. Other service features were also lacking, such as the ability to swiftly deliver product in sustainable packaging that was aligned to the brand’s DNA.
“When I started in the role, the digital team spent a disproportionate amount of time fixing technology instead of using technology to drive growth – in short, this meant the team were constantly in reactive mode drowning in technical debt,” recalls Moylan. “My first six months in the role was spent hiring the right team and laying a solid technology foundation to enable the e-commerce business to scale, at speed.”
Once the e-commerce sites were stable, the focus was firmly on data and CRM.
“By mid-2017, we had a CDMP providing a 360-degree view of the customer; we were utilising data science to understand our customers, and we were cautiously starting the marketing automation journey,” says Moylan.
A personalised approach
Mid-transformation, the new Jurlique site underwent a full UX redesign to align with consumer needs. To truly understand how customers interacted with the former website, extensive consumer testing was undertaken, recorded and presented to the entire business at an annual conference by Moylan.
“Digital transformation can be overwhelming for many, and demonstrating real consumer experiences is incredibly effective. One video of a loyal consumer asking, ‘Why can’t I use my gift cards in store?’ is worth a thousand PowerPoint slides,” she says.
“The new site addresses the challenges which arose from user research. For example, we doubled the amount of content on the site to help consumers make product decisions that were right for their needs.”
Just a few weeks after the transformation took place, Moylan noticed how much the team’s focus had shifted from technology to commercially led discussions to drive growth.
“I could already hear the conversations and focus change from, ‘Oh my, something’s fallen off the site’ to ‘How are we going to optimise this promotion? How can we change this page?’ And that’s the heartland of digital – that’s the conversation we should be having. We’re not software developers, we’re retailers.”
Closer to the customer
As part of the relaunched digital strategy to better understand their customers, Jurlique is now asking them to share their skin types and concerns in order to suggest personalised recommendations, samples and VIP offers. Just three weeks after the site went live, over 1000 new customers came on board, with a third sharing their data with the company.
“The way consumers shop for skincare is deeply personal. Consumers need to believe that the product will work and they need to trust us with the product selection enough to place it on their face,” explains Alexa Anastassi, head of global digital product at Jurlique.
According to Anastassi, the team was also focused on creating an engaging e-commerce site that could cater to both current and future customers, using the right technology and partners to deliver on their product vision.
“During the digital transformation process, we had an unwavering focus on providing our consumers value. Value isn’t about price to us, it’s about relevancy of content, convenience of delivery, online service, personalised recommendations, timely reminders to top up product and enhanced payment options – all features which give consumers a reason to return to Jurlique.”
