Beige ottoman on a geometric-patterned tiled floor with white walls

Fired Earth

Fired Earth’s move to Shopify Plus marked a major transformation for their B2C and B2B operations, streamlining their product catalogue and delivering a faster, more adaptable eCommerce experience, supporting growth and enhanced customer engagement.

Client Link

firedearth.com

Services Used

KEY RESULTS.

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Increase in online store sessions

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Increase in user engagement

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Increase in journey to checkout

BACKGROUND.

Seamless migration and Shopify Plus build for the tile sector.

Fired Earth is a leading wall and floor tile retailer, with showrooms and a network of partner suppliers across the UK. The brand has a reputation for great design and is committed to authenticity, timeless style and creativity.

With ambitious growth plans ahead, Fired Earth engaged our team to help them explore the best path forward. We recommended Shopify Plus as the ideal solution to scale their online presence, simplify backend management, enhance their online customer experience and preserve the essential features they had invested in with Absolute since 2017.

BRIEF.

Migrate from Magento to Shopify Plus with a new storefront that combines beautiful design with powerful features.

After an initial feature discovery session with a thorough review of their existing Magento setup, we scoped out a comprehensive migration project. This included a bespoke storefront design that aligned with their brand’s aesthetic, as well as the implementation of custom features like trade account registration, a tile calculator, price per m2 filtering and payment on invoice.

A significant focus of the project was ensuring a smooth data migration from Magento to Shopify Plus. This included products, customers, orders, and supporting content to maintain operational continuity. With this comprehensive brief, we set out to deliver a modern, user-friendly site that reflected Fired Earth’s premium brand and positioned them for continued growth.

Laptop displaying a Shopify Plus website for a tiles company, Fired Earth, on a wooden table with a green tiled wall background.

HOW WE HELPED.

We crafted an elegant storefront that followed with a strong set of integrations for a seamless migration to Shopify Plus.

To align with Fired Earth’s commitment to timeless design and authenticity, we designed a bespoke Shopify Plus theme that reflects their premium brand. Our design process focused on creating a seamless blend of elegant design and user-friendly functionality.

Incorporating their signature earthy tones and high-quality visuals, we designed a premium user experience that embodies the Fired Earth brand. We crafted intuitive navigation and enhanced product detail pages with inspiring imagery, store locator and product specification, helping customers explore and interact with their range of products seamlessly.

Collection filters were also a strong focus on the redesign, and we developed an intuitive system that allows customers to easily browse and refine product selections based on key attributes such as color, size, finish, and suitability. This approach ensures that customers can quickly find the perfect products for their projects, improving the shopping experience for customers.

Recognising the importance of mobile traffic, we also prioritised a mobile-first design approach. This ensured that the site’s navigation, product pages and checkout flow are fully optimised for mobile devices, ensuring customers can browse effortlessly, no matter where they are.

During the development phase, we translated the approved designs into a fully functional and responsive site. Our frontend team built the home page, collection, product pages, blog, advice hub articles and showroom detail pages to match the brand’s aesthetic while ensuring optimal performance across devices. We developed intuitive collection filtering, implemented the tile calculator, and added custom product card labels to enhance the user experience.

On the backend, we configured essential Shopify features and integrated key third-party apps, such as Flowbox for their Instagram content feed, Roomvo for product visualisation. Trustpilot for product and brand reviews, and Dotdigital for email marketing. We also worked closely with ShipperHQ to bring across shipping rules and implemented trade-specific functionality, including trade account registration forms and payment on account features to support B2B customers.

HOW WE HELPED.

Our team ensured seamless integration with their ERP (K8 Kerridge), enabling smooth stock management and order processing. Additionally, we mapped product attributes to ensure all content transitioned seamlessly from Magento to Shopify Plus.

Throughout development we ran comprehensive QA and UAT to ensure that the site not only looked great but also delivered a fast, intuitive shopping experience.

To ensure the new Shopify Plus site delivered the best possible user experience, Fired Earth engaged a third-party user testing team to gather unbiased feedback. The tests focused on key areas including navigation, product discovery, cart to checkout flows and overall usability across devices. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and this validation confirmed that the site exceeded customer expectations and provided valuable insights for launch.

CONCLUSION.

By covering all of these elements, the project delivered a modern, scalable Shopify Plus solution that would empower Fired Earth to meet their growth targets, enhance the customer experience and continue delivering the quality and authenticity their customers expect.

Following launch, the Fired Earth replatform to Shopify Plus resulted in a 31% increase in online store sessions, 12% increase in user engagement, and compared to the previous period, users continued to browse the website for over 15 minutes, vs. 5 minutes previously. The journey to checkout increased too, by 42%, with the most conversions happening on mobile.

Collaboration is at the heart of any web design project, and it was particularly crucial for Fired Earth. With multiple stakeholders and a complex set of requirements, we tailored our project management approach to ensure smooth communication and efficient progress.

This combination of creativity, strategic thinking and dedicated technical expertise for 3rd party integration demonstrates our ability to deliver exceptional results and the ongoing Shopify support retainer highlights our commitment to supporting Fired Earth’s growth, ensuring their website continues to evolve with new features and functionality.

We met a fixed deadline for this project which was only five months due to a renewal of their Adobe Commerce license. If this was missed, the client would have needed to invest in a 3 month extension costing them £10k. Overall, the migration to Shopify Plus saved the client estimated licensing costs of £25k per year, in addition to the savings associated with their hosting provision.