Partner Focus: Made People - Innovative Approach to eCommerce Type

We currently live in a world where eCommerce is now embedded into most consumer journeys. There is almost nothing that can’t be purchased with the click of a button, or a tap on a screen, and while some organizations are having trouble keeping up, other organizations like Sweden-based eCommerce agency Made People, are spearheading innovative solutions and disrupting the norms.

Section titled Making Stronger, Stronger Making Stronger, Stronger

Made People have been using a new and exciting stack and delivery approach to deliver eCommerce projects for their clients with amazing results. Most recently, Made People were approached by Stronger, a Swedish lifestyle brand for women, looking to expand their business into different markets and languages, and needed to get new content to market very quickly. While Stronger did not make any technology specifications, they wanted something that could work for the foreseeable future to future-proof their business.

Previously, Stronger were using a monolithic structure combined with Magento, which had several issues:

• The system was not built for the modern world with the right tools to grow
• Restrictive back-end from a monolithic structure
• Limitations in usage and what could be built
• Dissatisfaction with the inability to easily tap into their desired international strategy
• Stack limitations dictated by a monolithic CMS

Made People decided to revamp the entire structure starting by going headless, and created the following stack:

• CMS: Storyblok
• Framework: Nuxt.JS
• Hosting: Cloudflare
• eCommerce Stack:
  • eCommerce Platform: Centra eCommerce
  • CDN: Cloudflare
  • Filtering: Findify
  • Emails & Newsletter: Klaviyo
  • Reviews: Yotpo
  • On-site Instagram Display: Flowbox
  • End-to-end delivery solution: Ingrid
  • Returns Management: ReBOUND

By moving Stronger to this technology stack, Made People were able to create a more agile, consumer-centric journey, by utilizing a CMS that allowed Stronger to focus more on the content, flexibility to create the necessary components to suit their go-to-market strategy, and created ease-of-use across their development and marketing stakeholders.

That’s when Storyblok came into consideration, as Made People found Storyblok to be a solution that they can easily start projects with ease-of-growth, especially with different content types, such as omni-channel focused or localized content. This was perfectly suited for Stronger’s need to focus their content for the customers, tap into new markets, and grow.

Made People, having already gone through all the content management systems beforehand, ended up choosing Storyblok as their content management system of choice, citing it as:

“We want to give our clients an easy start and grow with their technology stack as the business grows, without having to change the whole architecture. With Storyblok, we have the perfect CMS. We can start fast, and simply expand it as we keep tapping into new markets.” - Jonathan Selander (Made People)

Section titled Stronger with Storyblok Stronger with Storyblok

During the initial onboarding process, Made People showcased Storyblok through a learning experience, consisting of live demos which exhibited how Stronger could manage their content with Storyblok, using the design system that Made People had developed for the brand. Stronger decided to proceed and the project went into User Acceptance Testing (UAT), which allowed Stronger to take the reins and test out Storyblok and managing their content on it through the innovative bespoke design system built by Made People, as well as trial new content creation, and relay their feedback during the testing process for final tweaks before going live.

“With Storyblok, you can see everything that you do in real-time, and that is very important for an eCommerce site. For example, if you are deciding on a certain text color, it’s important to see how it looks with images. With Storyblok, we can see that in a preview and approve the changes before it goes on the site. I think it’s the best tool I’ve ever worked with.” - Hanny Eldblom (Stronger’s eCommerce Team Leader)

While initially a lot of the work created by Made People was through templates available on Storyblok, Stronger liked Storyblok so much more than their previous CMS experiences, that the brand decided to reach out to Made People to work on something new, creative, innovative, and an entirely new experience for their customers.

Stronger’s workflow process with Storyblok was based around brand storytelling through campaigns, usually one big campaign per month. For example, for a recent summer sale campaign had Stronger create and prepare a campaign page, category page, toast/banner, and the main menu in advance and see the campaign outlook before going live in realtime. This speed of creation and adaptation has seen Stronger expand into seven new markets, with sights on growing within Europe and launching in new territories like the United States.

Made People launched the new website for Stronger within six months of the first meeting, just in time for Black Friday, which was a perfect point to test the limits and performance of the new site. They had phenomenal results which showed higher conversion rates, an increase in orders, extended global presence and support. In numbers:

• A 167% increase in orders
• A 172% increase in total revenue
• A 14% increase in mobile conversion
• A 123% increase in total traffic

Section titled Made People Making People Made People Making People

Similarly, Made People had focused on a project for Odd Molly, a Swedish women's fashion brand. In addition to Storyblok (as their CMS), Centra (eCommerce platform), and Yotpo (Loyalty & user-generated content), oddmolly.com uses a range of state-of-the-art technology to provide a great digital experience.

• Findify: Merchandising & Search
• Klaviyo: Email & Newsletter Automation
• Ingrid: Shipping Engine
• Klarna: Checkout
• Adyen: Payment Platform
• Dragon Slayer: Consumer Engine

Section titled Partner of the Month Partner of the Month

Made People have revolutionized the way eCommerce should be and are leading in cutting edge innovations to push the envelope for their clients and deliver the most powerful, impactful online experiences for consumers, making them Storyblok’s Partner of the Month for September. Made People’s very own Jonathan will be joining our 3rd ‘Stories from the Blok’ event to put the spotlight on their most recent projects.