Local designer Kirrily Johnston has re-launched the website and e-store for her eponymous label, adding cutting-edge components to tackle the shift towards online shopping.
The brand, established in 1999, currently operates three boutiques across Melbourne and Sydney in addition to an e-boutique which launched six years ago.
However, following reports of a lull in bricks-and-mortar shopping habits and a decline in Oxford Street, Paddington foot traffic, Johnston has now completely re-built the site from scratch, creating a new online platform.
The fresh platform “blends content and commerce with the goal of closing the tangibility gap between shopping in one of the retailers’ flagship brick-and-mortar boutiques and shopping online”, and incorporates new features such as the option to 'lay-by' online and watch product-specific runway videos.
Johnston said the new site, which also allows customers to browse in a number of international currencies and avoid shipping charges on all Australian orders and international orders over $250, will also serve to improve her brand accessibility and cater to growing demand in international markets.
“The new e-boutique focuses on heightened customer service and anticipates forthcoming trends in retail and e-commerce, and we've built upon years of customer feed back to ensure the new site reflects what our customers have asked for,” she said.
“We also have a large existing client base both locally and internationally, who purchase collection pieces only at our online boutique. The site was designed with not only them in mind but also potential clients who are connecting with the Kirrily Johnston brands for the first time.”
Johnston added that the design aesthetic of the new site also more clearly presents Johnston’s two labels, Kirrily Johnston mainline (women’s wear) and diffusion line Kj by Kirrily Johnston (men’s and women’s), as individual brand identities.
“Aligning and streamlining the labels aesthetically through deepening user brand-experience reflects the direction the company is taking in representing the brands as unique from each other in the market,” she said.
Johnston's brand was among the 63 small businesses selected to share $2.6 million in government grants announced in Round 5 of the Australian Government’s Textile, Clothing and Footwear Small Business Program for projects to be undertaken in 2010/11. Her business individually was awarded $50,000 to advance marketing and e-commerce operations.