Weaving a New Digital Path

As we settle into the evolving post-pandemic retail environment, it’s become clear that forward-thinking fashion brands are embracing a mobile-first approach that caters to consumer interest in quality, longevity, and sustainability.

Pendleton Woolen Mills, the Oregon-based wool brand famous for its iconic blankets and Western-inspired apparel, has a clear edge: expert craftsmanship, long-lasting style, and environmental awareness have been integral to this family-owned business for over 150 years. But Pendleton knew it needed to upgrade its storefront from SiteGenesis to Salesforce Reference Architecture (SFRA) to provide customers with a faster, more accessible, mobile-first experience.

When asked to pitch on the project, Astound recommended a full site redesign and strategic brand consulting in addition to the SFRA replatform. Pendleton was impressed by our ability to offer a comprehensive range of services and decided to enlist our help to complete the next step in its digital journey.

To meet the expectations of today’s customers, Pendleton needed to upgrade its 2017 SiteGenesis site to a mobile-first SFRA storefront that was fast, flexible, and ADA compliant. The brand also wanted to update the overall look and feel of the site and add branded content pages that would engage buyers and capture Pendleton’s unique voice, values, and outlook.

To maximize efficiency, we planned to use our proprietary, feature-rich Launch360 SFRA experience and our Page Designer Extended solution as the basis for Pendelton’s new storefront. We began with an in-depth feature-by-feature review of the brand’s current site and a competitor analysis to create a new optimized storefront that would engage customers and showcase Pendleton’s distinctive aesthetic. To guarantee that the new site would be fast, flexible, and support the brand’s evolving needs, we also conducted technical workshops to establish a future state architecture and outline necessary third-party integrations.

To inform Pendleton’s new content pages and strategy, we conducted in-depth research across diverse data points and collaborated closely with internal teams to refine a distinctive brand voice, create user personas, and develop topics of authority.

Drawing on our discoveries to augment the out-of-the-box features of our Launch360 and Page Designer Extended solutions, we set about perfecting the UX and visual design of Pendleton’s new storefront. To simplify the purchase experience, we optimized search suggestions to offer diverse paths for new and returning customers. We also streamlined the return process to create a step-by-step procedure with clear guidance for users. To better showcase the distinctive beauty of Pendleton’s product patterns, we revised the project detail pages (PDP) and improved the presentation of product attributes to make the experience more accessible and user friendly. And we carefully reworked the customization process for products that allow for embroidery or monogramming, creating a clear and intuitive presentation of options that allows customers to more easily personalize their purchases.

Building on our enhanced Launch360 SFRA storefront, we completed key third-party integrations with Cloudinary, Bluecore, Signifyd, NetSuite OMS, AfterPay, Solupay, and Avalara to power important functionality, including payments, fraud prevention, tax calculation, and image assets management.

To help Pendleton easily craft content that captivates its stylish, adventurous, quality-conscious consumers, we created a comprehensive strategy guide that outlines key content messages and examples, an actionable modular approach, and sample user flows.

We completed the redesign and replatform to SFRA on July 12, 2023. The brand’s new fast, accessible, mobile-first storefront:

• Boosts engagement with a best-in-class customer experience that captures the beauty of Pendleton’s signature patterns
• Uses a modular, collaborative, and extensible reference architecture to support future growth
• Enables easy, in-house deployment of new customer-focused features, flexible storytelling, and personalization strategies