Subscription-box cosmetics brand Birchbox launched a redesigned website that advances the subscription box experience online through navigation, discovery, education and delight.
“The new site is our chance to take our customers on a journey of why the site experience matters and we rely on our content to do that,” said Meredith Schwartz, Vice President of Product for Birchbox.
Schwartz said the idea is to guide customers and help them feel more confident in the products they’re choosing. Birchbox’s goal with the redesign is to create a completely personalized and cohesive experience for customers.
“We’ve seen and heard how people react to our monthly boxes, and we wanted to replicate that personal element across our website,” said Schwartz.
Schwartz said the new redesign gives Birchbox a framework and the ability to display products that are most relevant to customers based on what they sample. It also allows them to see reviews based on their profile and data on look-alikes.
“This particular redesign is about providing context to people so they can navigate in a confident way,” Schwartz said. “That was really the impetus behind this. The brand is supposed to be helping customers build out their beauty routine with ease.”
While Birchbox has always focused on storytelling and content, a lot of it wasn’t front and center in the website.
Each pillar page is custom built to tell a story and provide information on each step in the beauty routine. They allow consumers to shop not just by brand or collection but by specific product category and need.
“Our new navigation is something that is relatively different in the industry,” said Schwartz. “We have grouped our categories in large foundational pieces that you can group products around.”
Schwartz said they gather all of the products within subcategories under the foundational pieces, providing context that is meaningful to customers.
The focus was on creating thoughtful pathways on the site. For example, customers can pull relevant content, guides and imagery from the product pages.
Each month, Birchbox’s design team will debut new, limited edition boxes, take some of their design elements like the color scheme and patterns, and incorporate them into the online experience to create brand cohesion.