A Magento 2 Solution for B2B and B2C

An untidy and outdated Magento 1 site was no longer upholding their brand image – something of the utmost importance for a leading beauty expert. Not fit for purpose and reaching its end of life, Nouveau Lashes believed the only reason their customers returned to their website was thanks to brand loyalty.

With over 90 percent of Nouveau Lashes’ revenue coming from professionals who routinely restock their salons and the remainder from a range of products available for sale to B2C shoppers, it was paramount to separate those different onsite experiences. IDHL was brought onboard to do just that, whilst creating a stable store aligned to their market-leading brand.

Supported by an in-house WordPress developer, Nouveau Lashes also wished to retain their WordPress site for non eCommerce content due to ease and manageability.

Integrating with this existing WordPress website, we designed and developed a Magento 2 site for their B2B and B2C eCommerce stores – Pro Shop and Shop. Underpinned by Sonassi hosting, their new eCommerce store offers a stable and reliable platform for the brand and customers alike.

To create a site that aligned with Nouveau Lashes’ brand, the design phase was significant to achieving their objectives. With both a professional and B2C audience, the first design stage was a UX audit of their existing Magento 1 site to define the ‘Professional’ user journey.

Diving into their Google Analytics data uncovered that over 80 percent of their users access the site using a mobile device. Subsequently, a mobile first approach to the design was taken to ensure a slick mobile user journey.

Wireframing played a significant role in getting the UX just right. Changing the navigation tab order, even naming conventions were reconsidered to explore how Nouveau Lashes could better differentiate their B2B versus B2C offering.

With a heavy focus on their trade customers first and foremost, extensive testing was involved. Nouveau Lashes’ B2B customers were given the opportunity to review and feedback on the wireframes and user journey mocks ups. Remote user testing was also undertaken to validate the proposed designs for their B2C domain.

Once satisfied with the wireframes, our in-house designers worked with the Nouveau team to produce a unique, on-brand and engaging design. Clean and easy to navigate, the site was visually impressive and captivating – key to achieving Nouveau’s vision. Ensuring consistency with the WordPress site, the header and footer were redesigned and rolled out across all domains.

Translating each and every design element into pixel-perfect onsite functionality, our front-end development team made those designs a reality.

Catering to their dual B2B and B2C audience, the website required product-specific access and pricing. Extending Magento’s customer group functionality, we were able to provide additional features such as trade price list management and ‘pay on account’ for B2B users.

To enhance the user experience a wishlist feature alongside cross-sell and upsell functionality was also implemented. Allowing ingredients to be tagged against products to populate the product descriptions, an ingredients manager was created for the site.

The build involved multiple integrations in addition to the WordPress integration. Custom API endpoints enable Nouveau Lashes to get the information they need out of Magento and further integrations included Peoplevox for stock management, an extended Klevu implementation to serve pricing based on specific users, Klarna payment gateway, Sage200 for accounts, Trustpilot for reviews and a bespoke CRM system.

Customer account setup was also a key focus, allowing for easy registration of both B2C and trade customers. Involving integration with a bespoke CRM system, users can now book training online and can only buy products they’re trained on and approved for.