Product and business

VocalMist is a nebulizer that helps singers and voice professionals to support their vocal health.
The nebulizer comes with a specially-designed VocalMist Hydration Formula, available in packs starting from 24 units and intended for regular use.

From the business point of view, it’s quite a unique case with a specific monetization strategy, where selling the flagship product is just the first step of interaction with the customer. The main source of income comes from refill packs with several subscription options available.

Also, SEO promotion wasn’t an option because the website is relatively small; and running Facebook or Google Ads was restricted because the nebulizer is a healthcare-related product unlikely to pass moderation. That’s why some of the challenges the business faced were quite specific and impossible to solve out-of-the-box.

Solution 1

Challenges and solutions

Unclear website navigation

According to the owner’s own words, the online store was designed “piecemeal from basic themes on Shopify and ended up quite convoluted and clunky”. Without a logical structure, it wasn’t clear to the customer which products were presented, how to buy them, and what was needed to efficiently use the nebulizer later.

Solution

In eCommerce, it all starts with a quality user experience. To make the online store perform its main function, we:

  • Redesigned the customer journey from the homepage to the final check out, and made the website navigation clear, simple, and intuitive
  • Clearly presented the flagship product, its features, and how to use it – with special focus on the importance of the refill packs
  • Described all available subscription options to make it clear for customers on how to get the most out of the product
  • Conducted a one-time SEO optimization to make the website display more prominently in search engine results
  • Redesigned the website to make it more visually appealing

Results

After the implementation of the first stage, the client received a structured and effective online store with a clear customer journey focused on sales, essential for promoting the product via influencers and word-of-mouth advertising.

How you can benefit

It doesn’t matter how you sell online – having an intuitive, effective, and pleasant-looking online store is a must in any eCommerce business. A well-designed customer journey
is needed when either no other digital marketing options are available, or when the user experience needs to be more effective.

To learn how to make your store drive sales, check out our Shopify design page.

Missing out on subscriptions

Another challenge our client faced was that customers were mostly buying the flagship product (the nebulizer itself) and not the subscription packs, which was the main long-term business goal.

Regarding the refill packs, there were two subscription options available:

  • Customers could order 24 units delivered once a month
  • Or 48 units delivered once every two months

Customers benefit from both of these options, as in both cases they would have the required 24 units per month. The only difference between these two options is the delivery frequency; shipping and delivery with the second option would cost half as much for the business.

So the tasks for this stage were clear: to attract customers’ attention to the subscription plans,
and motivate them to buy the two-month subscription option.

Solution

To accomplish this, we integrated a customized popup message which appeared when the customer adds the first subscription option (24 units per month) to their cart. The message offers
a discount for the second subscription (48 units per 2 months) and motivates customers to choose it over the first one.

Solution 2

Although these kinds of popups are common in eCommerce and are available within the default settings of basically any theme, there was one challenge. In a standard popup, after the customer adds the promoted option to the cart, two products appeared together on the checkout page: the product which was chosen first (A) and the one added from the popup (B). In this case, customers needed to delete option A manually, and only after that complete the purchase. This way the number of steps before the checkout increased, which resulted in subsequent customer loss.

To prevent this, we developed the functionality which deletes product A if product B is added from
the popup. It’s done automatically on the back end, so customers did not need to delete anything manually, and the checkout process remains as smooth as possible.

Solution 3

Also, the popup had to be integrated with a third-party subscription app to show all available delivery options in the popup.

Results

The popup development didn’t involve custom app solutions; everything was implemented on the theme level. All settings are available via theme customizer, so it’s possible to set up and change anything at any time from the Shopify admin panel, with no coding required.

How you can benefit

If done right, even a small tweak added in the right place can significantly increase conversion rate. We have the necessary eCommerce experience to optimize any customer flow, and we’re ready to assist you with that – check out our Shopify Custom theme creation page to learn how.

No required delivery settings

Regular delivery of the refill packs was available only within the U.S., but it wasn’t possible to restrict users from other countries from ordering subscriptions. So we needed to show the subscription options to customers from the U.S. and hide them from others, still providing them the possibility
to buy the main product.

Solution

The only way to do this was to integrate custom functionality builds around the Shopify subscription app that our client was using. We added the script to check customers’ geolocation, and if the country of origin was the U.S., all subscription options were made available. For all other countries, these subscription options were hidden.

Solution 4

Also, in case our client would like to expand the delivery area, we made it a completely future-proof solution, because this functionality is controlled from the settings. The client just needs to choose from the dropdown menu the countries they would like to deliver to.

Results

The client got the flexible and easy-to-use settings that were impossible to integrate out of the box or find in other apps.

How you can benefit

Sometimes custom functionality is the only way to get the results you need, and a wise investment made once can bring you much more afterwards. Check out our Shopify app development page to learn how to make any process possible, and any business easier.

Unwanted elements on the website

Finally, there were some improvements, such as the removal of the “Buy Now” button from
the product card, and other minor fixes. We easily implemented them too to polish off the project.

Solution 4

How you can benefit

To make some improvements here and there, there’s no need
to waste time on unnecessary communication with development teams. You can simply go to our catalog, choose the customization you need, order it in a few clicks, and have the job done.

To learn more and check out all the options you can go to our Shopify small tasks page.

Results

To sum it all up, nothing can describe the results of the work better
than the feedback from the owner:

VocalMIst owner

“Our multiple-product purchase rate (with the SpurIT custom popup builds) has gone up around 75% with the products we were attempting to push!”

Aaron Schumacher

Founder, VocalMist

The whole review is available on our Clutch profile here.