Elk Accessories
Over the past 5 years, Elk has gone from a start up to one of Australia's most recognisable boutique female brands. In 2010 Elk came to Lava requiring an entirely new site. The brief was ambitious, so we set out to make a flagship online solution.
The Brief
Elk Accessories is a long-term client of Lava. Over the past 5 years, Elk has gone from a start up to one of Australia’s most recognisable boutique female brands. Elk offers original contemporary designed fashion accessories featuring jewellery, textiles and knitted apparel. Elk regularly gets featured in Marie Claire and Vogue Australia magazines, and has an ever-growing, loyal female following.
Elk’s original site developed by Lava in 2006 was one of our most successful, with consistently high 24/7 traffic, and an average viewing time of 5+ minutes.
In 2010 Elk came to Lava requiring an entirely new site. The new site needed to reflect Elk’s standing as a leading boutique brand, and provide a place to showcase and sell its sizable product catalogue. Key to the development was giving consumers an enhanced shopping experience, including plenty of 'bells and whistles' features such as a Wish List, and also Gift Certificates. A B2B login area was required to enable Elk’s rep to enter sales directly into the online system, when servicing their retail clients Australia-wide. Another focus of the new site was the full integration with an online stock management system, which in turn, integrates with Elk’s internal accounting systems.
The brief was ambitious, so we set out to make a flagship online solution.
Lava's Solution
Elk has quite a Scandinavian and nature-oriented design influence. As such, Lava's design is similarly kept simple and elegant, with a 'less is more' approach. The template uses Elk’s beautiful seasonal feature photography to great effect. We have created two skins for the site: a moody and chic version for winter, and bright (with a dash of lemon) for summer. Using the Lava CMS, the client can easily alternate between each during the year. A simpler version of each template was created for the iPhone App(lication), to suit the smaller screen size available.
The new site features a Blog, along with an integrated eNews(letter) facility. Lava’s team is particular fond of the ‘Behind the Scenes’ section, where Elk showcases some less formal photos and videos, providing a 'fly on the wall' insight into how each season and its campaign is put together (models getting made up, on location shots, the props that make up each scene including Marnie and Adam’s family caravan, and even their pet dog Gover – their team mascot!).
The site enables users to easily navigate through Elk’s extensive product catalogue, by Collection and Elk’s designated ‘Favourites’. Users can add items to their Shopping Cart, and also create a Wish List. Lava has created a fully integrated payment process, along with a Promotional Code system. This is a great tool for campaigns (e.g. in a particular press publication). Users can also buy Gift Certificates, each generated as a PDF file.
Lava built a login area for Elk’s B2B audience, so that reps are able to see unique prices and products, and place orders direct into the online system when on the road servicing B2B clients (e.g. a retail store that stocks Elk products).
A highlight of the Elk setup is the integration Lava has done with the online stock management software, Datapel. This new setup means the site shows live stock, quantities and prices. Orders are placed direct in Datapel’s system for fulfilment, and this also integrates with Elk’s MYOB accounting system setup. Not only is this extremely efficient, but it also ensures a high level of business scalability. Lava loved building the Elk iPhone App, as we feel it really suits their audience. Girls like to shop 24/7, so we anticipate many orders will be placed on the fly!
