Digital Re-Plaforming Drives Record Conversation Rates for Cornish Fashion Brand Seasalt

Cornish lifestyle brand Seasalt saw conversion rates move above six per cent for the first time, following its recent £2.5m digital re-platforming. 

The brand, which was founded more than 40 years ago and now has 65 shops across the UK and Ireland, saw record days topping the previous conversion rate high of 5.3 per cent at 5.9 and 6.1 per cent over Christmas. The brand has also increased the proportion of sales made online to 56 per cent. 

The re-platforming was delivered by SQLI Digital Experience, partly over lockdown, and completed in July 2020. SQLI is an expert in Adobe Commerce and is also behind the digital transformations of Fortnam & Mason, Hamleys and Tesco Mobile. 

Jonty Sutton, CEO at SQLI UK, said: “These fantastic results speak for themselves and demonstrate how fundamentally important functionality and operational sophistication is for sales and growth. 

“The new platform has also delivered important resilience that will allow Seasalt to innovate and easily handle the new demands of future digital commerce. 

“Recent extraordinary events such as the pandemic have demonstrated that brands need to prioritise digital functionality to be able to handle extraordinary moments, while reflecting new trends in purchasing.” 

Will Charnley, chief sales officer at Seasalt said: “Our digital transformation with SQLI showed us just what was possible and how well the platform could perform for our brand.  

“Our existing platform was built from the ground up and highly-bespoke and we had outgrown it.  We needed a platform we could move quicker on and this new high performance system based on Adobe Commerce will allow us to continue to grow as a business and add in layers of new functionality as we go.” 

The digital transformation took ten months from October 2019 and was delivered in July 2020 with no disruption for customers. The transformation also allowed the firm to run industry-leading software that allows online orders to be fulfilled in stores for the first time.