Hotter Shoes Fires up Digital Flagship Site as Consumers Step Online During the Pandemic

Wunderman Thompson Commerce, the leading global digital agency, today announced the launch of a new website for Hotter Shoes. The website will support the brand’s growing global commerce offering as the UK shoe manufacturer accelerates its expansion into the US and Europe.

Consumers can now access the new website, built on HCL WebSphere 9, in their droves without any impact on response times. Whether accessing the website from a mobile phone, tablet or desktop, consumers will receive the same high level of customer experience across all platforms. With Covid-19 lockdown measures pushing more consumers online, the new, modern Headless Commerce platform – built on Google Cloud to increase overall server capacity – will be key to Hotter Shoes meeting consumer demand in the retail sector’s ‘new normal’.

As a digitally led, omnichannel business, Hotter Shoes sought to provide the consumer with a strengthened digital experience, that’s slicker, simpler to use and better represents the brand.  The upgrade includes improvements to its on-site search tool, as well as more personalised merchandising and search recommendations –  all of which are underpinned by the implementation of a responsive, mobile-first design. Wunderman Thompson Commerce and Hotter Shoes have designed the new website – much of which was worked on remotely during lockdown – to provide customers with a seamless, end-to-end shopping experience.

The transformation of the site has also significantly reduced operational costs for Hotter and led to a near 50% drop-in page speed times across most digital page types. 

Victoria Betts, CCO at Hotter Shoes said: “Launching the website during lockdown had initially seemed a daunting task, but Wunderman Thompson Commerce, together with the Hotter Shoes team, worked remotely – and tirelessly – to get the new site off the ground in time for our customers to shop digitally from the safety of their own home. We now have a new and improved eCommerce platform and website that’s already proved valuable, with increased sales and improved search engine rankings in its first week. We can’t wait to see the new site go from strength to strength.”

Andrew Waugh, business services director at Wunderman Thompson Commerce said: “The coronavirus outbreak has changed the way consumers shop, and now is the time for retailers to finely tune their digital offerings in order to retain customer loyalty and drive sales. Hotter’s new digital flagship site is now far easier for customers to navigate. In fact, by moving to a modern website architecture and hosting, we’ve been able to create a much faster digital delivery pipeline that can be scaled to meet Hotter’s needs both now and in future.”

Wunderman Thompson Commerce implemented Hotter’s first website http://www.hotter.com/gb/en on IBM WebSphere Commerce (WCS) back in 2009 and then helped launch a site for the USA market. This is one of several projects undertaken by Wunderman Thompson Commerce, in partnership with the shoe retailer, to help Hotter to deliver on its long-term eCommerce strategy.