Equal Exchange.
Equal Exchange

Fairly traded goods such as chocolates, coffees, and teas are barely a hard sell but, when it comes to ecommerce, there’s always room for improvement. Equal Exchange knew that in order to stay competitive, it needed to instantly capture and keep the attention of shoppers. After Noticed migrated Equal Exchange to Shopify Plus from Magento Enterprise, downtime and high maintenance costs no longer took up a large portion of their time and budget. An overall improvement in itself, this meant that those resources and efforts could now be allocated to improving key site metrics to convert traffic into sales.
Services
Ecommerce Strategy
Conversion Optimization
UX & UI Design
Shopify Plus Development
Data Migration
Third-Party Integrations
Industry
Food & Beverage
Platform

Opportunity
With the organic and fair trade industry more saturated than ever, Equal Exchange needed to find a way to keep their traffic converting: a task that was easier said than done on their Magento site. The platform caused frequent bugs and performance issues, as well as frequent security breaches.
With a brand built on trust and transparency, these security issues undermined the relationship and brand story that Equal Exchange worked so hard to build between itself and its customers.
Goals
Replatforming from Magento to Shopify Plus allowed Equal Exchange to market to new customers and win back previous ones by immediately eliminating any security issues, thanks to Shopify’s scalable, cloud-based technology.
Equal Exchange’s conversion rate is over 9%, more than three times the overall average. They’ve also been experiencing an increase in returning customers, (about 72% of their customers have purchased before) and an increase of 22% in overall sales since their February 2018 launch. If nothing else, Equal Exchange’s success is a testament to the power of putting the customer first when building an online store. Keeping the customer’s overall experience in mind and finding and implementing the right tools to offer an intuitive, personalized journey leads to noteworthy conversions.
9.5%
Conversion Rate
22%
Revenue Increase
72%
Returning Customers
Technology Platforms
“I wanted to scale more marketing campaigns to drive sales and I spent a lot more time doing technical work to keep our site running - and money! Majority of our budget and time was consumed by technical work. Our small team couldn’t do the things we really wanted to do because of it.”
- Gary Goodman, Digital Marketing & Sales Manager
Ecommerce Services

Multi-Channel Solutions
Shopify’s built-in multi-channel capabilities made for a seamless transition between Equal Exchange’s wholesale and retail presences. Between the features and a solid strategy, Equal Exchange saw improvements in their metrics across the board.
Additionally, integrating ReCharge allows customers to subscribe to their favorite products, keeping them coming back again and again without even having to think about it. What’s worse than walking to the cupboard and realizing you’re out of coffee? Never again, with Equal Exchange.
Conversion Rate Optimization

Ongoing Optimization
Brands that have been in the business a while know that optimization isn’t a one-time fix. Trends, like seasons, come and go, and consumer behaviors shift along with them. Making the most of sales and marketing efforts and staying ahead in a competitive landscape involves staying attuned to a site’s key metics and making changes in both the design and the backend that will continue to drive sales.
For Equal Exchange, this meant that in addition to implementing a customer-forward design, Noticed added several backend features— such as a Shopify script for custom shipping options—as well as optimized cross-sell and upsell prompts, which created a more personal experience for shoppers. Yotpo and Smile.io, two of Noticed’s partners offering reviews and a loyalty program respectively, also added value and encouraged customers to be more engaged, improving the overall experience on the site and driving conversion rates well above industry standards.

Content & Commerce
To balance the experiences of content and commerce, Noticed created an integrated experience that allows Equal Exchange's content features to be woven together with its commerce functionality. This facilitates seamless interaction between content and shopping, so users can be inspired by content and not have to wander too far to make a purchase.