The Renaissance Pet: relaunching a brand and fighting for the little guy
The Renaissance Pet offers hand-edited, custom portraits for the pet who deserves it all. It's been around years. The problem?
First to Market, Last to Sales
The Renaissance Pet was, to the owner's knowledge, was the first to company to market custom portraits of pets in the style of famous paintings. Years later, competitors like Crown and Paw came to market. Banking on small armies of graphic designers and college grads, Crown and Paw grew rapidly, flooding the market with a large budget for retargeting.
The original website:
The original website mirrored style choices of the 1990s dot com boom. Now, in 2020, the dated look of the site undermined user trust. With a rise in scam sites and drop shipping, there existed moments that undermined user trust, like the lack of address or visible email address. Depending on where users were dropped on the site, users weren't given much information at all. One of our main goals was that no matter where a prospective consumer was, they'd know the heartbeat of the brand, what they sell, and how to order.
In addition to the lack of hard features like grounding text, the site used nearly a dozen different fonts with busy backgrounds that made text hard to read. The image uploader was difficult to read, confusing, and lacked consistency in colors and labels. The pages were disjointed and there wasn't a unified brand through the website. A lot of noise made the navigation one that was undercut constantly.
Unified Styling
We worked on tightening the brand, instilling a unified style guide across the site, elevating it to the regal looks it promised. Using only 3 fonts and a clear hierarchy and color pallet, the visuals worked to limit, not add to, the users cognitive load.
What makes Renaissance Pet unique?
We honed in on the one-on-one level care and total consistency that shopping from a small owner owned and operated business offers. We also pulled in reviews and added more email touch points. While competitors like Crown and Paw are huge teams, we really tried to pull in the individual touch: we showed Moti's face on the home page and added secondary supporting text with each product listing.
Moti started The Renaissance Pet in 2014 from his home in rural Massachusetts after a 30 year career as a painter. The Renaissance Pet is a small business that offers consistency and a direct line of communication to your artist. He tailors each portrait to your wants and will have the personal oversight to respond to your questions. Your pet is not an order number for him. Your pet is Ginger, Apollo, Milo, Seabiscut - your pet is yours. By purchasing from this shop, you are supporting Moti, his wife Amanda, and their son. Your purchase has a direct impact and he's honored for every portrait entrusted in his care.
Success
We launched right before the busiest sale time of the year: Black Friday. For three weeks straight, he had record sales and broke his record for most sales in a day after over 6 years in business. With sales hurting during COVID, the work on his website made a life changing difference for his family. This is trending to be his highest yield income to date.
Performance Stats
In the first 180 days since launch:
$36k in sales
250 orders
Average order of $144
In the last 30 days, compared to other US based stores in the same category (who also use Wix)
1,300 unique visitors (better than 87% of other stores)
Average order value: $129 (better than 76% of other stores)
55% organic referral (better than 58% of other stores)
21% social media referral (better than 76% of other stores)
Traffic is incredibly seasonal, with clients spending the most time on the site around gift giving holidays (Christmas, Black Friday).
First 180 days of launch (summary)
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