Project Objective: Troy Web Consulting was tasked with migrating the Truly Rhe website to Squarespace, implementing eCommerce features that would allow customers to easily purchase the items they love.
Project Background: Nestled in the heart of downtown Troy, New York, Truly Rhe offers an array of clothing, jewelry, accessories, footwear, and more. As the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic hit, Rhe was forced to close her doors. After years of running a successful business, Truly Rhe understands the importance of pivoting when the market demands it. Quickly, Rhe began running live fashion shows on Facebook to promote their items. This was very successful but taking orders became tedious and manual. As the Facebook Live events gained more traction, so did the need for eCommerce capabilities on the website to automate the order taking process and create a self-serve environment for her loyal customers.
The Challenge: Truly Rhe had a website that was hosted on a legacy platform. Although this platform allowed Rhe to make updates to the content, there were no e-Commerce capabilities. This meant posting pictures of inventory items was tedious and customers could not order online. The Troy Web team quickly spun up a new “copy” of her website on Squarespace, a robust platform for both websites and e-commerce systems. Within days, the existing site was migrated over, and after another week of testing and small changes, the site was fully functional. Rhe began promoting the updated site during her Facebook live fashion shows, letting her customers know that they would soon be able to place their orders directly online. The purchasing process was tested by Troy Web’s quality assurance team and the site is live and ready for the upcoming show where customers can visit the site and purchase the items from the online store.
Business Impact: The Truly Rhe website is now capable of handling large amounts of traffic at one time and has full payment processing, refund capabilities, inventory control, coupon codes, CRM integration, and all the other expected capabilities of a robust e-commerce system… All in less than 3 weeks!
When forced to close the doors of her shop due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Rhe’s business model pivot yielded and expanded business. She now has regional and national customers who joined her following (and mailing list) through the Facebook Live fashion shows, and she can reach out to them through constant contact and drive them directly to her site to make purchases. As her store looks to re-open, she will have a new hybrid model where she serves her local customers in the store and additionally serves others online. Rhe’s business is expected to grow as a result.
Visit www.trulyrhe.com