Upholding and expanding an unrivalled reputation
Pronto Woven’s recent project for Shimano Bikes AU was a detailed update of their website.
Matt Bazzano, Managing Director of Shimano Australia said, “Within the bicycle industry, we were one of the first online wholesale sites in the industry and was certainly considered the best – we set the standard. However, we didn’t just want to be the best in this industry but also to lead the marketplace overall. Today consumers are very well educated and our dealers need to have the same extensive knowledge. The goal of this project was to ensure our website continues to deliver the right content to our customers and dealers in the best way possible.”
Pronto Woven used design thinking to help Shimano clearly define project requirements and collaboratively create a roadmap that detailed how digital strategy could support short and long term business goals.
“At the end of the workshop phase, what started off as a whole bunch of Post-it notes on the window, become actual enhancements and modifications that we're now using, it’s great! It was invaluable to have everyone share their different ideas and knowledge. The Pronto Woven team helped guide us and check what we were proposing and envisaging was actually feasible. The sales team gained a lot from exploring weird and wonderful concepts that they proposed. To actually see their ideas realised has energised my team to explore more ideas to incorporate into the site’s design,” explained Mr Bazzano.
As a result of the workshop, the decision was made to update the existing B2B website to make it capable of B2C commerce. This aim was to increase transactional efficiencies by improving dealers’ ability to sell Shimano products – while also allowing the buisness to better market their brand. The team also had many ideas to enhance site functionality and user experience.
Pronto Woven also proposed a re-skinning of the website to ensure it looked modern and fresh. It wasn’t enough to just meet industry standards, the site needed to exceed customer expectations. A big challenge was accommodating the large number of brands stocked and sold in Australia. The overarching goal was to strengthen Shimano’s digital presence while enhancing brand awareness and increasing visibility over the customer journey.
This required a rebuild that:
- helps Shimano customers to remain the most informed consumers in the market
- continues to provide people with the best resources and products
- makes it easier for customers to interact with the brand
- delivers brand consistency across the board — from usability to user-experience and engagement
“It was really rewarding to understand what could actually be done and incorporated into our site. The version that we were using from day one was very clinical and more dealer orientated. In the updated version, we wanted to convey a consumer focus, prioritising intuitiveness and optimising content. It was important for our site’s design and its navigation to be user-friendly for not only current customers and staff but also onboarding new employees,” said Mr Bazzano.