The National Trust founders believed that nature, beauty and history are for everyone and so set up the Trust to look after the nation’s coastline, historic sites, countryside and green spaces. With 5.6 million members, 65,000 volunteers and 14,000 staff it is now the biggest conservation charity in Europe. National Trust Online Shop required a migration onto Magento Commerce with the aim to increase traffic, improve UX for both desktop and mobile users & expand the current customer base.
National Trust was using an alternative third party software platform to run National Trust Online Shop. They required a more flexible architecture to allow room for customisation and growth that wasn’t currently being provided by the existing platform. On top of this National Trust wished to make the shopping experience a more engaging one for their customers with seamless and personalised customer experience across devices, including faster page load speeds across catalog and checkout pages. Magento 2 with its modern and modular architecture empowered all this functionality, and provided unsurpassed scope and flexibility for the future.
Mature independents & seniors have continued to be the core demographic of National Trust, but there was a need to recognise the importance of smaller segments, such as men, under 40s, and families, who had suggested strong inclination to consider buying online via National Trust Shop. This meant there was a distinct lack of personalisation & segmentation to fit these new demographics; a one size fits all approach was previously adopted, based mostly on the core demographic, which was no longer adequate. This disjointed experience also meant existing members of National Trust were required to register separately to purchase online via the online shop.
ESI integration from the main website
ESI (Edge Side Includes) integration with the existing National Trust website (nationaltrust.org.uk) allowed the new shop website to take on the look and feel of the existing website, using and displaying the same generic header and footer. This allowed the new shop to be fully autonomous in its build (granting the flexibility required to make the most of Magento 2) whilst ensuring brand consistency and a positive user experience.
Single sign-on & custom supplier login
Consistency and ease of use (key to National Trust’s vision for the new shop) was established further with the implementation of Single Sign-on. This feature allowed account holders to use their existing login for any existing National Trust website on the new shop - therefore no new account creation was required. A custom supplier login was also generated which allowed supplier orders to be placed and administered directly via the online site.
Digital gift cards & virtual touring passes
Digital gift cards, sent by email with a personalised message, were a new addition to the site and can be spent when visiting National Trust properties. Virtual touring passes are designed for customers travelling for a set period of time, and are available for families, couples or individuals giving free admission to hundreds of National Trust locations during the specified time period.
Accessibility
Another key requirement was to make the site more accessible to people with disabilities. The new shop was built to adhere to WCAG AA rated standards, which was achieved, without impacting on the creativity or functionality of the site. Making the website accessible was at the forefront of the site build, ensuring readability and making products easy to find.
Adobe Analytics
Adobe Analytics enabled National Trust to apply real-time analytics and detailed segmentation across all existing platforms, to gather the most relevant data possible, which then worked seamlessly with other applications to deliver better email deliverability, personalisation on site, and to improve conversions overall.
Amasty Shipping allowed the creation of an unlimited number of flexible shipping methods with individual rates using combinations of a destination address, cart weight, order subtotal and price to accurately calculate shipping prices per customer.
Cart Price Rules has allowed National Trust more flexibility when it comes to the creation of discounts and special offers, including discounts that can be applied automatically as soon as conditions are met, or when the customer manually enters a coupon code.
Onsite product recommendations and personalisation, powered by Nosto’s AI-powered Ecommerce Intelligence Engine, enables the analysis of the unique browsing and buying behavior of every visitor to the site. This engine then builds individual customer profiles and displays the most relevant products across the website, helping to increase customer engagement, satisfaction & conversions.
Search facility Klevu has allowed for a personalised search that shows products that a customer has already interacted with, products that are trending, recently viewed products, and adds contextually relevant synonyms to the search catalog metadata to enrich and increase the depth of search results.
Other integrations include dotdigital Engagement Cloud platform, a SaaS-based omnichannel marketing & email marketing platform that interacts directly with real-time ecommerce data to target customer segments, and Feefo customer reviews for genuine customer insights & global ratings.
Baker Ross Magento 2 Customisation
National Trust Online Shop Migration to Magento Commerce