From story-telling to story-showing: What makes a lifestyle eCommerce? [Part.2]

Visually stunning, emotionally engaging lifestyle eCommerce sites

This week, we focus on lifestyle eCommerce from both design and content perspectives. As already pointed out in the previous article, consumers’ attention spans tend to be just as long as8.25 seconds.

So it is perhaps a good time to revisit the common story-telling strategy that brands often employ to engage with customers. Successful eCommerce brands like Birchbox and Edwin Europe are creating and curating relevant content to their target consumers’ interests outside of makeup products and jeans (see our previous post).  From Birchbox’s how-to videos to Edwin Europe’s digital journal, savvy brands have better insights into their customers: the group they want to be associated with, the kind of lifestyle they aspire for, and so on.

Truly engaging eCommerce sites serve as the hub for informative, educative and entertaining contents that encourage customers to come back again and again. So here are two more excellent examples of what lifestyle eCommerce should look like:

Deus Ex Machina 

You know the feeling when you just lose the track of time browsing different Instagram accounts? That exact same thing happens when I look at the Deus Ex Machina’s site. From a short documentary to image-rich articles, it goes beyond pure surfboards and motorcycles products to pure story-showing. It is about travel, adventure and people. Then, comes their products.

KLM  

While not strictly an eCommerce site, I was quite flabbergasted by KLM’s recent newsletter campaign targeted for surfers. It offers the perfect balance of video- and audio-based story-showing, using pure landscape images of top three winter destinations for surfers followed by ‘find your flight’ button. Almost like reading a travel magazine, the story goes on as you scroll down. Well, I’d consider a newsletter campaigns like this is a significant leap for KLM to engage with the surfing community.

Key takeaways

One thing you may have noticed among those lifestyle eCommerce sites, is that they don’t seem to be keen on using taglines, catchphrases nor much copy. When it comes to a successful lifestyle eCommerce and lifestyle brand, much of the story is communicated and experienced even before you write a single word of copy. The landing page, look and feel design, products, brand logo, UX and all the rest are integral parts of the particular lifestyle you want to advocate to your key audience.

What do you think?

Appnova is a digital agency specialising in web design, UX, eCommerce, branding, digital marketing and social media.

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