Solotica

Partner profile

A pioneer in its field, Solotica has a rich history of manufacturing contact lenses since as early as 1949.

Fast-forward 70 years, and today’s Solotica is a globally minded producer of premium colored contact lenses. They originate from Brazil, but the majority of orders and revenue generated come from the US market.

After decades of distribution through pharmacies and other resellers, Solotica’s new online store was a breakthrough in more ways than one. It marked the first time this premium brand of coloured contact lenses is going D2C with its own brand webshop.

They partnered with us on this vital project, and our team set out to deliver a new Magento Commerce website with a custom, mobile-first UX design that both inspires and converts.

Project specifics

Every eCommerce development project is specific, and this one was no exception. What makes Solotica special is the fact that it stands at the intersection of Healthcare and Beauty industries, each of which has its fine points.

Contact lenses obviously exist to serve a medical purpose, i.e. to orrect eyesight. However, reasons why people choose colored contact lenses aren’t always just functional. On the contrary, it has more to do with appearance.

That’s why you will see Solotica doing a much better job marketing-wise than your typical healthcare website. Coupon codes, email marketing campaigns and varied social media activity all work towards increasing brand awareness and generating demand.

Functionalities

The new Solotica website is built on a Magento Commerce installation with 3 store views: US English, Arabic and German. Considering the brand’s global scope, a currency switcher was added that changes prices globally, and the addition of a couple of more world languages is planned for the near future.

Solotica delivers world wide, and when a user opens Solotica.com, a top bar is displayed communicating an estimated delivery time to the user’s country. Our Shipping Calculator module runs in the background of this feature and estimates the delivery time based on the user’s IP address.

Customization was also needed on the product types level, because contact lenses simply aren’t your typical product. Unlike other things that sell in pairs (shoes, socks, gloves…), with contact lenses it is quite possible for the user to need different-power contact lenses within the same pair.

That’s why we had to develop a functionality that allows the user to choose the power and quantity for each of the two contacts that come paired.

Regarding 3rd-party services, the Solotica website has a PayPal integration and enables Apple Pay as well. After an order is placed, the customer receives SMS order status notifications via Twilio.

Custom UX design

In setting out to strike the right balance between the medical and beauty aspects of Solotica, our UX designers did a research of how customers actually shop for colored contact lenses online. Results showed that the most important search factor is color, followed by the lenses’ replacement cycle.

To make it as simple as possible for the user to filter by these criteria, they are both introduced to the user at the earliest possible step.

Starting with the home page, the impressive hero image slider is quickly followed by the Shop By Collection and the Shop By Color widgets. You will find the Shop By Color filtering on every collection page as well, while the Color Contact Lenses page serves as sort of an inspiration hub with the brand video and selections of best products by each color.

In case the user decides to explore the website by navigating the menu, a mega menu will appear both on desktop and mobile, offering the possibility to browse the catalog by collection, color or replacement cycle.

Magento Commerce that powers the website is especially convenient for Solotica because it unlocks the Magento 2 page builder functionality. This means an extra layer of flexibility for Solotica in their day-to-day operations and management of digital marketing campaigns. Magento Commerce also includes Fastly CDN that enables a better website performance overall, which is also a critical component of good user experience.

All in all, the website UX design does a good job at guiding the user to the desired products most efficiently. At the same time, its pleasant, uncluttered UI design devotes maximum space to Solotica’s splendid visuals and highlights the company’s branding.

If you’re interested in building an online store on Magento Commerce or Magento open source, send us some basic information about your project through this contact form, and we will reply with a free consult as soon as possible.