Halifax Citadel is a National Historic Site of Canada dating back to 1749 that attracts over half a million visitors per year. During COVID the attraction was closed and the management launched a simple online gift shop but it wasn't really making any sales.
Challenges
During COVID Halifax Citadel launched an online gift shop in the hope of generating some revenue while the attraction was closed to the public. The online store was basic and created in-house on the Shopify platform. It only made a handful of sales per year, insufficient to cover the cost of running it. Analysis of the existing site identified several issues:
- There were too few products to give people a reasonable chance of finding something they wanted to buy
- The layout and design of the site looked a bit untidy, which could discourage people from purchasing
- Products were badly organised/categorised making it hard for people to find what they wanted
Project Features
The project involved re-designing the site (still using a free theme) and adding a lot more products. Specifically:
- The homepage and collection pages were redesigned so that all product images were the same size and shape and everything lined-up neatly
- Site navigation was re-designed so product categories were better organised and all visible on every page
- Around 5 times more products were added to the site to make sure there was "something for everyone"
- More products were added to the homepage with rows of best-sellers, new-arrivals and popular gift ideas
- More detailed product descriptions were added
- The site was SEO-optimised to improve Google rankings for popular search terms and therefore attract more visitors
The End Result
See the site at shop.halifaxcitadel.ca
Although the physical gift shop is now open again, the online store still receives orders from people all over the world who are interested in the history of Halifax or looking for Nova Scotia themed gifts.
