Maison Ardent was generating £2.3M annually but their website was losing them premium customers. The existing Shopify store failed to communicate the brand’s heritage and craftsmanship. Cart abandonment stood at 74% and average order value was £68 — well below the £120 industry benchmark for luxury fragrance. Their audience expected a shopping experience comparable to Jo Malone or Aesop, not a generic e-commerce template.
The Approach
After reviewing three months of session recordings and heatmaps, the data was clear: visitors weren’t engaging with product stories, the checkout felt rushed, and there was no upsell mechanism at any stage. We moved the brand to WooCommerce because it offered the custom product presentation flexibility that Shopify couldn’t without expensive app subscriptions. We built the entire experience around storytelling first, transaction second.
The Solution
We architected a bespoke WooCommerce store with custom ACF product fields for ingredient stories, brand heritage timelines, and scent profiling. We built a fragrance discovery quiz that funneled customers to recommended products, increasing time-on-site by 4.2 minutes. The checkout was redesigned as a 2-step process with a built-in gift packaging upsell that became the highest-converting element on the site.
Results
Revenue increased 34% in the first quarter post-launch. Conversion rate moved from 0.8% to 3.1%. Average order value increased to £116. The fragrance quiz became their highest-traffic page within 60 days.
“We had worked with two agencies before Fasih who both failed to capture what makes Maison Ardent special. Fasih understood luxury e-commerce immediately and built something we’re genuinely proud of. The results speak for themselves.”
— Isabelle Crane, Founder, Maison Ardent