Red-tinted screenshot of the C.Lidgate butchers website showing a 25% dry aged rump steak offer, beef range and pies, with a white Shopify logo centred

C. Lidgate Shopify Website

A cut above: our Shopify e-commerce website for Lidgates

Offering premium cuts and even subscription boxes to fans of quality meat, C. Lidgate needed an e-commerce website that could drive their next phase of online growth, focusing in particular on direct-to-consumer sales. Here’s how we created a Shopify site that cured Lidgates of their lower-than-desired digital conversions…

Challenge

Sub-optimal website hosting, structure and CMS.

Before approaching us, the user journey for anyone visiting Lidgates’ website was not as simple as it could be — a big no-no for any e-commerce site. Not only that, but the website was letting them down around peak traffic times, such as Christmas.

It was also difficult to amend and add content on the old website. As a business that naturally has an ever-changing range of produce and prices, this wasn’t ideal.

Not only was there little-to-no search engine optimisation, the existing content was also failing to communicate Lidgates’ premium position in the market, with a lack of supporting information about products and the company’s heritage.

Raw beef steaks on a dark slate board, topped with rosemary sprigs and peppercorns, with more rosemary in the foreground.Two smartphones on a red textured background show the C. Lidgate butcher website: the left screen lists British Wild & Farmed Duck products, the right shows a Pork Pie product page.

Vision

A simplified, familiar customer journey through Shopify.

So, as well as requiring a more reliable, easily-manageable CMS, the new website needed a much-improved user experience to seamlessly integrate with Lidgates’ existing stock management system and loyalty programs.

For many of our clients looking to upgrade their e-commerce offering, Shopify is the way to go — and so it proved for Lidgates. As official Shopify Partners, we know exactly how to use this powerful platform to our clients’ advantage!

Shopify has its own checkout process that is by far the most popular and widely used across the world. This means many would-be customers are already used to its checkout process. Interface familiarity is key in the e-commerce game.

Shopify also makes it simple to bring in useful out-of-the-box functionality — voucher codes, discounts, automated abandoned checkout emails — to help drive sales upwards.

Two browser mockups of the C.Lidgate butcher website: a BBQ Range grid of burgers and kebabs, and a Boeuf Bourguignon Pie page, on red.Two hands slice a raw red meat fillet on a rustic wooden board with a steel knife, a few salt flakes scattered nearby.

Craft

Combining design, UX, development, content creation and SEO to create the ultimate sales-driving online experience.

To simplify the customer journey, we designed a rationalised site architecture. The aim? To make it as easy as possible for Lidgates’ site visitors to part with their cash!

As well as these structural elements, the website was provided with a UX-driven design and visual makeover, in addition to supporting content that communicated Lidgates’ 150-year history, product quality and high-end market position. Testimonials were given greater prominence, too, as was a quote by none other than Gordon Ramsay!

When creating a new e-commerce website in place of an existing one, ease of migration for your customers is key. As well as moving across Lidgates’ referral program, we ensured all pages were mapped and redirected appropriately, with customer usernames and other details imported. Priority category and product pages were also optimised for search with new title tags.

To support marketing activity further down the line, we ensured the new website was able to easily integrate with behavioural marketing platforms. The recipes section provides further opportunities to grow brand discoverability and awareness by creating search engine optimised content about Lidgates’ products.

Raw beef steaks on a dark slate surface with rosemary, thyme, red onion rings, garlic, peppercorns and chilli scattered around, lightly dusted with salt.

A powerful, flexible, UX-optimised Shopify website, built to make customer conversions as simple and seamless as possible.

Deliver

A seasoned, streamlined Shopify sales-driving machine.

With a flexible, simple-to-navigate online platform coupled with a powerful loyalty program fostering referrals and repeat business, Lidgates are now in the ideal position to grow conversion rates, search engine visibility and sales.

“Extreme created a Shopify website solution for our business from the ground up. They also managed the integration with our bespoke back-end system. We had a number of requirements that weren’t standard and these were all implemented in time for launch. From initial consultation through to delivered website, we felt we were in good hands. We will continue to work with Extreme as we grow and would recommend them to anyone looking for a Shopify development.”

Derek Crimmins Business Development Manager & Buyer, C. Lidgate Butcher

Lidgate butcher shop front with green awning and gold signage, two people in brown aprons standing outside, sign reading Free Range & Organic Meats & Poultry

5.37%increase in ecommerce conversion rate (Nov 2021 - Jun 2022, YoY)

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