Redefining Hookah Retail: Ooka’s Journey to Excellence with Adobe Experience Cloud Solutions
Company Overview
Ooka Heating Devices LLC is a premier eCommerce destination for hookah enthusiasts, offering top-notch equipment, accessories, and exquisite shisha molasses. With a strong presence in both the US and UAE markets, Ooka serves as the go-to for a lifestyle, curating exceptional experiences for enthusiasts seeking premium draws through specialized e-hookah products. Going beyond mere sales, Ooka distinguishes itself by actively building a community, accommodating the preferences of both retail and wholesale clientele.
Ooka teamed up with Codilar to realize their goal of enhancing customer engagement and operational efficiency. With proven expertise in seamlessly integrating advanced technologies like Adobe Experience Cloud Solutions, our experts at Codilar saw an opportunity to elevate Ooka’s user interface while efficiently addressing their existing eCommerce challenges.
Objectives & Challenges
Ooka initially operated through its existing eCommerce platform, meeting the diverse needs of hookah enthusiasts. However, with a vision to elevate its platform capabilities, the company sought to harness the power of Adobe Commerce Cloud and Adobe Experience Cloud solutions. The goal was to fortify the brand’s value proposition, drive substantial growth, and achieve scalability.
Within the dynamic hookah industry, Ooka confronted the following crucial challenges as it aimed to boost customer engagement and establish itself as a prominent player in the competitive market
Managing Product Variants: As Ooka's product range expanded, so did the complexity of handling variants with outdated workflows. Showcasing and updating accurate data for products with numerous variants (up to 10) strained the website, affecting product grouping, navigation, and overall user experience. Inefficient order management practices affected stock updates and overall inventory accuracy, posing hurdles to operational efficiency.
Product Subscription: The lack of an efficient product subscription model introduced challenges in effectively managing recurring customer requests and related information. Ineffectiveness in handling customer databases and product subscriptions impacted Ooka's service delivery capabilities, resulting in insecure payment processes, adversely affecting customer relations and overall business revenue.
Apply Multiple discounts: Despite Ooka's commitment to affordability, applying discounts became a source of inconvenience. The site, limited to applying one discount at a time, caused frustration for enthusiasts seeking to apply multiple discounts to a single product. This limitation adversely affected sales and contributed to increased cart abandonment.
Shipping Management: Ooka faced considerable difficulties in managing shipping operations, including dealing with high shipping costs, disruptions in shipping routes, and limited knowledge about international shipping. This led to increased operational expenses, delays in international shipments, and logistical issues in coordinating split shipments, impacting Ooka's overall business.
These challenges, while posing obstacles such as brand inconsistencies, customer confusion, heightened operational costs, diminished performance, and compromised customer experiences, prompted Ooka to proactively consolidate efforts and seek a sustainable path forward.
Solution Approach
Facing diverse challenges, Ooka pursued a comprehensive solution approach for its eCommerce transformation. Recognizing the urgency of the identified challenges, our team at Codilar set clear deadlines and milestones to guide the implementation process. The primary focus areas included:
Implementation of Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)
To seamlessly integrate AEM into Ooka's existing Magento platform, we deployed skilled AEM developers who underwent thorough training to grasp Ooka's site intricacies and capabilities. Our aim was to build a headless, hybrid website, where Magento managed the back-end business processes while AEM handled personalization and omnichannel content delivery.
Integration with Adobe Experience Cloud Solutions
Recognizing the versatility of Adobe Experience Cloud solutions, our team harnessed its one-stop, flexible capabilities to effortlessly address all the key bottlenecks faced by Ooka.
Loyalty and Referral System Integration
To overcome limitations in discount applications, we implemented our solution that allowed customers to seamlessly apply multiple discounts to a single product. This was crucial for improving sales and reducing cart abandonment rates.
Amplify Business Efficiency
To address operational inefficiencies through smoother workflows, we concentrated on key areas, including the reduction of operational expenses, the minimization of delays in international shipments, and the optimization of logistical coordination.
Solution Highlights
Image CDN
Marina Home's web and app pages were optimized in the most efficient way possible by using the Gumlet image content delivery network (CDN). With this implementation, images are fetched from the nearest server to ensure swift content delivery, enabling users to witness a notable difference in the image load speed. The outcome was a visually appealing online store with high-quality images and reduced payload, effectively showcasing the diverse range of furniture selections.
cWarmer
Our design team eliminated all unnecessary loaders that caused interruptions in user experience, making the site align with modern usability standards. Not only did we make the frontend more maintainable by enhancing the code quality with advanced frameworks and best practices, but we also ensured a seamless navigation and enhanced UI functionality through user acceptance testing.
iOS Mobile Application Development
Designed and developed mobile applications for iPhones to simplify users' life with a more convenient, engaging, and efficient platform for shopping, exploring, and purchasing furniture.
Upgraded Server to Optimize Load Time and Site Speed
Marina Home's strategic upgrade of its server efficiently addressed challenges related to slow-loading images, thereby transforming its digital space into a faster and more responsive platform. A drastic reduction in bounce rate is being observed, ultimately boosting engagement and revenue.
Smart AI Search
Using Klevu AI, Marina Home's iOS application offers a more intuitive search experience. With its refined filters users can now easily find what they're looking for. Additionally, the app provides a precise count of products within each category, ensuring users receive real-time updates on product availability for a more satisfying browsing experience.
Reduced the banners on home pages
Streamlining the number of banners on the home page not only led to a notable increase in Marina Home's website traffic but also allowed for improved tracking of user activities, including impressions, click-through rates (CTR), conversions, and behavioral patterns. This optimization resulted in a more efficient website speed, enhancing the overall user experience.
Interactive Product Visualization with AR and 3D
Employing 3D rendering, interactive 360-degree product views, and virtual room setups were established to project products into the real world. This significantly enhanced customer experience as it allowed shoppers to visualize how a product seamlessly complemented their living space, delivering an immersive virtual shopping experience.
Unmerged JavaScript to Reduce Load Time
Marina Home witnessed an instrumental boost in load speed by unmerging JavaScripts. By eliminating the unnecessary complexities introduced by merged scripts, unmerging streamlines the loading process. This strategic move reduces the number of irrelevant JS files, enabling quicker page loads and significantly enhancing the overall speed and efficiency of Marina Home's website.
Results
OOKA successfully transformed challenges into opportunities, leveraging innovative technologies and strategic integrations. The result is
A 50% enhancement in operational efficiency through streamlined internal workflows and seamless ERP integrations, enabling quicker updates.
A 45% improvement in user experience with real-time stock management and Adobe’s loyalty point enhancements.
A 30% improvement in time-to-market with accelerated product launches, ensuring swift responsiveness to market demands.
100% secure transactions reinforcing brand credibility.