An Extra Butter smooth shopping experience

Project Overview

Extra Butter New York, an iconic streetwear retailer, premieres cinematic shopping experiences daily. With leading design collaborations and a hard-to-get, highly curated product line, Extra Butter is globally recognized as a top-tier boutique and independent lifestyle label.

Extra Butter New York asked us to lead a digital transformation that would match their in-store experience. Customers go on a signature journey at the New York location. Reminiscent of a high-end movie theater, a concessions stand is adorned with private label apparel goods and accessories. Visitors can shop for chic fashion and sportswear brands in a space that showcases next-level creativity and storytelling.

To deliver a similar experience online, we engineered a bevy of unique UI, search, and back-end application solutions.

Smooth as butter

We began with a truly one-of-a-kind website theme. The initial loading screen displays a movie theater, setting the scene for the upcoming cinematic journey.

The main menu appears like a movie projection screen. Smooth, realistic entrance and exit animations—along with a simple, effective design — elevate an otherwise familiar dropdown menu.

Every part of the visitor’s journey reinforces the movie theme. Upon adding an item to their cart, the user sees a flurry of popcorn fall across the screen. This quick, unobtrusive animation reinforces Extra Butter’s message to stay smooth.

Enhanced Product Discovery

A vast, ever-changing product catalog presents several search-related challenges. The existing website didn’t have an optimized information hierarchy, and discovery was inadequate.

So, we designed and implemented a best-in-class search experience for Extra Butter. Powered by Algolia, our search solution addresses the following issues:

• Jargon - What happens when a visitor doesn’t enter exactly the same word(s) used by the website? We implemented colloquial jargon recognition to significantl yenhance search results. Now, users can search for “dunks” and find all related shoes.
• Product Name/Relevance - Is UltraBoost one word or two? We enabled contextual search and typo-tolerance to greatly improve item discovery and prevent incorrect, irrelevant results.
• Mobile-First - Is it easy to search from a phone? We designed an instant search for mobile devices. Now, visitors see a dynamic preview of three products while typing in the search field. Plus, a convenient call-to-action button makes it easy to see the rest of the search results.

Visit this article for an in-depth analysis of the benefits generated by our search experience.

Scaling Hype Releases

Extra Butter has exclusive access to high-demand products, which they release via “drops.” At the New York location, drops generate excitement and demand through lines of potential customers.

The digital experience paled in comparison. Products sold out in 30 seconds, and fan engagement ended within minutes. Even worse, fraud was rampant, and bots and trolls were rewarded. A game-changing solution was imperative.

We engineered a raffle system to completely revitalize the experience of drops online. Instead of waiting in a queue or competing with bots, customers can “win” products through an exciting process.

First, customers choose product variants (i.e. size) and enter their billing/shipping information. Customers acknowledge that upon winning, they will be charged for the product.

For the back end, we created a custom application with comprehensive functionality. The app syncs Extra Butter’s product database with size and price information. Extra Butter staff can then select a product for the upcoming raffle. Furthermore, they can configure the number of winners and exact timing for the draw.

After the details are selected, the app delivers a custom draw product detail page template. Specific to the selected product, the page template includes a timer UI and our embedded checkout.

The back-end app stores customer credit card information (via Stripe) and—when Extra Butter randomly selects winners—programmatically generates orders. Extra Butter staff can also create custom email notifications based on entry status.

**Our custom raffle system resulted in massive engagement, increased sales numbers, decreased fraud, and tripled the volume of Extra Butter’s marketing email list.

We’ve productized this service and are excited to offer this solution to other merchants with hype products. **