Going direct to consumer with Shopify Plus.

Amsterdam-based Bols, is one of the most celebrated and best-loved liquor brands across the globe. Bols approached Story of AMS to build a new eCommerce platform fit for global scale, enabling them to sell directly to consumers for the first time in Bols’s history.

What we did

• User Experience Design

• Interface design

• Responsive Web development

• Headless Shopify Plus platform

Migration to Shopify Plus

Before Bols was running on a custom solution and while the site operated on a basic level, it soon became clear it was difficult to scale. Bols needed a solution that was both fast, robust and enabled them to scale across the globe. To achieve this, we switched to Shopify Plus. We migrated all their customer data and with the help of the ‘Shopify Plus Bulk inviter,’ we were able to invite their existing customers to activate their accounts for the new store, ensuring a smooth transition.

Optimized for international commerce

With Bols’s new ready-to-drink cocktail products they set out to dominate the Netherlands and the United States, however, serving two major markets at the same time brought with it new challenges. Successful international eCommerce depends on creating an exceptional localized experience. To accomplish this we built a headless solution on the Shopify Plus platform. 

Headless commerce separates your front-end design from your back-end infrastructure. Empowering us to build a custom storefront that represents the brand. Powered by the Shopify Plus commerce engine, we were able to build highly personalized shopping experiences customers expect, in multiple currencies and languages, all from one Shopify organization. 

Taking your brand online

When carried out in the right way, branding gives potential and existing customers a clear idea of what you offer, your values, and what makes you different from the rest of the eCommerce brands they could buy from. 

Creative Agency Herc, worked with Bols to define the new branding, from product design to the logo and brand guidelines. Branding offline is one thing, translating it to online is another. Our job was to translate the newly created branding to the online world. The new design language for online consists of components that give the Bols team a framework to evolve and scale their experience with consistency and context. 

Engaging customers

Shifting your business strategy to Direct To Consumer means focusing on your brand. After extensive market research, Bols chose to target the ‘Urban Millennial’, people who live in an urban environment that values quality and ease of use. To tailor to their needs, a new line of products was introduced. A range of ready-to-drink cocktails.

The site is designed with the target audience in mind, focused on inspiration and storytelling instead of just selling products. One of the ways Bols set out to accomplish the new brand position is by educating and inspiring the consumer with ‘cocktail moments’. With cocktail moments Bols showcases what types of cocktails you can and should consume for different occasions and celebrations. Giving the consumer inspiration and reassurance on what to buy.

Dynamic page builder

A/B testing allows you to significantly improve your customers’ shopping experience and happy customers translate into better click-through rates, more conversions, more revenue, greater loyalty, fewer complaints, and much, much more. To help Bols accomplish this almost all pages on the website are built with the “Dynamic Page Builder” powered by our headless CMS partner Storyblok. 

“Blocks” include product sliders, video embed, FAQs, and many more. These “blocks” can be re-used on all pages without limitations allowing the Bols marketing team to easily create new landing pages, run A’B test's and optimize existing pages.