Savers CMS Replatforming
50%
reduction in support costs
75%
(and growing) website traffic via mobile
BUSINESS PROBLEM
With over 300 international thrift stores across the U.S., Canada, and Australia, Savers has grown from its initial thrift shop beginnings to a global reuse champion.
Savers was eager to drive their leadership in eco-conscious shopping to the next level — but the limitations of their legacy website platform constrained their ability to do so. With their legacy platform quickly approaching end of life, Savers had a pressing need to re-platform.
With a proven track record of multi-year successful partnerships and intimate knowledge of the current website, Metal Toad was the natural fit for Savers's technology partner.
Savers came to Metal Toad to drive and develop the replatform, focused on solving three key business problems:
- Legacy platform limitations: Savers encompasses three different brands: Savers, Value Village, and Village de Valeurs in Canada. Savers wanted the new platform to solve the current platform pain points — including publishing inefficiencies, content sharing inefficiencies, and an inability to accommodate growing use case complexities.
- Multi-brand, Multi-geography, multi-language complexity: With three brands located across three different countries, the new website platform needed to support multiple language translations. These translations included three distinct English variations — American, Canadian, and Australian — and both English and Spanish in the United States and English and French in Canada.
- Inadequate mobile experience: 75% (and growing) of Savers website traffic comes through mobile devices. A mobile-first approach to design and development was critical to give their customers an engaging, robust online experience.
“We needed a way to show our senior leadership team that marketing was producing results, and that’s hard when your metrics are scattered. This dashboard saved the day.”
SAVERS SENIOR MARKETING & INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
Tricia J.
TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION
Informed by a data-driven approach, the new mobile-first platform prioritizes user and business needs and allows for the scalability and flexibility Savers needed — ultimately positioning Savers to be a global thought leader in reuse and eco/environmental consciousness for years to come.
Key features include:
- Headless CMS with a React front-end and a Contentful back-end: A headless CMS gives Savers the flexibility and customization needed to manage a multi-domain, multi-language site. In addition, Contentful is more cost-efficient to develop— freeing up and refocusing dollars from development spend to focus on designing and developing a high-quality user and customer experience.
- Modular, flexible, and easy admin experience: From quickly and seamlessly updating seasonal content to an admin’s ability to select what content appears on which domain in what language — the admin experience offers tons of tailored templates to build everything needed themselves.
- Expanded internationalization allows admins to define which language content appears in and on which site.
- Improved search: An enhanced map and a sophisticated search experience help customers find the nearest Donation Center to drop off clothes.
- A dynamic and robust showcase of ThriftProud: This contemporary and modern hub is the heart of the website — incorporating inspirational and tutorial content, along with the striking “State of Thrift” impact report. Here users can quickly scan and share the powerful stories and experiences behind the Savers brand.
IMPACT
Savers is now equipped with a powerful, flexible, more efficient CMS customized to their unique needs. The new solution utilizes the latest technology to elevate their brand, offer more extended platform longevity, and require less time and money to manage. Previously, admins needed to copy and paste frequently changing content between the various sites to appear in multiple places. Now, admins can paste content once and publish anywhere and everywhere they like.
Once initial post-launch support was complete, Savers reduced support costs by almost 50% from the previous platform — a substantial cost saving in the long run.
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