Designing Mindfulness: Gorilla Launches New prAna Site on Magento Enterprise
For almost 20 years, prAna has created durable, wearable yoga and climbing apparel and accessories For Gorilla, the challenge was to design and develop a site that embodies these abstract qualities.
Chicago, IL (Vocus) October 14, 2010
Gorilla, an award-winning ecommerce solutions provider, has announced the launch of the new prana. com on the Magento Enterprise® platform. For almost 20 years, prAna has been well-known for producing yoga and climbing apparel and accessories that embody the healthy, active, mindful lifestyle shared by these seemingly dissimilar pursuits. To capture the “vitality of spirit” for which the brand is known, Gorilla developed the new prana. com with a focus on expanding the brand’s appeal, offering customers and retail partners a channel-neutral environment and providing prAna with enhanced ecommerce efficiencies and flexibility.
Designing a site that projects prAna’s unique qualities required an intimate understanding of the brand, its products and the company’s vision. Gorilla worked closely with prAna on the redesigned user-interface, which now conveys calmer, nuanced aesthetics and a sharper product focus. Creating a more natural, emotional shopping experience, allows prAna to reach an untapped market of health-conscious consumers, without alienating core customers.
Blending form and function was simplified by developing the site around the Magento Enterprise platform. Utilizing Magento, Gorilla equipped prAna with a scalable ecommerce solution that generates efficiencies for the company’s lean organizational structure and allows for flexible channel integration.
Increased ecommerce functionality often comes at the expense of other sales channels and long-standing retail partners. Gorilla addressed these concerns by creating a “channel-neutral” shopping environment with an emphasis on sales rather than source. A catalog quick shop feature integrates offline and online channels by allowing customers to use catalog SKUs to rapidly find product details. For retail and online channel partners, a geo-targeting feature refers site visitors to the nearest brick-and-mortar locations, while a back-end inventory lookup automatically searches partner sites to ensure customers have access to the merchandise they want.
The 2nd phase of the project includes the integration of advanced Solr search functionality and expanding the prAna community, which has already begun with the inclusion of rotating customer-generated artwork on the site’s homepage.
“Born from the experience” defines both prAna products and Gorilla’s multi-faceted Magento enterprise ecommerce solution. The reinvented prana. com is now positioned as both product showcase and brand catalyst.
About Gorilla: Since 1994, leading brands, retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers have turned to Gorilla to solve the toughest ecommerce challenges and innovate solutions that elevate businesses across channels. Inspiring design, impeccable development and unmatched experience are why Gorilla delivers a smarter species of ecommerce.
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