EST
Expansion & upgrades for a legacy watchmaking label
SFCC migration & four global expansion sites with Timex
First established in 1854, Timex is a heritage American brand devoted to crafting iconic and long-lasting timepieces. The brand’s commitment to quality and innovation has led to a century-spanning legacy that continues to blaze new trails in the watchmaking industry. Half Helix was enlisted to migrate the brand’s order and customer data from SFCC to Shopify while modernizing design and functionality, as well as actualize storytelling potential. The project focused on improved internationalization with the replatforming of four expansion stores for the US, Canada, UK, and Europe, while keeping the admin experience manageable under a single theme. The brand dealt with technical debt and high costs of ownership, as well as challenges with content entry for their wide inventory and collaborations. The Half Helix team collaborated closely with Timex to deliver a contemporary new digital experience that accommodates their ambitious expansion goals.
Disciplines
- SFCC Migration
- Shopify Design & Development
- Global-e Integration
Location
Visit Live Site
01
Modernized site design with subtle magical touches
The Half Helix team brought Timex’s existing experience to the next level with modern design that feels digitally native. Scroll patterns and interaction animation design across the entirety of the site were added to achieve a luxurious browsing experience, while putting Timex’s striking brand content front and center. The collections menu now features a more visual and intuitive way to navigate watches and collections, while improving product discoverability. Lifestyle images were integrated into the PDP to bring distinct character to each timepiece. For their watches that come with the INDIGLO® night light, the team created a custom feature that allows customers to toggle between the night and day display of watches directly from the PDP. Other features to refine the shopping experience include a responsive size guide that shows the watch face on a wrist, and a more intuitive quick-buy option. Overall, these updates have given the Timex user experience a premium finish.
02
Improving product storytelling with Shopify metaobjects
The sophisticated nature of Timex’s product requires in-depth PDPs that give the customer a thorough yet digestible overview of relevant features. The Half Helix team was tasked to thoroughly present watch features, such as water resistance and strap type, without the need to manually configure features that carry across different styles. To do so, the team made use of a recently-debuted Shopify feature called metaobjects, allowing structured, reusable metaobjects to be added and stored within a site. Making use of native Shopify filters, Half Helix optimized PLPs to explain features in a side pop-out. Product features and relevant storytelling info is broken down into different content blocks that can be managed on the admin side and dynamically displayed. By integrating with Timex’s Product Information Management (PIM), watch features can be automatically fed to corresponding SKU using metaobjects. The Timex content team can preset the content block to be displayed for each feature and it will automatically display on the corresponding PDP, diminishing the admin workload across their four international sites. The size guide also leverages metaobjects, dynamically displaying the correct image and giving customers the benefit of visualizing the watch face size relative to their selected wrist size, making for a more informed shopping experience. Each Timex watch also comes with detailed user manuals, which the Half Helix team grouped using metafields to associate to the correct watch and optimize search and organization.
03
Introducing features for improved localization
Timex’s international web presence calls for localized presentations in different markets. They needed to manage country-specific releases, make SEO improvements, as well as launch geographical marketing and content. The Half Helix team created a flexible theme experience across regions, utilizing theme settings to enable the Timex team to switch features on-and-off for different markets, while allowing the team to toggle between Timex and sister brand Guess. These include choosing different apps, localized scripts, analytics tracking, and more. Different functionality can now be offered to customers from specific regions, such as product protection for US shoppers. Each store also has a style section and the Timex team can easily select a theme style, and the respective brand style guide will be reflected, providing them with a lot of theme control across these regional sites. With the Orbe Shopify app and Hreflang Manager, the Half Helix team synced content (products, pages, collections) between regional stores, creating support for 1-to-1 page redirects. This allows customers to navigate between regional sites (and markets) directly from their current page. The result is a smoother experience both for the customer and the internal Timex team, to attain their international expansion goals.
