Arts and crafts are experiencing a resurgence. Knitting is cool again. Founded in 1928, Novita has perfected the art of yarn spinning. Today, Novita is the largest manufacturer of craft yarns in the Nordics and produces Finland's most popular craft magazine with a subscription of over 30,000. Yet despite its long-running heritage, new competitors started to gain market share.

How can an age-old craft evolve in a digital world? To connect with the next generation of knitters, Novita sought innovative ways to enhance the brand's community offering through digital and commercial channels. They envisioned a website and online store to help knitters learn, connect and create.

From knit-a-long events to downloadable patterns, knitting kit subscriptions and collaborations with Finland's most iconic brands— Novita has a rich content ecosystem with advanced use cases for content. To target new customers and grow its presence in multiple markets, Novita needed a central digital repository and database to channel content into different places, like the website.

Novita teamed up with three agencies. Hellon presented an in-depth understanding of customer needs. Kallan & Co refreshed the digital brand identity and created the concept behind the new online user experience. IONA identified and implemented the best technologies and architecture for the job and put the final touches on the user interface, digital style guide and components. The three agencies helped Novita bring new digital experiences to life while streamlining publishing across various channels, platforms, and markets.

Need-based customer segmentation to identify the growth opportunities

Novita, renowned for fostering an active knitting community, recognised a need to build a stronger understanding of knitters' needs to enable growth. During the pandemic, many knitters returned to the hobby, and a completely new group of knitters emerged with distinct needs and skill levels. Novita wanted to know which consumer segments are emerging as the new generation of knitters.

In collaboration with Hellon, Novita undertook a strategic segmentation initiative, utilizing Hellon’s AI-powered analytics to identify five distinct need-based consumer segments, with three pinpointed as critical to their future trajectory.

Execution of the need-based segmentation:

1. Setting the objectives and key business targets
2. Qualitative research (8 interviews)
3. Quantitative research (1018 responses)
4. AI-powered data-analytics for identifying segments with growth potential
5. Assessment and prioritisation of the segments based on business potential

Hellon specializes in creating need-based segments that provide actionable insights and sharp focus for development initiatives. This approach ensures that segment content is collaboratively designed with our clients to meet their specific needs. For our project with Novita, we chose three lenses to describe the segments.

Firstly, we developed a detailed persona for each segment, supported by visualizations and narratives, to vividly depict their characteristics and lifestyles. Secondly, we provided a comprehensive analysis of the segment's knitting hobby, detailing their habits, purchasing behaviors, and demographic trends. Lastly, we delivered an assessment of the segment's size, its business potential for Novita, and strategic recommendations for effectively catering to this segment in the future.

Creating focus and direction for the whole organisation

The main objective of the segmentation was to inform decision-making throughout Novita, from marketing teams to the boardroom. The need-based segments were met with widespread enthusiasm, providing a clear direction for e-commerce revitalization. With Hellon’s AI-based segmentation tool, we were able to identify and predict which customer needs are the most important to each segment and how Novita can untap the growth potential of each segment.

Technological discovery

Following the customer understanding and segmentation project by Hellon, IONA initiated the transformation with a comprehensive Discovery project, meticulously outlining the growth opportunities and objectives for Novita. This strategic phase was pivotal in understanding Novita’s unique market positioning and the intricacies of their processes in marketing and operations. Collaborating closely with Novita’s teams, a robust growth plan was formulated, centering on leveraging the Shopify ecosystem to fuel expansion and to revitalize Novita’s brand experience in the digital landscape.

Solution architecture, integration and expansion

We built a dynamic and scalable solution based on insights from the discovery phase. Shopify Plus was chosen for its robustness and scalability, addressing the high-volume demands of Novita’s diverse product offerings and customer base. Sanity CMS was selected to manage structured content, which ranges from knitting patterns and instructions to translations and rich editorial content.

The storefront runs headlessly on Shopify Oxygen to deliver an intuitive and responsive user interface across the user journey. This state-of-the-art headless approach creates flexibility in front-end design and optimises content delivery to better support Novita’s multifaceted business model (D2C including subscriptions, B2B, and publishing).

Understanding the critical role of streamlined operations in Novita’s expansion, the solution was seamlessly integrated with Oracle Netsuite as their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and Akeneo as the Product Information Management (PIM) system together with Novita’s IT partners. This integration ensured a cohesive flow of information, from inventory management to order processing, paving the way for operational excellence.

The new digital ecosystem empowers Novita to harness growth opportunities on an international scale, effectively addressing both B2C and B2B markets. This strategic overhaul not only enhanced Novita’s operational efficiency but also elevated the brand experience, setting a new benchmark in the integration of e-commerce and content-driven strategies.

UI style guide and accessible components

IONA expanded on the previously validated design concept and brand refresh by Kallan, extending the UI designs to encompass the entire user experience. This included designing additional features like profiles and transforming the concept into accessible front-end components and a comprehensive UI style guide.

Considering the diverse age range, skills, and interests of our knitters, a primary focus was placed on ensuring that the UI components are accessible and usable for everyone. From guaranteeing sufficient colour contrast to maintaining layout consistency and providing straightforward, clearly labelled navigation items —we've created a more inclusive digital environment that caters to the diverse user base of Novita.

Built with a headless approach

IONA created a prototype for early testing the headless approach using Sanity as the CMS and Hydrogen as the storefront. In the implementation phase the earlier work was taken further and Shopify and Sanity were seamlessly integrated so that products can be easily linked to Sanity content.

Customers love it, especially the mobile experience

After the launch of the new ecommerce platform, Novita gathered feedback from nearly 1500 customers through a survey. Notably, almost 70% of respondents accessed the site via a mobile device. Impressively, 94.3% rated the experience either 4/5 (46.7%) or 5/5 (47.6%). This achievement underscores our success in enhancing the mobile user experience, a key goal of the project.

In the ecommerce renewal, we introduced a new feature to enhance user focus: the ability to mark completed steps in the process of reading knitting pattern instructions. A compelling indicator of its effectiveness for Novita is the nearly 60% increase in sessions, supported by positive customer feedback.

A better merchant experience

Agility
The solution empowers Novita’s team to manage and update content swiftly using Sanity CMS, ensuring that the platform stays vibrant and relevant. The seamless integration of Shopify Plus, Sanity CMS, Oracle Netsuite, and Akeneo PIM creates a harmonious ecosystem that enhances collaboration across various departments, from marketing to sales to logistics. The tech stack significantly improves Novita’s ability to respond to market changes, manage campaigns, and gather user feedback efficiently, thanks to the adaptable and user-friendly interface provided by Shopify Oxygen.

Easy-to-expand experiences
Novita’s digital platform is built with growth in mind. The headless architecture, leveraging Shopify Plus and Oxygen framework, allows the platform to grow and adapt without impacting the backend operations or the integrity of the content. This flexibility is crucial for entering new markets or managing increased demand. The platform’s design supports multiple languages and currencies, making it well-suited for international expansion. Furthermore, it is equipped to cater to both consumers and business customers, streamlining the distribution of products, product information and content to retailers and resellers, and thereby expanding Novita’s market presence internationally.

Inventory management
Integration with Oracle Netsuite automates Novita’s inventory management. This automation provides real-time tracking of inventory, ensuring efficient order processing and minimizing stock discrepancies. Automating these processes not only reduces the need for manual intervention, thereby lowering the risk of errors but also enhances operational efficiency, leading to cost savings and improved customer satisfaction due to accurate and timely order fulfillment.