Bower Collective
Bower Collective is a sustainable retail brand, selling luxury zero-waste home and personal products through a smart subscription mechanic that means you never have to think about it again.
I’ve worked with them since they launched, involving a shifting team of Ōrke experts across all their digital and product experiences.
Services:
Brand strategy + creation
Service design
User experience
Digital and physical design
Illustration
Storytelling
Sustainability is a vital part of Bower Collective’s DNA, but so is luxury - Bower products are a world away from traditional tie-dye environmentalism.
We built an elegant, premium brand around a custom monogram and lush leaf backgrounds. Applied across their products and digital experiences, it positions their own-brand ranges right alongside the high-end brands they’re sold with.
To maximise budget, the Bower site’s based on a customised Shopify theme. This is where most customers first experience the brand. Typography, styled product shots and bespoke illustration come together to make sure that initial impression’s a great one.
The site was built by Keir Moffatt and Paola Guttierez, who did (and continue to do) an amazing job.
Getting people to sign up to recurring orders from a new brand is a tough sell. We designed the Bower homepage around clear, bite-size explanation of the proposition and compelling social proof, to make sure new customers are fully bought in before they even hit a product page.
Customer insight told us that the first order would usually be a joint decision, made in front of a tablet or laptop. But ongoing order management - changing quantities and adding or removing items - was much more likely to be done on a phone, on the go.
We designed a beautiful, intuitive order management system that’s optimised for small screens and slow connections.
Bower’s a proudly digital-first brand, but it’s really important that the physical product doesn’t compromise the overall experience. We obsessed over the detail across all touchpoints, from the reusable pouches products arrive in through to the high-quality glass dispensers customers decant them into, and a lot more besides.
We even designed Bower-branded recyclable packaging tape, so that the product experience starts the moment your delivery arrives.
“Ōrke helped us create a great experience on a tight budget. Their guidance was instrumental in helping us shape our proposition and get investment to scale the business.”
Nick Torday
Founder, Bower Collective
It’s hard to understand the impact of the plastic waste you produce. For Plastic Free July 2020, we built a plastic waste calculator, that helps people make sense of plastic waste, and gives them some simple ideas for reducing it.
Bower Collective launched in December 2019. Since then, we’ve helped the team launch over 20 Bower-brand products, consistently beat monthly revenue targets, successfully close two rounds of investment, and save about 100,000 tonnes of plastic from landfill.
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© 2019 Ōrke Consultancy Limited, company number 12138022.
Ōrke is a Danish word related to having the energy to try things.