The Challenge

With over 45 locations across rural Ontario and Manitoba, TSC (Tractor Supply Company) is a popular "country" lifestyle in-store shopping experience that specializes in farming, home improvement, and outdoor activities products. We have handled a full suite of creative, digital and media services for TSC since 2010, so when it came time to completely revamp their website, TSC turned to us.

The Insight & Strategy

From the get-go, we put ecommerce on the table for consideration, which we saw as a big opportunity. But initial concerns were raised about the possibility that TSC's target audience — primarily farmers — would be scared off by the technological complexity of online shopping.

What we discovered through our research was that, contrary to common belief, TSC's target audience is just as tech-savvy as their urban counterparts and would welcome the convenience of shopping TSC online. At the same time, any ecommerce solution would need to be impeccably user-friendly, easy to navigate, and customer-oriented — so as not to alienate older generations who might not be accustomed to online shopping.

The Execution

The first step of our custom build for TSC involved the creation of a sitemap, the "blueprint" of the site structure, followed by the production of high-fidelity wireframes, used to mold the structural features and vision of the website.

With our blueprints and wireframes designed, our next step was executing the creative design of the website — a process that brings the wireframes to life. We worked closely with TSC's design team to marry the look and feel of the TSC website to their brand, starting with the homepage, fully loaded with everything from eye-catching, targeted carousels for promoting daily and weekly deals, through to smaller points of personalization, like a local store designation option complete with a regional weather widget.

With the look and feel in place, the next step was to equip the site with the best possible user experience. Our team of in-house programmers designed the new website to function seamlessly with TSC's infrastructure and in-store data, enabling a user-friendly categorical navigation style that preserved the in-store shopping experience of browsing an aisle of merchandise, discovering incredible deals, finding what you need, learning all about it, and proceeding to the checkout.

The final step was the launch, which happened February of 2014.

The Result

In its first year, the website brought the client over 36,000 separate transactions totaling over 77,000 products, with an average order being $363.05. By drawing a comparison between 2014 and 2015, TSC's website garnered an ecommerce conversion rate of +17.7%, along with an increase in transactions (+69.5%), revenue (+60.7%) and the quantity of products sold (+73.3%).