Le Creuset Introduces New Ecommerce

Everything I know about cooking, I learned from my dad. Over the years, Chef Bob, as we like to call him, has created mouth-watering meals for our family to enjoy together. While he’s spent years perfecting his pot roast, we were definitely subjected to a few less-than-appealing dinners along the way (I’ll spare you the gory details of the macaroni and cheese incident of ’93). Chef Bob’s tastiest meals always shared one common trait: they began with his bright orange Le Creuset Dutch oven.

That piece of Le Creuset cookware was also the foundation of my cooking lessons. I watched and learned as Chef Bob taught me how to properly brown meat before placing the enameled cast-iron pot in the oven while reminding me, “Low and slow is the way to go.” Like other home cooks, my dad sang the praises of Le Creuset’s quality, noting that the orange Dutch oven would eventually become part of my kitchen, unintentionally creating the emotional connection the company so often finds in its customers.

Ninety years ago, Le Creuset debuted its signature enameled cast iron cocotte and has since expanded its offerings to include stainless steel, silicone and stoneware. From a single product in 1925, the company has grown along with the demands of its consumers, inspiring them to create joy through cooking.

For a company built on tradition and heritage, Le Creuset continues to excel at redefining its brand to include modern design, and its eCommerce site is no exception. Celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2015, the company identified an opportunity to rebrand the site to create a more rewarding user experience.

Located in our shared city of Charleston, South Carolina, Le Creuset turned to Blue Acorn to create a modern, intuitive eCommerce site that would also capture the 90-year-old company’s respect for tradition and authenticity. Le Creuset selected Magento Enterprise Edition, in part, because the scalable platform allows for seamless international expansion.

“Blue Acorn understood our desire to balance world class content and compelling visual presentation with seamless transactional performance. Having an agency of their global caliber in our shared American home of Charleston was the icing on the cake,” said Stephen Jones, vice president of marketing at Le Creuset.

After defining design principles based on the timeless Bauhaus concept, Blue Acorn worked with Le Creuset’s team of marketers, designers and photographers to rebrand the Le Creuset experience, from in-store to online. The new, responsive eCommerce site features engaging ways to shop for and filter products including by color, size, function and type of material with the swipe of a finger.

The Internet has become a go-to source for easily accessible cooking tips and recipes by celebrity chefs and home cooks alike. The redesign includes robust content, such as recipes and profiles of top chefs, to create a captivating online cooking experience that appeals to Le Creuset’s emotionally-guided customers.

Magento Enterprise Edition’s open-source technology performs at its best when amplified by best-of-breed technologies. After meeting with the Le Creuset team to determine the functionality they would need to deliver an exceptional customer experience today and in the future, Blue Acorn integrated modules from partners AddShoppers, Avalara, Listrak, PowerReviews and Swiftype.

All of these upgrades and additions to Le Creuset’s eCommerce experience have resulted in an intuitive and engaging user experience. The site exudes a warmth that welcomes customers by invoking memories of cooking successes and shared meals, much like the ones I have of my dad and his bright orange Le Creuset Dutch oven.