Vans Elevated Digital Storefront

Reimagined global eCommerce shopping experience, emphasizing immersive photography and streamlined user journey.

Role:
UX/UI Designer |Owned product listing pages, content components, and email templates. Supported holistic redesign effort and translation of new brand book into a scalable digital design system.

Oct, ‘24 - Mar. ‘25

Background

Vans, founded in 1966, rapidly became the brand of skateboarders, prided for the sticky rubber on the bottom of their shoes. Since its inception, Vans has come to represent a counter-culture narrative, encouraging an ‘off the wall’ approach to life. A term coined by so-cal skateboarders doing tricks in empty pools and adopted as Vans brand motto. While the brand has continued to modernize and support its community, the Vans digital experience has become dated and dusty.

Objective

The iconic Vans brand required a re-imagination of their digital storefront with an ‘off the wall’ twist. Our bottom line objective was to build brand equity and create an elevated eCommerce experience to drive increased order value and consumer loyalty.

Our guiding principles were: simple, personal, and modern.

  • Simple - scrutinizing functionality to create a light, frictionless shopping journey.

  • Personal - create moments of connection with the consumer

  • Modern - build a standout digital experience that reflects brand direction

Metrics

Since launching in March ‘25 Vans has seen positive metrics across the Americas (AMER) and Europe (EMEA) regions.

  • Revenue per Visit (RPV) +10% EMEA & +5% AMER

  • Average Order Value (AOV) + 3% across both regions

There are some clear behavioral wins out of the gate, including:

  • The new site design has driven a significant increase in the add to cart rate, creating a meaningful opportunity to further optimize for conversion.

  • EMEA: More consumers are leveraging the the search tool, and although less are leveraging the mega navigational menu, it is showing improved conversion.

  • AMER: Although less consumers are leveraging the search and mega navigational menu, the efficacy of the tools has improved with increased through rates.

October | Alignment & Concepts

Facilitated workshops with Vans eCom and Creative teams - intense collaboration on initial concepts.

November | Design, Research & Development

Design completed work, Development began. Team collaborated and decisioned daily

December | Refine & Polish

Framework of the site is stood up and the team works to bring site to life.

January | Deploy & Test

Site is built, team works on QA and continuous improvements until release - early March ‘25

Product Listing Page

Worthy Updates

For the PLP design I focused on highlighting product photography and decreasing the page margins to create a more immersive shopping experience. We developed a gallery carousel within product cards so users could view multiple images on the listing page. Additionally I injected product SEO text to highlight product benefits and support users in making more informed decisions higher in the funnel.

I streamlined the quickshop experience allowing consumers to add product to their cart directly from the PLP - a feature Vans did not support prior to this redesign effort.

In close collaborating with the brand content team, I worked to build in eSpot modules to support global campaign initiatives and product storytelling throughout the browsing journey. Additionally, on mobile we developed full-width product card functionality to support the brands initiative to highlight singular styles and create an immersive experience.

Previous PLP Designs

Homepage

Immersive multi-story hero carousel component.

Content Components

Strategized, designed, built, and implemented a library of content components for the brand to leverage. Focused on full-bleed storytelling moments, leading with photography. Designed a component hover state in alignment with the updated brand book which introduced a logo tilt. Partnered closely with content authors to understand workflow and component flexibility needs. Learned how to author site content via CoreMedia to support the brand team leading up to launch.

Educated content authors on recommended usage and placement of components. All designed components were supported across the site, inclusive of homepage, product listing pages, product description pages, and custom content pages.

Email Templates

Omni-Channel Consistency

In collaboration with the Vans Global Creative team I built new email templates with reusable components to ensure a cohesive omni-channel journey for consumers. I worked with the loyalty and email marketing teams to update both transactional and marketing email frameworks. We enabled an overhaul of global emails in less than 6 weeks leading up to site launch. Handing off flexible and dynamic email modules has streamlined turn-around time for email creation and established a cohesive visual language across consumer touch points.