webprism

Rebranding TOR Salon Products

Introduction

TOR Salon Products was started by a 20-year beauty industry veteran. Since 2014, TOR has been producing salon-quality hair care products. To stay competitive in today's market, TOR Salon Products decided it was time for a brand overhaul. WEBPRISM was brought on board to help them relaunch their website, implement a headless storefront and take over their advertising and marketing efforts. In this case study, we will explore the process behind our work with TOR Salon Products and discuss the results we were able to achieve.

Meet The Client

TOR Salon Products was founded by Shannon Tor, an analytical chemist by trade. After developing 9 award-winning products for major personal care brands like TRESemmé, Nexxus, and St. Ives, Shannon started Tor to develop individual hair care lines for the 3 major hair types.


As a chemist by trade, Shannon’s goal is to create the best performing products using as many natural ingredients as possible and using new technology where it improves results, without ever compromising product safety.


Shannon handles product development and manufacturing, while his wife Tina, is CFO and manages the business. TOR also produces CBD products such as tinctures, lotions, and consumables. All TOR products are made in their facility in Colorado and only sold in professional salons, or via their website.


How We Connect With TOR & Their Initial Need

We reached out to Tor directly via one of their social media channels.


Tina expressed the need to find a marketing partner with more resources than their current marketing manager, as well as a need to revisit their brand story and website to better represent their current stage of business.


After getting to know Tina and Shannon in our initial discussions, we presented a strategic plan, as well as a performance-based compensation model,


TOR’s business extends beyond direct-to-consumer hair care. They have a significant wholesale business with their network of salons, as well as direct-to-consumer sales of their CBD products, and some CBD wholesale.


Diving Deeper & Additional Challenges

There were 3 primary issues we needed to address with TOR’s ecommerce business.


First, the ecommerce platform they were using lacked the tools to help them manage and fulfill orders. Shipping labels needed to be created individually via their shippers, packing slips were created manually, sending tracking information to customers was not automated, etc.


Second, TOR was using the same payment processing for both their hair care and CBD product lines. With the majority of their revenue coming from hair care, and CBD’s scrutiny from payment processors, this put their ability to sell hair care products at risk.


Third, TOR had no analytics and little automation of their customer data. Customers needed to be added to their email platform manually, and abandoned cart and welcome messages were not in use.


Going Headless

With multiple lines of business, great margins, and a willingness to try aggressive offers, we wanted the highest level of flexibility with their online store and the connected channels.


TOR’s business model presented a perfect opportunity for a headless1 Shopify storefront, rather than using Shopify’s theme engine. Headless presented great advantages over a traditional theme, such as:


  • Exceptional design flexibility
  • Ability to create unique customer experiences, such as the Try TOR landing page
  • Maintaining high site performance when integrating third-party services such as reviews, affiliate tracking, wholesale, and subscriptions.
  • Ability to leverage the best underlying web technologies available


In Shopify’s Future of Commerce report, their research showed significant bottom-line advantages for brands able to serve their website in under 2 seconds. In our most recent performance review, TOR’s “Try TOR” landing page, our primary destination for PPC ads, performs its initial load in just 400 milliseconds on a desktop computer, 1.4 seconds on a 4G network connection. For comparison, our clients with traditional Shopify theme stores are unable to get their initial page load in under 5 seconds on mobile, and 3 seconds on desktop.


Accelerating The Project Timeline

2 weeks into our project, TOR was presented with the opportunity to participate in a regional television promotion, featuring the businesses of their town. They would be able to purchase over 30 ad spots, featured on their regional Fox affiliates. The promotion was 5 weeks away, and Tina & Shannon asked if we would be able to launch the new hair care site before the first ad spots began running. We invited the challenge and were able to redefine our launch requirements to launch a fully functioning, but pared-down version of torsalonproducts.com


Conclusion

Launching a website in just 5 weeks is no easy task, but it's one that our team at WEBPRISM was more than happy to take on. Our experience with Shopify and headless storefronts allowed us to quickly get TOR Salon Products' new site up and running - in time for their regional television promotion.


About WEBPRISM

We are a multi-disciplinary ecommerce digital marketing agency that specializes in custom storefronts. We help our clients by creating a strong foundation for their digital marketing through an online store that stands out in the market. If you're looking for a team who can help relaunch your brand and website, or are simply looking for advice on the best ecommerce platform to use for your business, we would be more than happy to chat.