Healthspan Ecommerce Case Study

Tactical, International DTC ecommerce for this leading supplement provider.

Founded in 1996, Healthspan has remained at the forefront of advancements in the world of health and nutrition ever since. Having started with just six products, their two ranges now extend to hundreds of supplements and sports nutrition products used by some of the world's leading athletes including The New Zealand All Blacks, British Cycling, The Lawn Tennis Association, British Athletics and many others.

"Everybody here is impressed with the speed of delivery and quality of the work. The best part of the experience is having a dedicated team that will respond to any queries swiftly, no matter the complexity."

Business Analyst, Healthspan

Project Highlights

Customised designs
Customised designs, with unique components, across all sites meaning they can have different designs between brands or channels, ensuring they stand out from their competitors and avoid the cookie cutter look & feel often associated with theme-based platforms
Seamless integrations
Seamless integrations with numerous third-party systems including Microsoft Dynamics Navision, CyberSource, Feefo, Loqate, Google Tag Manager & Google Analytics.
Replenishment subscriptions
Some sites feature replenishment subscriptions which are inherent to the platform meaning there are no clunky plug-ins, bolt-ons or apps and no additional costs
MOTO/Call Centre
Built-in call centre allows admin users to setup/view customer accounts and process orders on their behalf, as well as aiding customer service to provide online support
International
Multiple international versions of their DTC sites across both brands including for the Ireland, New Zealand and Australia
Loyalty
Points-based loyalty scheme for Healthspan Elite brand using tradeit's built-in loyalty scheme
Club discounts
Club and team level trade accounts with exclusive discounts and payment by invoice
Blogs
Built-in blogs full of nutritional advice, training tips and healthy recipes
Product tracing
Batch certificates and expiry dates on every Elite brand product for easy tracing and customer convenience

Project Integrations

Project Overview

With their UK ecommerce sites in place, Healthspan were looking to quickly launch new channels in a number of key strategic international locations for both their main brand and their new Healthspan Elite brand. They examined a number of different platform options including tradeit, Shopify, Magento 2 and their existing enterprise platform, in the hope of meeting their requirements.

Healthspan Elite ecommerce site on laptop

Healthspan Elite ecommerce site on phone

Tactical Ecommerce

The cost and time to deliver multiple international channels using their enterprise provider proved to be too expensive and cumbersome, particularly as they were launching into unknown or untapped markets where sales may not be in line with the initial and ongoing cost of operating there, and where deployment needed to be rapid. Shopify & Magento both lacked the functionality required out of the box so were quickly discounted.

They settled on tradeit which enabled multiple sites to be quickly rolled out and benefit from the economies of scale such an approach provides - the cost becomes exponentially lower the more sites are launched. With different designs (for different brands or purposes), shared or unique content, and sites that are localised for different markets with multiple languages, currencies, taxation systems & warehouses, no sacrifices are made in terms of functionality either owing to tradeit's inherent feature-rich tools and multi-channel capabilities.

Ecommerce Subscriptions & Loyalty

In order to replicate their enterprise platform, that inherent functionality needed to include catering for subscriptions and a loyalty scheme, without the use of clunky and restrictive plug-ins, extensions, or apps.

As supplements are a regularly consumed item, often taken daily, loyalty and subscriptions were fundamental to the new sites. The main Healthspan brand sites wanted to offer subscriptions whilst the Elite brand sites, which primarily sell sports nutrition products, wanted to employ a point-based loyalty scheme to generate repeat business.

Other requirements included numerous integrations, call centre functionality for processing orders offline & aiding customer service, club-level accounts with exclusive discounts & payment by invoice, and batch certificates & expiry dates on any Elite brand products.