/Insights/Codal wins Best User Experience & Design award 2 years in a row at the BigCommerce Agency Partner Awards

CodalwinsBestUserExperience&Designaward2yearsinarowattheBigCommerceAgencyPartnerAwards

Mar 20, 2023

A tablet showing BigCommerce award badge

As one of the most widely used eCommerce platforms in the world, BigCommerce powers tens of thousands of online stores across more than 150 countries, partnering with 2,800 agencies and technology providers to help design, develop, launch, and maintain eCommerce experiences for their merchants.

“Codal isn’t just one of our Elite Partners, they are one of the best partners in our ecosystem. Not only are they a pure joy to work with at every level, they also produce some of the best work on our platform. This award (not their first by the way) is just another testament to all the great things they can do and the value they provide to the merchants they work with!”

- Sean Callihan, Sr. Regional Channel Account Manager at BigCommerce

Every year, the internal team reviews products built by agencies for BigCommerce merchants, then picks the most innovative solutions to recognize at the BigCommerce Agency Partner Awards .

In 2021, on top of being named Partner of the Year, Codal won the Best User Experience & Design award for an eCommerce site we built for Garrett Popcorn—the world famous popcorn retailer based out of Chicago. Now, we’ve taken home that same award for the second year in a row .

This year, our team was recognized for outstanding UX design on two BigCommerce stores: GOREWEAR and Cocktail Courier.

Innovative eCommerce in the outdoor retail space

In 2022, Codal completely transformed the front- and back-end eCommerce experience for GOREWEAR —a leading manufacturer of outdoor gear for climbers, runners, and cyclists. For the brand’s audience of weekend warriors, GOREWEAR’s revamped website is an intuitive, engaging space to buy new clothes and equipment. For industry-leading eCommerce experts at BigCommerce, it represents the future of online retail.

Before teaming up with Codal, GOREWEAR was operating separate online stores for 5 brands in over 14 countries. Our team merged these stores into a unified technology stack, with BigCommerce at the center, providing a singular eCommerce back end for each brand and locale under the GOREWEAR umbrella.

In just 10 months, Codal collaborated with over 30 stakeholders and dozens of third-party vendors to reimagine GOREWEAR’s online shopping experience. The new site is beautifully designed with a consistent, data-driven UX and UI optimized for various locales across the globe. And it’s supported by a suite of back-office tools that help maintain internal efficiency and industry compliance, without compromising the customer experience.

Our team worked closely with BigCommerce’s Project Managers and Solutions Architects to maximize the value of the platform’s out-of-the-box features, integrate the best third-party applications, and develop custom solutions for specific UX requirements. Now, the new site is helping GOREWEAR increase online customer engagement, conversions, and sales—and ultimately securing the brand’s competitive advantage in the outdoor retail space.

Ecommerce gifting for alcohol products

Rather than purchasing booze and mixers from your local liquor store, you can go to the website we built for Cocktail Courier , explore different cocktail recipes, and have a convenient kit—with all of the ingredients and directions you need—delivered directly to your door, or the doors of your friends, family members, colleagues, and so on.

From Old Fashioneds, to Pineapple Fizzes, to Triple Spice Margaritas, the wide range of available kits are fun and creative, making Cocktail Courier the perfect fit for a corporate gifting scenario. Thus, the brand needed advanced group ordering functionality on its website.

When gifting kits to over a hundred clients or colleagues scattered across the country, the user would likely pull their hair out having to manually create each individual order. That would take a very long time, and the potential for human error is high. Also, different recipients will prefer different cocktail recipes, depending on taste, dietary restrictions, and so on. To make things even more complicated, alcohol cannot be shipped directly to consumers in certain states.

All of these problems needed solutions in the system that we built for Cocktail Courier. With a highly customized front end, supported by powerful back-end tools and integrations, we were able to deliver a smooth, enjoyable, and compliant group ordering experience .

Amplify your eCommerce strategy with BigCommerce and Codal

From platform migrations, to UX/UI design, to conversion rate optimization and site maintenance, Codal plans and executes cutting-edge eCommerce solutions for BigCommerce merchants.

As an Elite Partner with years of experience, our team understands the platform inside and out, from its built-in capabilities to its API infrastructure. We also regularly participate in beta testing for new features and functionality and contribute feedback to help improve the platform over time.