McEvoy Ranch
eCommerce Web site & Skin Care Line Packages

A new olive oil company, McEvoy Ranch approached us to build a site that could give visitors a comprehensive tour of the Ranch’s grounds and highlight the organic processes used in growing and harvesting the olives. Additionally, build an engaging eCommerce experience that would entice buyers while making it easy to manage for staff. Along the way we also developed their new Skin Care.
Web Site
http://www.mcevoyranch.com

Year Built: 2004-2006
Project duration: ongoing
Zaudhaus role:Design Concept, eCommerce and overall Interface Design, Engineering

Services
Site Design & Development, Packaging, Identity

Industries
Consumer Products, eCommerce
STATS
RELATED
CHALLENGE + SOLUTION
The Challenge: The challenge with McEvoy Ranch's eCommerce site was balancing a tight budget with the need to have an eCommerce engine that was extremely consumer-friendly as well as easy to administer. Surprisingly, this is hard to find. We also knew that whatever we settled on, we'd want to create a very custom experience in order to maximize the user engagement. In the past, we've found that most off-the-shelf content and commerce tools have just terrible user-interfaces. We always end up customizing them to a high-degree. Finally, the timeframe was quite short. We had three months to get the system put together and test it.

For the skin care line, we were asked to create a gift-line of skin care products (i.e. not for the face) that could family with the existing McEvoy Products, yet also stand alone in a Sephora store. Again, not the easiest balancing acts.

For the Web site, we settled on using XCART and heavily customizing the user-experience. We spent a great deal of time attending to every detail in the Xcart system and were very pleased with the results. The administration of the system was complex, but not impossible for a marketing director to come up to speed on in a few weeks. The overall design was a simple framework that emphasized the landscape of the Ranch and dramatic header images that described each of the sections. The store, in particular, turned out wonderful - mostly for the single reason that we mandated completely new photography. Great studio photography really makes an eCommerce store really look beautiful when done right.

The skin care packaging evolved from a very wide exploration into different bottle shapes and visual designs from modern to compeletely illustrative. The final design showcases simple typography to offset the fanciful McEvoy Logotype and a single mosaic illustration that features a single olive branch. When we launched during the 2006-2007 holiday season, the skin care line outsold all other products.
“The logical manner in which our site is laid out, the way it leads the reader through the many facets of the Ranch all lead to a greater appreciation from our customers of our oil and Estate-produced products.”
- Michael Coon, Former Director of Sales, McEvoy Ranch