Since 1962, Sorel has been making shoes for the great outdoors, earning a reputation for craftsmanship and durability. Sorel is operated by Columbia Sportswear.

Challenges:

As with the other brands in the Columbia Sportswear family, Sorel needed a flexible rich media delivery solution that can scale with its growth.

With a product assortment numbering around 120 in any given season, Sorel needed to streamline its labor-intensive image production process that called for using action scripts in Photoshop to resize images to create the dimensions necessary for product detail pages, zoom features, grid views and other pages.

Best Practices:

• Streamline image production and management workflow, using URL commands to dynamically size images creating all the variations necessary for different user experiences;
• Empower shoppers, making it easy to both browse products and drill deep on a selected item, using the fullest range of interactive viewing tools, including full-screen views and 360-degree spin
• Leverage Scene7-hosted content to deliver interactive experiences to retail, introducing a new way to engage with the Sorel brand 
• Deliver consistent look and feel across all product images, whether they appear in grid or full-screen views
• Dynamically apply color and pattern swatching to render product variations using single master product image, eliminating additional photography to capture every incremental product difference

"Sorel is a brand which creates functional, yet fashionable products," said Garrett Gonzales, Creative Manager, Ecommerce, Columbia. "It’s this nod to the world of fashion which demands a site experience filled with rich imagery rather than technical specifications. Scene7 helps us meet that mandate."

Rich viewing tools empower shoppers

Shoppers are empowered at every step of their journey on Sorel.com. Right from the home page, they can choose from any number of tools to help them navigate to the right product. Shoppers can search Sorel shoes by color, temperature and other parameters. When they want to explore an item further, they simply roll over the product with a mouse to see a pop-up of all the variations offered in that style. These photos show the products in slightly bigger dimensions. Indeed, as shoppers move further down the purchase funnel , the product pictures get larger.

Once shoppers are on the product page, many interactive viewing tools are at their disposal, including the ability to spin the shoes for a 360-degree view, with the added ability to zoom in on the product from every angle. They can also choose a full-screen view. In all cases, shoppers are afforded a large window on the details that make each pair of shoes, from the leather texture to the traction of the sole. As a result, nothing is left to the imagination as shoppers have the full breadth of visual information to help them make a decision.

Flexibility to do more, including 360-degree views

Sorel is able to build a successful online user experience, partly due to its narrow product line, which gives the creative team the flexibility to do more.

"Sorel’s focused product line of strictly footwear allows our site design and photography to focus in on the shoe’s rigid three dimensional form, rather than the fluid composition of clothing and outerwear found with sportswear," Gonzales said. "What’s nice about footwear is it’s easier to manage and photograph because it’s a solid product, versus trying to spin a mannequin. 360-degree spin is definitely easier to accomplish with footwear."

Columbia’s creative team has applied Sorel's learnings to Columbia.com, where full-screen views are deployed for all products, and 360-degree spin is available on some of its products, including footwear.

Bringing interactivity to offline shopping

Sorel’s rich content has been leveraged by Columbia to bring interactivity to the latter’s brick-and-mortar experience. These interactive store windows, enabled by touch and implemented throughout the world in several branded stores, not only act as product showcases but also heighten the Columbia experience at retail. One promotion highlighted 10 key styles of the Sorel brand, pulling in Scene7-hosted imagery to complete the execution.

"These displays allow customers to get another level of brand engagement," Gonzales said.

Results

To execute the enhanced site using its legacy, highly-manual image production process would have required Sorel 100 man hours, which was eliminated by applying Scene7.

The user experience has also improved, thanks to the rich viewing experiences that provide shoppers with the full scope of visual information they need to make the right purchase decision.

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