Since joining forces earlier in the year, we’ve been continually optimizing Missoma’s Shopify Plus store and elevating the customer experience. This recent feature we designed and built has had its fair share of press attention (check Hypebae, InStyle, and Forbes, to name a few). So, we’re here to tell you a bit more about it.

Missoma’s Layering Lab lets browsers visualize different necklace combinations to appreciate how certain textures, lengths, and styles might pair together. It works in real-time, rendering looks as users select up to 5 chains, experimenting with necklace stacks.

Sarah Corcoran, one of our Digital Designers who worked on the Layering Lab, comments on the design motivations and choices:

"Missoma wanted a product builder experience that felt unique to them and that enabled the customer to visualize multiple chains together in an easy, playful and engaging way.

The look and feel came as part of a recent brand refresh that uses color and tonal layering site-wide. It was important this continued through to this experience as well, fitting seamlessly into the rest of the brand’s aesthetic.

We added conversational microinteractions as a reward for adding more chains to encourage engagement with the tool and with a view to increasing AOV.”

As well as fitting with Missoma’s aesthetic, The Layering Lab aligns nicely with other aspects of the brand. For instance, encouraging confidence and sparking creativity are 2 things at the heart of Missoma’s mission. The way in which The Layering Lab allows shoppers to play around with new ways of styling their pieces really speaks to this.

In addition, Missoma has become a well-loved brand for many reasons, but one key USP of theirs is that their jewelry is versatile. These pieces are thoughtfully designed and carefully considered. To be worn alone, as well as layered up. The Layering Lab sought to communicate this versatility and show how Missoma’s pieces can be styled uniquely, and switched up in the future too.

Layering, in particular, has become a popular way of making a statement in fashion. And when we look at the jewelry brands offering buildable pieces, it’s no secret that Missoma is a market leader. This tool was a relevant move for the brand, helping layering enthusiasts curate the perfect stack whilst doubling up as a handy guide to newbies.

As well as being relevant for the brand’s audience, The Layering Lab needed to work for their e-commerce team — whilst also catering to a large product offering. Jon Ashcroft, one of our Front-end Web Developers who worked on building The Layering Lab, shares more:

"A modern shopping experience requires a modern development approach, so we naturally chose Vue as our framework. This allowed the freedom and flexibility needed to handle a large quantity of products, and reactive data binding without compromise.

In the back end, we wanted to make things as easy as possible for the client to use, so there are no additional or custom admin panels to learn. Everything is customized within Shopify and instantly fed into The Layering Lab."

In short, The Layering Lab helps Missoma offer a more personalized shopping experience, whilst also aiding their customers’ purchase decisions. This new feature is just one example of how we continue to enhance Missoma’s e-commerce channel and drive user experience through innovative developments that fit their brand and push the boundaries of Shopify Plus.

As e-commerce shows no signs of slowing down, brands are hungry to implement innovations like this. Think how the concept could even work with your own product offering. You might sell prints — would your customers not be interested in seeing how different pieces fit together on a wall? Perhaps you sell flowers — might there be a market for people wanting to build their own bouquet? Remember, such technologies aren’t only helpful and interesting for your audience, but by rocketing AOV/basket size, you’d be reaping the rewards too.