With its 90 years of existence, the Lacoste brand has established itself as a symbol of fashion inspired by sport, a unique style that is both timeless and spans all dress codes.
A mark of elegance that transcends generations, the crocodile brand has been present in Morocco since 1994, with 14 stores deployed in the largest cities of the country. Each store invites you to rediscover a world of fashion and elegance, greatly inspired by the world of tennis, celebrating the roots of the French brand.
Represented by the Safari group, Lacoste has a turnover of 1.5 million euros in Morocco.
Lacoste, an acclaimed brand on the Moroccan scene
To respond to growing success driven by strong demand from local consumers (more than 85k searches per month on Google Morocco), in 2022, Lacoste launched its own ecommerce site in Morocco (www.lacoste.ma), the third on the African continent after Egypt and South Africa
Local support that adapts to the brand charter
To launch the project, Lacoste turned to a PrestaShop-certified technology partner in Morocco. This local player has proven to be an ideal partner, able to best respond to the tough requirements of the Safari group for implementing a digital architecture at the service of the user experience, consistent with the brand charter.
“Our sensitivity to the fashion theme and our various references for custom ecommerce sites of French brands, helped us convince the Safari and Lacoste teams of the relevance of choosing PrestaShop as an adapted and flexible technical solution”
Driss El Alami, CEO of Egio Ecommerce Agency
First workshop, first challenge
“From the kick-off with the UX Lacoste teams, we became aware of the scale of the challenge. More than 20 user journeys, and no less than 120 screens with ultra-groomed design and copywriting, in different desktop, tablet and mobile formats, integrating a lot of visual details that embody the premium universe, faithful to the image of the brand”
Driss El Alami, CEO Egio Ecommerce Agency
The flexibility of PrestaShop theming and the integration expertise of the Egio teams have made it possible to obtain a visual rendering aligned with the Lacoste charter, while ensuring an optimal level of performance. The site has a Google PageSpeed Insights score of 90 on desktop and 70 on mobile.
“The launch of Lacoste.ma required great attention to detail and continuous adaptation to needs, with many challenges to overcome to meet the expectations of the brand and consumers. It is therefore crucial for us to maintain constantly improving quality to offer a smooth user experience, satisfy new consumer expectations and remain competitive in a constantly changing market.”
Sendence Jabbar, Safari Group Digital Marketing Officer
The products up close and personal
Before the Moroccan version was deployed, Moroccan customers had to go through the Lacoste France or Spain sites to find out about new collections.
The presentation of the catalog, the search engine, the faceted filters and the highlighting of the products in their different colors and sizes were a major challenge for the project. Users hoped to find an identical customer experience (for example, on personalized pages: men, women and children), the same content quality on product pages (details of features, descriptions, images and videos), and the same interaction points to which they have become accustomed.
Data collection and selection work on 500 product references was carried out with the Lacoste teams. By connecting PrestaShop to the Lacoste PIM, we made the necessary adaptations to the local merchandising context, then made it available to Egio teams who integrate it into PrestaShop, through automated synchronization that supports data and media.”
Radia Berrada, Safari Group Retail Director
An efficient order journey
In this area, a lot of effort was made to customize the screens of the order funnel and the PrestaShop customer area to comply with the brand’s master guidelines. Final versions that result from multiple iterations, A/B testing and many improvements inspired by customer feedback.
“In many projects, merchants and agencies do not customize the checkout or customer area enough, regardless of the CMS, because in general it is quite complex, and often regarded as “high-risk” interventions by development teams. In the case of strong brands like Lacoste, this type of barrier easily gives way to two priorities: preserving the identity of the brand, and guaranteeing an optimal customer experience.
In this regard, Egio teams were able to ensure the balance between these two priorities and the customization possibilities offered by PrestaShop”
Anne-Marie Da Rocha, Global Director of Digital Experience and Innovation at Lacoste
An SEO-ready site and omnichannel capability in sight
From the architecture and development stages, particular attention was paid to the SEO component: an SEO consultant mandated by Lacoste supported the teams in implementing technical recommendations, aligned with the brand’s country strategy.
“The exchanges and implementation of SEO recommendations were fluid. Together with the SEO consultant, we quickly qualified the different optimizations, those native to PrestaShop or those that required specific development”
Driss El Alami, CEO of Egio Ecommerce Agency
Four weeks after the launch, despite the site being new, it is already in second place in the brand awareness search results, just after the global Lacoste site. It should be positioned in first place very soon on searches located in Morocco.
“The foundations are now laid: ecommerce site and management of organizational and logistical change. Now it’s time for omnichannel marketing. A new phase of the project is underway to meet our ambition to further develop the digital channel by giving it the power of unified commerce, thanks to the core of our ecosystem based on Cegid and PrestaShop”
Abdelaziz Derdak, DOSI Safari Group