This Works
Building a high-performance eCommerce experience for global scale
This Works is a British beauty and wellness brand recognised for its science-backed sleep solutions and clinically tested skincare. Guided by a “clean, effective, proven” philosophy, the brand blends natural ingredients with functional formulations designed to support real, everyday routines.
Since launching, This Works has grown into an internationally recognised brand across the UK, US and Europe, with a loyal customer base and strong retail presence. A focus on efficacy, education and wellbeing continues to shape how the brand innovates, communicates and helps customers build healthier sleep and skincare habits.
The challenge
By 2022, the eCommerce platform used by This Works was no longer supporting the brand’s growth ambitions across the UK, EU and US. While the brand had a strong product proposition and loyal customer base, the site experience was constrained by performance, scalability and localisation limitations.A comprehensive front- and back-end audit across UX, CX, subscriptions, loyalty, content, store architecture, SEO and US localisation highlighted a number of structural and experience gaps, leading to the recommendation of a full site redesign to deliver a premium, mobile-first experience and support future international growth.
Following the audit and with a clear, prioritised roadmap in place, Vervaunt was brought on as strategic consultant to lead and govern the redesign, working alongside Made by Field as the development partner.
The objectives
Following the decision to undertake a full site redesign, the focus was on delivering a faster, more intuitive and commercially effective eCommerce experience across all key markets. Our objectives were to:
Deliver a mobile-first, high-performance site - Improve speed, Core Web Vitals and accessibility metrics (WCAG 2.2).
Optimise priority templates and journeys - Focus design and UX improvements on the highest-impact templates and customer journeys.
Elevate customer experience - Create a seamless, engaging journey that strengthens brand storytelling and supports loyalty and retention.
Improve core commercial metrics - Increase conversion, AOV, UPT and LTV through stronger merchandising, subscriptions and cross-sell opportunities.
Support international growth and localisation - Design US-first, with flexible modules to support localisation and performance across the UK and EU.
Build for optimisation and scale - Create a modular, flexible site that enables efficient content management and ongoing optimisation
Our approach
We partnered closely with This Works and their chosen design and development partner, Made by Field, to ensure the redesign aligned with commercial goals, design excellence, technical best practice and long-term scalability.
Discovery phase
End-to-end requirements gathering and technical scoping to define a mobile-first UX, tech stack and development specifications.
Design preparation, including an extensive collection of best-in-class references to elevate brand storytelling, support science-led content and improve cross-sell opportunities through regime-based journeys.
Design phase
Governance of the end-to-end design process, from initial concepts through to final sign-off.
Ongoing UX, CX and technical reviews, ensuring adherence to accessibility guidelines and best practices.
Development of a robust content plan, supported by detailed, actionable feedback throughout the design phase.
Build phase
Governance across SEO, accessibility, performance, content, product catalogue, integrations and internationalisation.
Active management of tasks, third-party integrations and demos, with close oversight of timeline and budget impact.
UAT & site readiness
Development of comprehensive test scripts and coordination of UAT across devices, regions and user journeys.
Technical validation across performance, accessibility, SEO and compliance, with proactive management of risks, blockers and dependencies to ensure launch readiness.
Launch
End-to-end launch planning across pre-launch, go-live and post-launch phases.
Hands-on technical and SEO oversight, alongside coordination of internal teams and third-party activations.
Post-launch
Ongoing monitoring of site performance, including speed and SEO.
Structured bug management and prioritisation to stabilise performance and support continuous improvement.
The results
Since partnering with Vervaunt on the site redesign, This Works has delivered a faster, more intuitive eCommerce experience, with improvements in site speed supporting a smoother mobile-first journey across key templates.
Enhanced bundle and upsell functionality introduced as part of the redesign has strengthened product discovery and regime-building, helping to improve conversion across core journeys and encourage higher basket value.
With a more flexible, modular platform now in place, the This Works team is better positioned to continue optimising the site, scaling internationally and evolving the customer experience over time.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Our monthly newsletter is designed to be the most actionable and inspiring eCommerce newsletter in existence, combining examples of eCommerce innovation, benchmarking insights from the industry, and the latest news and eCommerce trends.
By signing up you are agreeing to our privacy policy.