From Basque With Love is a Melbourne-based gourmet food brand known for its handcrafted spice blends, grains and meal kits. The business had grown rapidly through major retail partnerships and a loyal customer base, but its existing website no longer reflected the brand’s quality or supported a seamless e-commerce experience.
I was engaged to redesign and rebuild the website with a focus on improving usability, enhancing brand perception, and modernising the overall e-commerce experience. Working closely with the founder, I developed wireframes, tested design iterations directly in WordPress, and refined layouts through multiple feedback rounds to ensure the final solution aligned with both user needs and business goals.
The previous website met basic functional needs but had several friction points that affected the customer experience and brand perception:
Cart quantities did not update dynamically unless users manually clicked “Update Cart”
The store-locator map was laggy and difficult to use
The homepage lacked social proof and did not communicate brand activity and community engagement
The visual layout felt dated and did not reflect the brand’s warm, artisanal identity
Existing integrations (Mailchimp, automated emails, payments, accounting) needed to be re-set and configured to function correctly with the new website
The goal was clear: Deliver a fast, modern and trustworthy shopping experience that aligns with the brand’s premium positioning.
UX evaluation
& core fixes
Focused on removing friction in key conversion flows and improving clarity in the purchasing journey. Key priorities included:
Ensuring cart totals update automatically
Rebuilding the store locator for faster, intuitive use
Reinforcing trust signals across the homepage
Old cart page
New cart page
Key Change: Removed the manual “Update Cart” button and enabled automatic cart total updates.
Visual refresh
Elevated the interface to better express the brand’s warmth and artisanal feel while improving usability across devices. This included:
New layout and content structure
Updated modular component library
Stronger responsive behaviour and image handling
Refined typography and spacing for a more premium feel
Old website
New website
New website mobile view
E-commerce &
system setup
Strengthened the technical foundation to support scalable e-commerce operations and smooth post-purchase workflows:
Mailchimp integration for automated email flows
Payment gateway setup and QuickBooks syncing
Page-speed optimisation and SEO foundations
Cross-device QA and performance testing
Social Proof &
conversion
Increased trust and reinforced brand credibility by surfacing authentic customer signals:
Live Instagram feed embedded on homepage
Google reviews integrated to highlight customer trust and satisfaction
Google reviews
Implemented
Solution
The final website delivers:
A clean, intuitive and mobile-first e-commerce experience
Seamless cart and checkout interactions
A high-performance stockist map
Stronger brand narrative through photography, product stories and founder personality
Integrated systems for automated post-purchase flows and business reporting
Faster page load and improved SEO foundations
The result is a website that feels warm and trustworthy, while performing reliably across the full purchasing journey.
The redesign delivered meaningful commercial results in the first full month post-launch. Net online sales increased by 12%, while average order value rose by 38%, demonstrating improved purchase confidence and a smoother cart and checkout experience. Customer trust and brand engagement also strengthened, reflected in Google reviews increasing from 19 to 35 while maintaining a 4.7-star rating. These outcomes show a clear lift driven by a more intuitive user experience, higher performance site architecture, and integrated social proof across the customer journey.
This project reinforced the importance of balancing thoughtful UX decisions with practical delivery in a commercial setting. Working independently across design, development and integration required clear prioritisation, fast iteration and close collaboration with the founder to guide decisions. While deeper usability testing and accessibility reviews would be the natural next step, the measurable uplift in sales, average order value and customer trust demonstrated that focused, feedback-driven improvements can deliver meaningful business impact, even within a lean execution approach.