Work & Co Launches New E-Commerce Platform for Outlines

Work & Co has introduced a new e-commerce and subscription platform for Outlines, a company with a big mission: hitting reset on home essentials.

The brand is turning the notion of subscription businesses on its head. Its founders Luke Barkley Young and Megan Murphy have committed to battling against waste and focusing on the circular economy — what happens to products after consumers use them. The new site elevates Outlines’ approach to Responsible Replenishment, a new replenishment model that only replaces the part of our products that *actually* get dirty and recycles all used products, thereby contributing to less waste.

Work & Co led strategy, concepting, design, and development for the new Outlines storefront and its subscription hub. The new site marks the company’s expansion into personal care items with the Body Buffer System. Outlines debuted its flagship Shower Liner System in January and in short order The Shower Liner System has been recognized and awarded by Good Housekeeping, Core 77, and House Beautiful Awards.

Said Work & Co Design Director Calvin Teoh: “Not only do we want to make sure there is a responsibility around the end life of the physical product, but we’re solving for the fact that the subscription economy has staggered because UX patterns aren’t transparent. If users understand and feel in control with the subscription they’re signing up for, they’re more likely to sign up and stay signed up early on. A priority for us was making an experience where skipping, adjusting, or even pausing on your replenishments was at the forefront of the experience, never buried at the bottom of an account screen.”

“Since launching earlier this year, we have made two things an indisputable priority: our commitment to reducing plastic waste, and the needs of our customers,” said Outlines Founders Young and Murphy. “As we go to market in a way that's better for the world, and better for customers —giving them individualized control over subscription replenishment — we knew that Work & Co’s reputation for building digital retail experiences would be critical. Their track record for creating e-commerce that customers use again and again has been invaluable for us as an early-stage company. And they've set a new bar when it comes to designing and building a custom Shopify experience in a way no other brand is doing.”

To help differentiate Outlines and underpin its unique model, Work & Co’s development team took a highly-customized approach to Shopify.

Noted Nemanja Nićiforović, Technology Partner at Work & Co: “Shopify offers ease of managing content, governance over the payment and checkout flow, and easy-to-use template language that comes out of the box. By using these core attributes, we were able to build fast without compromising quality.” He added: “Our development team then went a step further to implement custom flows —or multistep wizards — and double down on the ease of data import/export with Shopify. We built single-page applications that would take the data from Shopify, guide the user through our enhanced experience and then push the data back into the platform. The result is a truly bespoke retail platform.”

In addition to designing and developing the new site, Work & Co is also an early investor in Outlines, along with Social Impact Capital, Goodwater Capital, and notable angels from brands like Glossier.

Read more about Outlines in The New Consumer and visit the new digital experience at livingoutlines.com.