Christie's website reimagined

Modern and accessible platform providing an outstanding experience for millions of visitors on their way to explore the world of art or bid in an auction.

Client

Christie's

Services Involved

Websites
Web App Modernization
Cloud Solutions

Technologies Involved

Sitecore Experience Platform
Microsoft Azure
Azure DevOps
Stencil.js

Introduction

Going digital

In 2019, Christie’s, one of the leading auction houses, has decided to enrich their digital experience with the new version of Sitecore XP and a complete redesign of the client experience. The aim was to drive a significant switch of users from analogue channels to its website. By utilizing the digital channels, Christie’s has by 2021 reduced its impact on the environment by reducing the production of printed catalogues by 75 % while doubling the number of new buyers online. As a leader in UX, Christie’s is continuously improving and optimizing the experiences across all digital channels.

Engaging and accessible

Website redesigning

Christie's has, in cooperation with ACTUM, completely redesigned the client experience on Christies.com website with a primary focus on increasing visitor engagement . The goal was to change how visitors interact with the website, direct clients to explore more lots, showcase Christie's capabilities of enhanced photography, video and immersive content, in order to increase bidding on auctions and lots, and amplify engagement on events organized by Christie’s. Moreover, the new user experience is accessible and compliant with WCAG and ADA standards.

Facing challenges

The implementation required our special attention since the architecture was scarcely documented, and legacy systems integrations required modernisation. Due to the time pressure and importance of each high-profile sale, Christie’s required a performant, scalable, reliant, and secure hosting platform for their digital presence.

A global player

There was a requirement for high availability infrastructure of the website due to Christie's global presence, and the business criticality of available and highly responsive infrastructure for a fixed auction date and time that is available for bidding in real time. Even more, the solution had to be available across multiple regions, including mainland China, as well as accessible and compliant with all accessibility standards providing an exceptional user experience.

The process

ACTUM found a way to leverage the complex environment of multiple service providers and software vendors. Apart from that, the synchronisation of ways of working and workflows across multiple product streams had to be managed. Teams of developers established new security and penetration-prevention standards while working on their modernisation.

What solution has Christie's applied

The new solution

Using Sitecore XP 9.3 with SXA allows Content Editors to conveniently drag and drop components when creating new content for Christie's website. The solution leverages Sitecore XP scaled architecture such as xDB, xConnect, and User Tracking.

Following the Helix architecture as Sitecore’s best-practices guide enables contribution to the development process efficiently and ensures the software architecture has high standards at the same time. By migrating the website to AzurePlatform as a Service, Christie's has significantly reduced their maintenance costs.

ACTUM provided improvement of support reaction times by leveraging the built-in monitoring and alerting features of Azure. Using Azure Blueprints and cloud best practices allows Christie’s to quickly spin up a new environment in a matter of minutes. Azure DevOps helps with the entire Software Development Lifecycle process by providing a simplified user experience that reduces the time to release. On top of that, continuous integration ensures that the development team can react in case of urgency very fast.

How does it work?

Benefits for clients

Christie's now possesses a reliant and performant web application with composable architecture. One of the solution's benefits is that the website's features include a user experience that can perform even during heavy visitor traffic.

By following standards set by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the new website is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It enables users with varying abilities to interact with the website to navigate and explore Christies.com. All users with limited hearing, motor, or vision can find new works of art, browse auctions, and bid on items within them.

31% more visitors

The number of identifiable clients visiting the website daily grew significantly year over year.

75% fewer catalogs

Thanks to the switch to digital channels, Christie's reduced the number of printed catalogs vastly.

2x more time on the website

Visitors now spend twice as much time on the new Auction and Lot pages compared to the legacy pages.

“ACTUM has been key to one of our most ambitious projects yet. Replatforming our site has taken a lot of creative problem solving and ACTUM has been great at providing solutions and delivering.”

Will Fischer, Product Owner,
Application Delivery & Maintenance at Christie's

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