SOBEYs web unification
Modernizing the eCommerce experience for Sobeys' and its 5 subsidiary retailers
(Sobeys)
Empire partnered with IBM and Adobe to redesign Sobeys’ digital ecosystem ahead of launching a national online product catalogue.This transformation required unifying six retail brands — each with distinct content strategies, workflows, and audiences — into a single scalable web and CMS framework. Hundreds of recipes, articles, and editorial pages were reimagined to shift from static content to personalized entry points for product discovery and cross-selling.
I led end-to-end design strategy, building the systems foundation for B2B2C experiences while driving experimentation and feature evolution at scale.
Empire lagged behind competitors in online integration, prompting a push to modernize with a new product catalog. Previously, Empire had invested time and resources producing recipe articles and instructional content to direct foot traffic to their stores.
However, the website had historically seen low engagement across their retailers—with this content doing little to improve site stickiness and outgrowing the existing site structure.
The catalogue launch created an opportunity to reposition recipes as drivers of personalized shopping. We transformed recipe content into interactive touchpoints that support lifestyle-based shopping and product discovery.
Setting personalized preferences
Once customers sign-in to Sobeys.com, they can set preferences for recipe and product recommendations based on lifestyle choices and dietary needs.
General navigation and directed searches
I redesigned the global navigation IA and contributed to the search experience through recommendations and user testing. As users type in the search, results update in real time with products, recipes, and articles on one sheet, encouraging discovery and cross-engagement.
Design for storytelling: from browsing to viewing specific pages
CMS-templated product, campaign and brand landing pages featured dynamic content recommendations to show relevant food inspiration and products. To offer Sobeys control, component contents can be customized manually by Sobeys' marketing teams or automatically populated through AI.
Adding recipe ingredients to check-out
We integrated an add-to-cart feature on recipe pages to reduce friction between inspiration and purchase. Shoppers can easily swap products from the ingredient list and discover more from Sobeys’ catalog.
The redesign of the website as a result of the product catalog integration was a big win for our team. Standardized CMS templates empowered Empire marketing teams to scale and manage content efficiently, while providing customers with a new lifestyle-based online shopping experience.
