Case study · Maison d'Etto

Selling a $300 fragrance to people who've never smelled it.

Maison d'Etto's site looked the part but made buying hard. We rebuilt it on Shopify in four weeks around one question: how do you help someone choose a scent they can't smell?

Client
Maison d'Etto, luxury fragrance
Platform
Shopify
Scope
Audit, UX, design and build
Timeline
4 weeks, live September 2026
maisondetto.com
The redesigned Maison d'Etto homepage: 'Conceptual Fragrances. Inspired by horses.' with buttons to find a fragrance or try the Discovery Set
The redesigned homepage on a phone
The problem

Beautiful, but hard to buy from.

With a $300 price point and 82% of shoppers on phones, every gap in the journey cost sales. Three stood out.

  1. No help choosing

    Shoppers were asked to spend $300 on a scent they couldn't smell. The notes and stories behind each fragrance were buried.

  2. The easiest yes was hidden

    The $98 Discovery Set, with a $50 credit toward a full bottle, sat in a thin announcement line.

  3. A slow first impression

    The theme loaded 14 code libraries on every page and hid images until they finished. The homepage took 3.5 seconds to show its main image.

How we ran it

“Nothing that improves how the site looks may cost conversion.”

The rule for the whole project

  1. Diagnose before designing

    We audited the live store, studied thirteen reference brands, and prototyped every page before touching the theme.

  2. Find the real objection

    Shoppers weren't put off by the look. They couldn't commit $300 to a scent they'd never smelled. Everything we built answers that.

  3. Decide on real pages, not mockups

    We built two creative directions and put them side by side on the real store. The founder chose with real pages in hand, not a slide deck.

  1. Aug 20Audit begins
  2. Sep 1Build begins
  3. Sep 10Founder picks the direction
  4. Sep 18New site live
What we changed

A store designed around the decision.

01 · A low-risk way in

The Discovery Set became the front door.

Every page offers two ways forward: the full bottle, or the $98 Discovery Set with a $50 credit toward one. The easiest first purchase is impossible to miss.

maisondetto.com/products/discovery-set
Discovery Set page with Add to Bag and the $50 credit terms in their own panel
02 · A page that sells

Product pages built to help people decide.

What it smells like, who made it and who it suits all sit above Add to Bag. For anyone not ready, the Discovery Set waits right under the button.

maisondetto.com/products/rotano
Rotano product page with family label, tagline, facts, Add to Bag with price and a Discovery Set offer
03 · Guidance, not guesswork

A Scent Finder instead of a sample.

Three questions (a world, a material, a feeling) lead to one fragrance, ready to add to the bag. No email gate before the answer.

maisondetto.com/pages/scent-finder
The Scent Finder's first question on desktop
The Scent Finder on a phone
Before and after

Same products, same photography.

Drag to compare the old site with the new one.

Old homepage: a photo of clouds beside a close-up of bottles, with faint navigation over the image
New homepage: a clear headline with two paths, find a fragrance or try the Discovery Set
BeforeAfter

From a mood photo with no clear next step to a homepage that says what the house is and offers two ways to start.

Homepage on a phone
Old homepage on a phone, all image
Before
New homepage on a phone with both buttons in thumb reach
After
Product page on a phone
Old product page on a phone
Before
New product page on a phone
After

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