NICE
NICE had all the right ingredients — quality, ambition, and a loyal audience — but its brand and digital experience weren’t living up to the promise. Tony helped redefine NICE’s role from a retail homeware brand to a lifestyle brand built on inspiration, personalization, and cultural relevance — transforming every touchpoint, from eCommerce to storytelling, so customers could truly make a house a home.
NICE: Turning a Retail Brand into a Lifestyle Experience
When Tony began working with NICE, it was clear the brand already held a strong place in the hearts of its customers. People saw NICE as warm, stylish, and inspiring — a place with products that could truly make a home feel personal. But the brand wasn’t living up to those expectations across its touchpoints. The values were strong — inspiration, customer-centricity, quality — but customers didn’t consistently experience them. They wanted to trust the brand. They wanted to feel something. And the brand needed to close the gap between promise and reality.
The biggest opportunity was in how NICE presented itself. In a competitive set alongside Crate & Barrel, Williams-Sonoma, and Restoration Hardware, NICE needed a more refined, ownable expression — one that reflected the quality and cultural relevance of its products. To achieve this, Tony introduced a new brand idea:
NICE, Makes a Home.
A clear promise that reframes NICE not just as a retailer but as a partner in creating personal, meaningful living spaces. This anchored the shift from selling homeware to building a lifestyle brand rooted in self-expression and belonging.
With the brand repositioned, Tony turned to the experience — the place where the brand either earns trust or loses it. Tony began by reworking the information architecture and navigation, simplifying the category structure and aligning it with how customers naturally shop. Reducing cognitive load meant reducing friction — helping customers feel guided, not overwhelmed. From there, Tony redesigned the eCommerce experience with a mobile-first approach, improving browse and search behavior, introducing thematic and natural language searches, and providing multiple intuitive pathways to products. These changes were less about adding features and more about removing effort.
Tony also rethought facets and filters to match real-world shopping instincts. Subcategories became visible rather than buried; filters became meaningful rather than mechanical. Featured, Best Sellers, and New Arrivals gave customers emotional entry points rather than transactional ones. And finally, Tony simplified the checkout experience into a clear, single-page flow that minimized confusion, minimized abandonment, and maximized confidence — especially on mobile.
The outcome was more than a refreshed website. The brand and experience now speak the same language. NICE’s personality, purpose, and promise are no longer implied — they’re felt. NICE, Makes a Home isn’t just a tagline. It’s how the brand now shows up, guides, and connects — in every interaction, every channel, every moment.
