Object Shop, Darlinghurst
E-COMMERCE WEBSITE FOR OBJECT SHOP AT AUSTRALIAN DESIGN CENTRE, 2020-2022
PROJECT OVERVIEW
· I worked on this project in-house whilst employed at Australian Design Centre in Darlinghurst, Sydney, as their full-time Retail and Operations Coordinator
· Australian Design Centre is a major contemporary craft and design organisation igniting creative ideas and building cultural vibrancy
· Object Shop is the retail arm of the organisation, representing the craft and design work of around 100 Australian makers and designers
· Mid-way through 2020, we were informed that our existing e-commerce platform, Vend E-Commerce, was due to be retired in a few months’ time, so we had to migrate to a new platform
· During the first Covid lockdown, we realised that we needed to devote more attention to our online offerings across our whole organisation, including upgrading our existing e-commerce site which was clunky at best
· We wanted our online store to match the standard of other major players in the Australian craft and design sector, such as Craft Victoria (VIC), Artisan (QLD), JamFactory (SA), and Design Tasmania (TAS).
· The brief: To build a professional looking online store, on a rock-bottom not-for-profit budget, in between completing all of my other daily tasks within the organisation. Whew!
RESEARCH
· I started by researching the online stores of our direct competitors, regarding overall visual design, product offerings, layout, usability, and platforms used
· I reached out to other retail managers at these organisations for advice and support on how they had approached this task for their own online stores
· I conducted in depth research into the pricing, features, and ease of use for the three available platforms that Vend would support us moving to - Shopify, Big Commerce and WooCommerce
· I set up free trial sites for Shopify and BigCommerce so that I could test the overall experience and features, and present a basic mockup of each for approval by our CEO
· I consulted a range of stakeholders - myself (or future) retail and online store manager; gallery sales staff; our Financial Controller who would process payments; our Communications Manager who would assist with retail marketing; and of course our lovely customers who would be purchasing goods from the site
· I presented a report to our senior management team including pricing, strategy, team assistance required, and a list of key dates for the e-commerce website upgrade
CHALLENGES
· I started with rough notes and sketches on paper to work out the most logical way to present the range of products, which included nearly 1000 products from around 100 makers, 6 major categories, and a number of sub-categories, plus additional information pages
· I then used Gloomaps to plan the basic information architecture, as well as drafting content for Homepage, About, Contact, and Shipping Info pages, for approval by our CEO and Artistic Director
Object Shop preliminary site map for approval
· I worked with our Financial Controller to connect Vend to our new Shopify site and customise back-end payment settings
· I worked with our Communications & Partnerships Manager to carry across fonts, colours, and other assets from our organisation’s style guide, and to link the Shopify site to our main website, Facebook and Instagram accounts
· I liased with our approximately 100 shop makers to collect up-to-date product descriptions, images and artist biographies with which to populate the site, standardised our product titles, and created a style guide for future products added to the online store
· Initially my goal was to get a minimum of 2-3 items per artist listed on the online store, however eventually I managed to get 100% of physical products uploaded. During 2020-2022, I progressively photographed, photo-edited, measured, described, adjusted inventory, and uploaded over 1000 products to the new site.
· One significant challenge was calculating weight and postage costs for some heavy and/or fragile items (such as glass and ceramics) which required additional time and labour to package safely for shipping.
OUTCOMES
· Online sales steadily improved during and after the covid lockdown period, outpacing the previous online store by around 300%, and increased from roughly 5% of total sales, to around 45% of total sales.
· A number of artists who had previously not had any online presence were now able to direct buyers/collectors to Object Shop to purchase goods.
· Unfortunately, the glass / ceramics shipping issues continued and ultimately it was decided that these goods would have a shipping option, and would be sold for pick-up from the gallery only.
· Although some updates have been made to the theme and products in the store since I left the organisation in 2022, the original site architecture and product description nomenclature remains in place, along with a number of the product images that I created.
· According to the current Retail Manager, the current online store stats continue to improve year on year.
NEXT STEPS
Despite greater Sydney spending four months in lockdown during 2021, Object Shop performed favourably compared with previous years. Online sales made up approx 30% of total sales, compared to 5-10% in previous years.
Although the initial design was approved and has functioned adequately since the upgrade, the following changes have been suggested or requested and are yet to be implemented:
· Researching paid themes from Shopify to create a newer and more on-brand look for the store
· Adding mega menus to combat an issue with the top left hamburger menu dropping some items off the bottom (for example, the maker’s names, as there are over one hundred)
· Upgrade Shopify plan to include automatic shipping label function, as currently parcels are labelled manually using a Microsoft Word address label template
· Utilising the Shopify customer mailing list function to send out ADC’s monthly EDM and generate return business from past customers
· Photography and photo-editing images of around 70% of objects on the makers behalf (as they have not provided media quality images) continues to be a challenge with limited time and resources for professional photography, and will involve educating makers about the how and why for good product photography for online sales