Enrou
bridging content and commerce
Enrou was a socially conscious e-commerce store that curates handcrafted products from developing communities around the world. The startup was selected as the first winner of the Forbes Under 30 Pitch Competition and received $400k in funding. As one of the initial members of the company, I experienced the challenges many startups face when bringing an idea to life, as well as made an impact on the company.
Designing the website, our team was faced with the challenge of finding the balance between telling artisans’ stories and selling products. While the brand’s value proposition is heavily tied to storytelling, the brand is sustained by product sales.
Challenge
Responsibilities
Content Strategy, User Journeys, Personas, Sketches, Wireframes
Process
Collectively, our team started defining who our target user was and creating personas around these ideas. Individually, we drafted what we thought our customers are interested in, what their habits and preferences are and so on. We regrouped to compare, synthesize and iterate on our personas–ultimately defining Emma. To put some credibility behind our persona, we sent online surveys to our existing customers to gather data about our current users and adjusted our persona to better reflect our findings. Once we nailed down who Emma was, we were able to create a user journey and map out the best way to approach the redesign.
Personas and user journeys
We analyzed the original site metrics and surveyed existing customers to see how the site was being used and current pain points. From there, we took our learnings and began tackling the design. The team had lengthy debates on how the hierarchy of the site should be prioritized, how the site would be able to differentiate itself from the competitors, as well as fulfill business objectives. We did countless iterations on sketches, post-it exercises, and quick user testing to gather feedback to build on.
One of our overall goals was to use storytelling to humanize the shopping experience for a user browsing the site. Each product Enrou sells has a unique story about it, so rather than allow users to browse products without any context as to where the item originated from or by whom it was crafted, we ensured the artisan’s photo and story were alongside every product. Designing these pages with the proper hierarchy was crucial to delivering on Enrou’s value proposition.
Wireframe Development
We wanted to ensure that our product detail pages carried the same storytelling thread that the other pages in our site had. In designing this template, we liked the idea of having a sticky footer that keeps the purchasing actions in one persistent place. This persistent shopping tool allowed easy accessibility as they scrolled through the product description, its origin, the impact purchasing this item has on the artisan and brand bio. At the bottom of these pages, users would find other collections of products that might interest them or blog articles that pertain to the type of products the user is viewing. Throughout the site, users always have the opportunity to browse e-commerce products or editorial content that ultimately aim to drive sales.
Product Detail Pages
The brand impact page existed in the initial phase of the website, but linked to shopping pages filtered by that particular brand. We wanted this page to surface the different brands Enrou represents, share each brand’s story, and be a place where users can learn about the impact a purchase from Enrou makes. The page gives users information that is easily digestible, using infographics of stats and region, etc.
Impact page
In mapping out at how the pages of the site flowed together, we identified opportunities to cross-promote different aspects of the experience so users could seamlessly flow from one page to the next. For example, the product and blog content were designed to complement each other. From the blog page, when learning about a specific brand, users see a preview of that brand’s products and an option to see more. In doing this, we were able to surface that brand’s products, so it stays in context of that brand’s story.
Content Meets Commerce
After the redesigned site launched, we saw an increase in user engagement and time spent on the site. Compared to the industry average of return shoppers at about 13-18%, Enrou has a return rate of 21% with this iteration. Specifically looking at how the impact page performed, we learned that it was one of the few pages users engaged with most. On average, people were exploring three or more brands, implying that people were interested in learning about these artisans’ stories and willing to keep exploring.
Solution & Impact
The founders have since pursued other projects and dissolved the company.