E-Commerce Design for Schauraum Neukölln
How to create an online (non-)shop for a local small business
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It’s no news to say, that it took us a pandemic to give the topic of digitalization the spotlight it deserves.
And even though businesses can’t ignore the demand for E-commerce solutions any longer, the truth we’re facing shows the opposite: whilst there are plenty of online shop tools and templates on the web which (theoretically) make the switch to digital sales available to everyone, you still find a lot of hesitation amongst business owners. After all, the complexity of thinking through the concept for an online shop, organizing your product or service repertoire logically, somehow putting it on the actual web, and, worst of all, keeping things up-to-date, often takes business owners to such a level of frustration, that they’d rather not be doing it at all.
About the project
We were a team of three UX/UI designers facing the challenge of creating an E-Commerce solution for a small business of our choice within 4 days. Luckily enough though, here in Berlin, we’re surrounded by numerous creative and ambitious local business owners, that we’d be happy to help.
One stakeholder, who really stood out to us, was the vintage furniture shop Schauraum Neukölln. Owned by two young men, the business specializes in professionally restoring and selling unique mid-century modern vintage pieces. What fascinated us about Schauraum Neukölln was not only the beautiful products they offered but most of all, how much passion and dedication the owners put into their work.
Our goal in designing an E-Commerce for Schauraum Neukölln was to analyze the business objectives in going digital, to build an information architecture that is both logical and scalable, and, to discover the sweet spot between what the owners wanted and what the actual clients really needed.
Business Analysis & Value Proposition
When we conducted our stakeholder interview with one of Schauraum’s owners, we got to know, that the shop itself had a quite unconventional concept. It would only be open for customers three days a week, while the rest of the week would be used for their thorough restoration work. The general audience of the shop, the owner told us, wasn’t walk-in customers, but rather vintage furniture lovers and collectors, that would first research the repertoire online to then come for a specific appointment to personally experience the look and feel of the products.
“I don’t want an online shop.”
Well, this one might come as a surprise (at least it very much surprised us).
During the first interview, the owner literally told us: They didn’t want to sell online. They couldn’t.
Schauraum’s pieces weren’t items that could just be blindly ordered and sent out like your everyday fashion order. All of their products were hand-picked, individually restored, high-quality products that, thus, also required higher organizational standards (like finding trusted professional shipping). For the same reason, the owner also wouldn’t offer return policies. Instead, he insisted on personal contact with his clients before every purchase. There would always be an appointment in advance — live or virtual — to discuss all details about the desired item in person and to make sure there is no doubt, that each piece would find its new forever-home with the clients.
When we benchmarked Schauraum Neukölln against their direct competitors, we found out, that other vintage furniture vendors would present themselves
- either highly commercial, anonymously and with a large product range which was either presented in a catalog-style webshop or on online marketplaces like eBay Kleinanzeigen and would often lack quality,
- or small businesses that would only exhibit a preview of products on their page and would use their website rather as an online business card with basic contact information.
We soon understood and defined, that the value proposition of Schauraum Neukölln would lie in the very selective and personal handling of their business. What makes them stand out from the others, was the detailed guidance and consultation before purchasing any products, the close, personal contact with the clients, and the small, curated number of high-quality products instead of mass supply.
But no successful online business goes without understanding its users.
The users.
User Research
We first created a survey to generally understand the demographics and preferences of vintage furniture buyers better, especially in terms of on-site vs. online shopping.
It stood out, that the top values and preferences when it comes to vintage furniture shopping, were mainly associated with emotional and idealistic criteria (e.g. aesthetics, trustworthiness, personality).
We conducted some follow-up user interviews which took us closer to the users’ individual experiences, motivations, and feelings. When we talked both to regulars as well as potential clientele, we soon found out that there was one big leitmotif, that would drive our audience: discovery.
High-quality vintage furniture would, first of all, allure lovers and collectors. This particular audience focused on the experience of finding special pieces than just on the pure purchase. They would get informed and inspired online first and then go on to see their desired pieces at the actual shops. Rather than heading on a mission to find a specific item and expecting certain vendors to have those in stock, our users would take their time to browse and on their journey stumble upon pieces that would catch their eye.
It was crucial to the design to understand which mental models and logical patterns the users would categorize Schauraum’s products by. For this, we used the Card Sorting method and let our users group actual product pictures and give each group a title of their choice. We found out that even vintage furniture experts would rather sort the products by their basic type (e.g. chairs, tables) than their style, era, or what kind of context they’re used in.
Finding these smallest denominators not only helped us to sort the existing products into a logical sitemap but also to make the E-Commerce content scalable for the future as the individual pieces of Schauraum would always be changing according to availabilty.
From our insights, we also defined our user’s Job-to-be-done (JTBD) and asked ourselves how could our product, our E-Commerce offer the user this desired experience?
“When I, as a user, visit a vintage furniture online shop,
I want to discover special pieces
so I can add beautiful furniture to my home.”
— Job-to-be-done
Our solution was to shift the classic online shopping experience to an online showroom experience: A journey that would let the clients browse through a glossy, magazine-like site that makes you aesthetically discover pieces— and in the end, instead of purchasing the items, puts you in personal contact with the business.
Everything falls into place in the end:
“Schauraum” actually means showroom in German.
The Showroom Journey
Our user flow narrows down the journey from the general, curated discovery > to getting inspired within categories > to collecting all necessary information on a detail page > to finally booking a personal appointment.
The landing page has the appeal of an online editorial, like a look book that suggests items in stylistically fitting groups and would inspire you to browse for more. The product detail page is a seamless picture scroll of close-ups and details. At all touchpoints, big high-quality photographs are used to underline the magazine association.
The site navigation is hidden behind a simple burger menu to be as unobtrusive as possible to the prominent visuals. However, if needed, all categories and sub-pages can be accessed there at any time.
Last but not least, the page’s copy was specifically written in an elegant, exclusive tone to accord with the product quality and aesthetics. Both visuals and writing are designed in a way that introduces the user to the idea that they wouldn’t browse yet another faceless online shop — but would be taken on an aesthetic discovery journey.
Here’s a high-fidelity preview of the possible website look:
Key Takeaways
The biggest learning of this project was to understand, that local businesses have their very own needs when it comes to taking their concept online. Very soon in the process, it became clear that there’s a good reason why standard E-Commerce solutions don’t necessarily fit them all.
What came as a shock at first — the owner specifically not wanting an actual online shop — led to an unexpected but pleasing result in the end. Without detailed real-life insights from both the business owner and the (potential) clients, this E-Commerce probably would have turned into yet another marketplace replica.
— Special greetings go out to my team colleagues Nils Jaedicke & Martina Takacs! Thank you for the insightful collaboration on this memorable first step of the amazing Ironhack journey.
Project specifics: 3 persons design team · 4 days · Oct’ 20
