During my 4 month internship at Classic Imports we reimagined the B2B portfolio for this popular household appliances manufacturer and improve their brand identity. This project underwent several rounds of iterations, a major change in vision, testing and sorting through excel sheets of 350+ products into 5 categories. By collaborating with the managing director, sales team and a marketing team we created a wholesale-focused experience that builds trust among global clients.
Challenge.
Revamping the website with a renewed information architecture and extending its existing visual identity to highlight the brand’s competitive advantage.
Context.
Classic Imports is a Sadex certified, $12 million OEM manufacturing client and a popular name in the Indian household appliances industry. They are known for their quality, price, and range of products. Their clients range from popular commercial brands like Croma, Bajaj, and Inalsa to businesses like hotels and canteens. They were looking to expand their web presence for their brand Sheffield Classic and build trust to attract global businesses. Based on the initial client interview we also identified an additional goal of understanding the needs of the sales team, marketing team and the target audience - the external clients.
Identifying 3 Main Pain Points In The Current Website
Disconnect between target customers
and the website
Playful and Vibrant look
for a sleek elegant brand
Old information
with no call-to-action
Classic's Vision: Timeless and Sleek.
I decided to reduce the accent colors from the catalog to one - red. Since the product photography was done by different agents and had different moods, I choose to use a grey and red border treatment to bring consistency and eliminate the use of pure black and pure white.
Development and easy offloading.
I used EditorX (a low-code web development tool) to design, develop and manage the website. I choose this since it allowed for an affordable price, easy offloading, and role assignment features to the clients while giving me the freedom to design. It also let me host a large database and potentially create a Wix Store which aligned with the client's needs. I used Velo to code personalized features like selection tags and infinite scroll. I also managed the site's SEO using Wix SEO tools.
Iterations
Streamlined and wholesale-focused buyer experience.
The result of the above approach was a minimal user interface and a streamlined buyer experience that improves brand visibility and establishes trust. The classic and elegant visual design aligns with the brand’s message and highlights the diversity of products that the brand has to offer. Using forms, phrases and architecture that represents buyer’s mental map helps in client conversion and empowers sales agents as well as international clients to trust the brand. The website led to highest brand visibility, business opportunities from international clients and highest sales orders for Diwali.
a new architecture + clean interface matching client's mental model
IMPROVED BUYER EXPERIENCE WITH FILTERS & FORMS
BUILDing TRUST AMONG CLIENTS with curated content
Outcome over 5 months.
SEO tools show significant improvement in site visits, page views and number of unique visitors. It also led to increased inquiries from international clients showing improvement in brand visibility and trust on a global level.
Reflection.
Having never worked with a client in a B2B space with over 300 products, this was one of my ambitious projects as a solo designer and developer. My strategy for the project was to break it down based on information/database, design the feature to tackle that feature, get feedback, iterate, develop, and then make final iterations based on site performance. I also kept my designs intentional by grounding them in the customer journey especially focusing on pain points and opportunities. This helped me make decisions quickly without hand-holding from the client but still ensuring that I understand their business goals.
Team: Managing Director, CEO, Sales Team, Marketing Team
Timeline: 2022 - 4 months
Tools: Figma, Velo, Editor X (now called Wix Studio)
Role: Product Designer, Low-Code Developer, Branding, UX Researcher, Consulting & Collaborating w/ Creative Partners, Vision work