Case Study: Pebbles and Twigs Website
Case Study: Pebbles and Twigs Website
A UX case study of not trying to be like every furniture store.
Pebbles and Twigs Furniture Consignment
This is the story of a small business website for the store I managed. It was unresponsive and doesn’t convey key information in a clear manner. Customers would end up calling the store to get basic information. My goal is to make the essential facts available to all potential customers and consignors by focusing on educating and taking their hand to guide them through our processes rather than blasting information. The customer shouldn’t feel the need to call us if they go through the site.
Listening
Here are my notes of reading the reviews of the business and what people say about our competitors. Based off what they said will shape how the copy is written.
Reviews and Copy Concepts
Types: Crafty. Use lots of exclamation points. Proud homeowners. — — — -
“You can’t force her to do anything” independent.
— — — —
People that take pride in their work, that defend their castle, and cherish experiences. For the proud, independent homeowners.
— — — — -
For the creative, the independent, the proud homeowner, and the one that haven’t gotten there just yet.
— — — -
They have a lot of really cool stuff and the store itself is clean and well organized The reason this place is better than your average consignment shop is that it isn’t one It’s safe to say buying furniture is my hobby
— — — — — -
Don’t go here looking for deals. This place is basically like a Garnet Hill home store.
— — — -
Love this store!!!! It’s like pottery barn on a budget!!! It the best!!! -Shell Willardson
— — — —
for homes in need of everything.
— — — -
I know I will find pieces for our home that are unique and a fraction of what I would pay in a showroom. -Peggy Richards Fulkner
— — — —
Every time I go I there I find a cool piece of furniture. The staff there is Really independent. -Kyla Senken Stevens
— — — — -
The site needs to: 1. Explain the proccess 2. Show information to both locations. 3. Visually Stunning
Playing with colors
I used color claim to find some colors that could make a visitor feel comfortable and ran them by friends and family. I wanted to use illustrations with bold colors. Taking a lot of inspiration from material design.
Very airy colors that looked good with white text and illustrations where my choice for this one. The claim to this stores cult following was that it wasn’t an average consignment shop, so following a similar style to Google’s Material Design was the main strategy. Google after all isn’t your average tech company, and has it’s own cult following. Some words you might think of the Google style is reliability, good products, and cool. The hypothesis was that I can trick the user into feeling the same feelings about the Pebbles brand by borrowing similar design concepts.
The color palette
Inspiration — Mood Board
Heres all the concepts that I felt went well with the stores brand and also I placed some website designs I felt gave the look I was going for.
Marketing material I shot for ads
I wanted to consider a gallery for the site. So I took some photos to play with the idea. I then I thought, “wouldn’t it be cool if we had illustrated vignettes instead?” It would make the store stand out more from the competition by focusing on the brand more than the store.
Sketches
I want to lay out the site like a sales landing page. So there were only two pages I wanted to focus on and if the owner wanted more we could do that later. For now, I wanted to focus on getting more people to email pieces they wanted to consign.
Gathering assets.
I then went to freepix.com and sourced some vector art, and started to put together some comps. I put some placeholder icons in the comps because I had access to better ones on fontawesome.io when I was ready to develop. I also tweaked some of the vectors in Illustrator.
High Fidelity Comps
Because of the tight deadline I was only able to make screens for the desktop.
Next Steps
I then developed a Wordpress site for them and launched it.
you can find it at www.pebblesandtwigs.com. There are changes in the design and copy because I wanted a different look as I was developing and the store owner wanted some changes in the copy.
They currently have me on as their webmaster and subscribe to my digital strategy consulting maintenance plan. I also drive traffic to their site through PPC ads.
Finding a Niche Market.
With everything developed, it was time to drive traffic to the site. I installed Google analytics and a Facebook pixel on the site and started to test ads for them. What folows are the first round of tests.
Test One
My first test was set for three days. I made sure that the ad creative matched the website and had a clean look to it. I then did some research on the target market I wanted to go for. Based off my experience managing the business I knew the repeat customers where interior design enthusiasts. So all the targeting was geared toward that niche. I even targeted people who watch HGTV because I know that’s what my mother (who is an interior designer) watches that channel to get ideas for projects. The ad copy was Personalized for
The ad copy was personalized for the targeted market and set for a $15 dollar a day budget.
Results
For 33 cents per click, I was able to get 73 clicks through to the website. To the right is the data for the ad. This first chart shows the devices used. When I filtered out desktop views it showed that 71 of the clicks were on mobile. Based off that I wanted to see bounce rate on mobile devices on the google analytics dashboard.
The first-day bounce rate was 80%
So not to jeopardize the rest of the test, around 3 pm on the first day (I started the campaign at 6:30 am) I looked at the mobile site and saw that it didn’t have any indicator to guide the user to scroll and read the page. So I tweaked the design and also added testimonials in between sections. then made the illustrations water marks behind the text and made bold the main value points in the sales copy. That night bounce rate went down to around 40%. By the end of the test, it equalized around 57%.
Test Two
The second test I wanted to change some variables. I adjusted the ad copy to something briefer and changed the header to the link. I also made the Instagram ad different so it took up more screen real estate.
This time I added an email opt-in
When the visitor gets to the bottom of the page, they will be given an option to give their email for a newsletter that shows current items in the store. I can measure conversions on how many people 1) Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and 2) Who is interested in the offer I gave them.
Insights
I ran this test for five days. and it did worse. Granted, II received more data. In five days we only received 78 clicks. And we spent around 50 cents a click to accomplish the same results the first test made in three days!
Conclusion
The bounce rate was tolerable, but I have to consider using heatmap software to further optimize the mobile page. On the bright side, I received more insights on the actual page performance. 116 people saw the email opt-in, meaning 116 people scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page. Only six people opted in. Meaning the lead magnet for the email wasn’t enticing enough. So I need to rethink the email opt-in.
For the main campaign I will run, I will have a better email opt-in setup, I will use the copy from the first ad because it converts more in less time. and heat map the mobile site to make optimization tweaks. I will post more details when I finish future campigns.
Pricing
If you are starting from scratch, a CadenD Studios Package plan can save you thousands with a website bundled into a done-for-you service that markets your business so you get the most out your new website.
In business, long term relationships are important and pay the highest dividends, that’s why I have this service, so you can have a consistent set of eyes on all your digital marketing efforts and not need to worry about things being lost in translation. I rent out my infrastructure for a monthly fee and manage all your campaigns and assets so you can focus on growing your business.
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A custom built a website designed with your ideal customer in mind.
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Originally published at CadenD Studios.