Shop My Porch

E-Commerce
Product Design
March 2022 — November 2022
Overview
Shop My Porch is a hyperlocal shopping platform for makers and small businesses to connect with buyers in their local communities for free.  It has over 25k+ users among the United States with a neat unique feature that no one in the other e-commerce site has had.
The Challenge
The goal is to help create a company website and app that stands out from the e-commerce industry and reflect artisans within their local communities.
Takeaways & Lessons
Creating a better user experience for their clients. Improving User Experience so users move off of facebook and onto their website. Essentially this site was a hub for creatives. Learning how to truly work with developers, founders, and building a style guide.  
Role
UI/UX Designer

The Product

During my first couple of months, I wanted to understand their users and the problems they have faced. In each feature that was presented to me for Shop My Porch; I did my research, wire-framed, then produced a high quality mockup. 

SEO Landing Page

So I have mostly been on top of website trends, but I admit I knew nothing about SEO Landing Pages.

So what is a SEO Landing Page?
It is a Landing Page that are optimized for search engines with features that make it particular appealing to the algorithms that decide whether or not a page is valuable to searchers.

I knew about SEO and I knew about Landing Pages, but I never imaged that they can coexist with each other. I was tasked with a making a design for a SEO Landing Page.

Mind you, I was taught that Landing Pages always need 1 call to action to direct the user to that only, but I realized SEO Landing Pages were more about the content inside the page than the “call to action” for the user. It is really about the search engine and how a user will look up a particular thing.

The Posts

The different posts was another unique situation, but I think that is because certain posts have their own feature and function so I had to design each individual one but also keep the design consistent throughout the site and app. 

Before & After

You can see the difference in the designs from before (left) and after (right) with the new design system. 

Hunting For

These posts are one of the core factors in Shop My Porch. These posts are what makes this website so special and unique from other e-commerce websites.

If you need something made custom or unique, a user can post a Hunting For Post and wait for other users to reply with offers or ideas to help the buyer find what they are looking for.

On My Porch

On My Porch Posts were specifically for Makers and only for Makers. Buyers can have “On My Porch” posts when they open up their shop. 

There are a few things I want to point out that makes On My Porch unique to Makers and Buyers alike!

From My Heart

From My Heart posts are for Buyers and Makers who want to thank people for their item or craftsmanship. 

Porch Pay

Shop My Porch has an amazing feature where makers and buyers can go through and only get 10% transaction fee. With that, Shop My Porch takes that amount and does all the state taxes and shipping costs and the rest goes to the website maintenance. 

I realized what was missing with Porch Pay was a shopping cart and its features. So before going through the designs, I needed a bit of background and research information. 

Porch Pay Findings

These are the findings I found about Shopping Features:

- Know our buyers and find the wishes of target audience.
- Design has to be consistent so that users can see consistency for all screens which means all social networks and print materials. This way it is familiar with the users when they see the brand.
- Refresh the experience start with small changes and work your way up to bigger changes. This is so users can start getting use to the workflow and then will gradually fall into place.
- Check your solutions Always apply on user testing and making improvements based on real user interactions. 

Maker's SEO Page

Unique to Shop My Porch, they have given Maker’s and artists a place to promote their products with a SEO landing page with a small fee. This gives makers a better way to sell their products for profit by filling out a form and having it generate a Maker’s SEO Page. 

The Maker’s Form was so it was easier for users to go through and fill it out and the payment was at the end so the Maker’s SEO Page was automatically made and viewed across the web.

Newsletter

When it came to the Newsletter or Blog of a website there were several layouts that I went through until we finalized one the team agreed on.

Profile

So the profile of Shop My Porch went through several face lifts. I did a bunch of studies of what other popular websites have been doing to their profiles and how they handle so much information. 

Lo-fi Profile

I went through Dribbble and popular sites such as Etsy, Ebay and Twitter. I was curious how others handled the information. 

We finalized the lofi profiles (top) until making the Maker’s SEO Page which we felt the profile lacked personal intel about the Maker where new users can get to know the artist behind the product they are buying. Which in this case, I went back to the drawing board and made it more personal for users and makers alike which is shown below.

Instagram Stories

I was assigned to make Instagram stories for makers and buyers to post when they need to promote something. These are free to use and it is to show how much Shop My Porch can provide for Makers and Buyers who are willing to shop locally.  

Email Templates

I created e-mail templates for them to use when users get a new message, post, offer on an hunting for posts, etc. These were designed in Figma but ideally can be shown in any e-mail host.