Abound Discovery Campaign
Key brand campaign to increase GMV
Year, Duration
2022, 2 month
Role
Product & Visual Designer
About
This project was for Abound (helloabound.com), a tech startup e-commerce wholesale site. Abound’s mission is to help local businesses (brands and retailers) connect, grow, and delight customers through its easy-to-use platform. The Discovery Campaign was on the retailer-facing side and encouraged retailers to try out new brands that were running a promotion. Also, I led designs for several campaigns, which followed similar design patterns.
Team
Product Designer (me)
Product Manager
Engineers
Skills
UX Design
UI Design
Branding
Project summary
I was the lead designer of the Discovery Campaign – a 5-day promotion for retailers to take advantage of great deals and try new brands. Based on the theme “Discovery”, I explored several options through research and sketching… We decided on a jungle theme and from there I illustrated all needed assets in Illustrator. This campaign ran for 5 days and produced the greatest GMV to-date.
ISSUE AT HAND
How can we increase sales and retention of retailers with a brand campaign?
RESEARCH & PROCESS
I first start out by looking for inspiration on Pinterest or similar platforms that have run online campaigns/promotions.
Sketching always helps my ideas flow - I usually start on paper and move to my iPad if I want more concrete ideas and want to mess around with colors.
Once my concept/brand is approved by the rest of the team, I’ll go into Illustrator to turn my sketches into vector illustrations. It’s important that they’re vector-based so that they’re easy to scale and export.
Then, I replace all assets for the whole flow (sign-up, homepage, checkout, order confirmation) in Figma and leave notes for engineers of changes needed to be made. Once approved by the project manager, I work closely with engineers to make sure we’re aligned on all aspects of design.
01. GOAL
To increase GMV and improve retention of retailers
Abound was struggling to keep retailers using our site. While campaigns in the past have been very successful, they still failed to convert retailers into returning customers.
02. CHALLENGE
Customers weren't returning to our site after single purchases
Most retailers were using our site once and never coming back. It was both difficult to capture new retailers and make them a returning customer.
03. SOLUTION
To offer a promotion that would encourage retailers to come back to our site
To offer a promotion that would encourage retailers to come back to our site. Our team came up with a “credit tier” that would allow purchases of any size (minimum spend is $250 to gain a credit) to not exclude smaller retailers. Having a credit encourages retailers to return to helloabound.com to make additional purchases a week later - hopefully improving retention of retailers.
ASSETS DESIGNED IN ILLUSTRATOR
After drawing some rough sketches, I work closely with my design team to pick a concept we want to move forward with. Next, I move over to Adobe Illustrator to bring my sketches to life.
HEADER BANNER WITH PROMOTION
Once the final assets are created, they are arranged together to be put in the header banner that lives on the homepage.
KEY BRANDING IN USER FLOW
Retailer sign-up success modal
After a new retailer signs up to join Abound, they will be shown this pop-up modal that includes a promotional image. Retailers will also be shown the image before signing up.
"Add to Bag" pop-up
When retailers add items to their cart, they are reminded of the promotion and the credits they could earn if they continue to add items.
Order summary in check-out page
Before retailers check-out, they are again reminded of the limited-time-offer happening. The three tiers are illustrated by the three bullets they can hit by spending more money.
Order confirmation page
After a retailer finishes checking out, they are told how much credit they earned from their purchase and are also given the option to keep shopping.
EXAMPLE OF HAND-OFF TO ENGINEERS
After all pages affected by the promotion have been updated, it's time for hand-off to eng! I make notes of all changes and ones that take priority. I work closely with engineers to deliver these changes as we're on a tight time crunch.
LEARNINGS
The Discovery campaign produced the greatest GMV to-date, which obviously means it was a huge success! Having tiered credits as part of the promotional reward encouraged retailers to return to our site to use their credit. The idea was that if enough retailers returned back to our site and found items they enjoyed, it would keep them returning for that same item.