Employer
Great American Products
My Role
Senior Product Designer
Challenge
Entering its 50th year as the premier provider of licensed sports drinkware to NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL team shops, mall stores and airport gift shops, Great American Products had amassed a remarkable selection of team-decorated cups, mugs and tumblers, but had invested little effort in differentiating its offering from those of newcomers, Tervis and Yeti - brand names in their own rights - to the licensed sports space.
Responding to a growing interest in licensed sports drinkware on the part of big box retailers like Walmart and Target, Great American, conceding that they could not compete with Tervis and Yeti for brand awareness, deciding instead to lean on their breadth of product selection as a competitive advantage, by curating collections of products specifically targeted to demographic groups that both retailers had expressed interest in reaching. Early focus testing showed great promise, but timing and budget would be an issue.
It was January 18; Great American’s biggest event, The Sports Licensing & Tailgate Show, held yearly in Las Vegas and attended by buyers from all of the biggest retailers, was only 3 days away. It would be THE venue for debuting our Collection, but overhauling the entire UX of our e-commerce site over the weekend would be out of the question, not to mention that management was already hesitant to make the investment until it could see positive ROI on sales efforts already underway.
User flow showing the missing Collections component on the main e-commerce site became the catalyst for the app
We needed a strong ‘Plan B’, one that would fall within our budget of zero dollars, and could be pulled off in 48 hours - from home. Armed with only a spreadsheet of our entire catalog and a bottomless pot of coffee, my team and I chose GlideApps as a platform for rapid development and deployment of what was taking shape in my mind. Because GlideApps are spreadsheet driven and easily customizable and shareable, it was a natural fit for our 48 hour, no budget window, and as a bonus, would pose almost no barrier to entry (read learning curve) for stakeholders - management and sales staff attending the show.
Ideation
The app would need to be simple for anyone to navigate for the first time, in a crowded trade show and on a mobile phone, and that navigation, unlike an e-commerce site, would have a single focus: 1. to introduce the idea of Collections to our visiting buyers, 2. to make it easy for buyers to see how all of the products in a Collection would display in their stores, and 3. to make it easy to get answers about Collections on display at the show, even when all sales representative are busy with other customers.
Flow
Shown below, a concept of a typical flow a buyer might take through our app while in attendance at the show. It depicts a buyer locating a product they already stock, finding all of the other products in that Collection and being able to get an immediate response to an inquiry from a sales person while at the show.
Outcome
Point of Sale QR codes, displayed at the show, made it possible for buyers to quickly access our app without having to download it from an app store.
Scan this code with your mobile phone to see the live web app, or tap the image if you are already on a mobile phone.
Having the app as a resource for introducing Collections and answering questions was like having an extra sales representative always available at the show. The resulting awareness of, and subsequent demand for Great American's new Collections provided management with the impetus to make big changes.
Phase 1
We set a phase one goal of recasting our extensive product line as collections, and promoting them as a perfect fit for programs planned by our retail partners.
I was responsible for all website updates - UX design, UI elements and HTML, CSS, Javascript development
I worked closely with Sales teams to develop all email marketing in support of the switch to Collections
Phase 2
Phase two would involve gaining deep insight into the buying habits of our B2B customers' customers, through the creation of a dedicated B2C e-commerce store. Traffic to the site would be driven by our Ironclad Lifetime Guarantee, promoted in retail stores at the point of purchase by a large hangtag affixed to every product in our collections.
I designed the hangtag, the registration intake and oversaw Customer Service response to the increased traffic to our sites
Through this effort, we were able to capture contact and demographic information from tens of thousands of retail consumers - again, our B2B customers' customers - extremely valuable because we were now able to promote new offerings to, and gain feedback directly from the end consumer.
The ability to reach our customers' consumer audience, our products' end consumers, through Instagram, Facebook and email marketing gave us what we needed to help determine the lineups within each collection we offered to our retail partners, thereby saving them from monopolizing valuable shelf space in order to find out on their own.
I was responsible for all lifestyle image procurement and enhancement to exhibit product placement
Combined efforts resulted in an 11% increase in sales in the first year, and a 15% increase in sales for the second year.
See Other Work
