Thrifting can transform strangers into priceless exchanges between new friends. I founded Salvaged to streamline online resale through an enteprise-based model. This project shows how we redesigned the Salvaged e-commerce page over 1.5 years of live iterations, from a Shopify templated featuring clothing photographed in a university dormitory.
Problem
The original site experience needed to evolve as we discovered our target market. Here are the key problems with the core experience:
New North Star
How may we personalize quality product discovery?
Result
After shipping the redesign, we were able to
+87% people who landed on the app
+32% people who clicked on a product
+48% conversion in 'for you' section
+24% saved in time till purchase
+32% increase in AOV
+67% unreturned orders
Enhanced site branding helped grow engagement 1.6x through invitations to keynote events like Shenzhen Fashion Week, and BOF Asia
Early mockups of the new website were pitched at Sino 1 Million, which we finalized to secure 175K HKD in initial funding
Design-led structure enabled us to experiment, fail and grow much faster - exploring 10+ different sources of preloved clothing, ~33% of which personally approached us via word of mouth or marketing.
Designs
In a world that encourages disposal, Salvaged empowers you to rehome clothing responsibly, a platform to engage in a real-time archive of new-to-you clothing in your preferred size, color, category and season
Passive User Flow - Boosting Discovery
Assisting users in finding desired product areas with minimal clicks
Active User Flow - Salvaging Conversions
Empower users with specific product requests to have full control and access to product information at the product feed level
If despite the above, the user still has uncertainties about the product, they can directly schedule an appointment with us, where the specified item will be prepared in advance. This enabled high-traction products to act as a leverage point to meet users in person, better understanding purchasing patterns in-person and online organically
Uplifting brand and transparency
Discovery
By observing our users in-person, we were able to form an empathy map of pain points
If the experience is rife with this much anxiety, how does that amplify when thrifting online? And how may we soften the blow?
Curating like an archeologist
Every thrifter we spoke to were willing to look over pain points for the opportunity to find a ‘gem’. Thrifting does not compete with fast fashion on speed - the name says it all - but by offering the experience of discovery. A gem is filtered out from the rough weathering of space and time, chosen and preserved by invisible hands of thrift stores and owners. Old competes with new by offering an irreplaceable quality.
If 100 million clothes are made every year, how are we keeping track of the styles worth saving? And how much of our collective creativity is falling through the cracks? The opportunity lied in curating like an archeologist, where the perfect thrift experience is how well we can streamline archival in the form of quality discovery.
Quality became the north star, where we weren’t defined by resale value, but what people would genuinely wear a second time around.
A thrifted item is competing with every item of its kind ever made by any brand across time. Lack of guidance and differentiation leads to unconverted sales. In this case, how we communicate and deliver quality - from the curation selection process, to the way we present product information and pricing - helps anchor the limitless potential for thrift, to guide the user towards a satisfactory purchase.
Design Principles
Starting at the Product Level
A new acceptance criteria was mapped out, to consider the complex considerations most thrifters regard as ‘quality’ - this trickled into pricing and product descriptions. Accepted items were dynamically sorted into or sparked the creation of collections. This streamlined operational and marketing cost by grouping items.
