Beacon’s Closet
2018 - 2019
A Landing Page Case Study
Beacon’s Closet is a vintage clothing store has been independently owned and operated for more than 20 years in NYC. In those years it has evolved from a small storefront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to a thriving NYC franchise that attracts people from all over the world to both shop and sell.
As their stores have evolved so has their online presence. Recently though the store owners and operators have felt a disconnect between the online and brick-and-mortar relationship.
There in lies an opportunity to create better store experiences by creating a web presence that’s not only informative about the process of selling and buying with Beacon’s Closet but demonstrates the unique and heartfelt ways Beacon’s Closet is not your average buy/sell/trade store.
Communication Breakdown
Right off the bat I was vetting an enormous amount of feedback around what the general public actually understood around the business. Generally people’s attitudes shifted once learning about the company’s founding, it’s team’s demographics, and the company’s overall philanthropic and environmental dedications. We organized this list by what seemed the less likely to be understood by the users.
1. They’re a women owned and operated business for over 20 years. 2. They have a creative staff where out of work creative endeavors are encouraged. 3. They have a dedication to sustainability in stores and company wide. 4. Politically they don’t carry or work with any company who’s openly supported bigotry, racism, or fascist policies. 5. Their dedication to donating to charities in the most need globally.
Take a lot of emotion and make lemonade.
The outrage-to-understanding cycle the staff was facing on location was enough to fuel more in-depth rounds of research as to how and what users that planned to shop or sell we’re using the site for? We set out with a few goals:
Look at engagement for the online store versus about the store locations.
What’s the navigation’s triage? Shop / sell / blog?
What are they looking for?
What are their best experiences learning about how they buy? In person or web.
How do we create trust? How do we measure trust? (Number of present buys vs non present buys)
We believe…that by creating a web experience where users have the information they need forefront of the landing page that the ability to shop, learn about the process and locate the business will be easier.
We’ll know this to be true when there’s a higher engagement with site and sellers and shoppers engage more confidently with the store’s selling process.
Building a Research Plan on the Go
Firstly I needed to understand the various wants, needs, and drives of people who visited BeaconsCloset.com.
By January of 2019 The Art of Tidying up came to Netflix and the industry as a whole had a huge influx of first time sellers. Piggybacking on this new usecase I started conducting informal feedback sessions to unexacting but highly generous individuals looking to sell their clothes.
I vetted them by first time sellers whom I asked:
What time if any did they spend researching the process.
What made them decide to sell here? Incentives etc.
How long did they spend on the website.
The sellers sheer enthusiasm around the fact that a store who’s misrepresenting reputation for being judgmental or dismissive was engaging in measures to improve the system that intimidated opened up a line of answers that felt candid and revealed a want to improve a system.
“I heard from my daughter that you guys go through the clothes and then you give me a certain amount for each thing or how does it work actually?”
“Wow how did I use the website?! I basically skimmed the long about selling portion and then basically I watched that video you guys have on there and that gave me the jist. I figured you’d tell me the rest”
Reorganizing the Disorganized Closet
Beacon’s Closet’s digital presence fell into a classic trap of iterating on itself since it’s founding without widespread systemic change. Their web presence in 2019 was essentially adding on of pages as needed or wanted. Things were more rarely deleted or combined. I set out to understand how stakeholders, experienced shoppers, and new sellers navigated.
The Card Sort
I had limited to no access to test how our users directly worked with navigating the navigation. Thusly I created a card sort around the multipage multisubpage navigation Beacon’s Closet had in early 2019. Myself someone who has worked in multiple capacities throughout the company wanted to see how our users brought their intention and preconcieved notions about Buy, sell, trade stores to this nav. The january-post marie kondo-first-timers were the perfect users to test. The staff at this location was also very invested in engaging with the card sort as “experts” on the process. This provided two testing groups that provided some important insights into the navigational IA.
Key Research Insights
Interviews
The notion of (enter phenomena where users need three clicks to get somewhere) was alive and well in these first time sellers. IF first time sellers did any research at all it was because they linked to their informative video (which they did not finish or fast forwarded through missing insights). Or skimmed the PARAGRAPHS of information on the process. Overwhelmed, felt silly to begin with.
Disparity Between Perceived Worth & Actual Worth
In an industry already rife with the sensitivity around the worth of people’s possessions two very candid interviewees mentioned that the clipped, curt, copy on the sellers page of the site mirrored the rumored attitude of the appraisers of the clothes in store.
Nowhere did the correlation exist that a seller would not receive the highest value for their clothes compared to the retail of it. If they paid 50 they were hoping for 25, a breakdown only achievable selling individually online or on consignment.
Knowledge of Company Values
Users knew that they would get rid of their clothes at a location. Were not aware of the option to donate their things, where they were going, or where charitable money went
Some interviewees suggested that without proper information around the charities the store donated unaccepted clothing to they felt that the employees just took them home or were sold without their consent.
Where the Competition Stood
Famously to the “non-regular” most buy-sell-trade stores look the same; they definitely have the same model; low-price/high-turnover businesses with a percentage of those goods paid outright in either cash or store credit. The direct competitors to Beacon’s Closet are Buffalo Exchange and Crossroads however TheRealReal’s pricing model for less desirable designer brands is beginning to fall into the buy-sell-trade price point though a consignment shop.
A friction point for the company when interacting with sellers is the lopping together of Beacon’s Closet with their competitors. There clearly is not a large enough distinction between Beacon’s a small, women owned and operated NY institution and the national chain competitors. The web presence seems like an easy way to not only magnify but possibly inform for the first time the differences.
Some of these competitive sites though were very transparent around how items were priced, what desirability in resale looks like, and the process of appraising once more valuable things.
Who We’re Designing For
The community around Beacon’s Closet is one of the most open, diverse, and intentional group of people in the world. Some regulars have been shopping and selling in the Beacon’s world for nearly 20 years. There had so much personal information about our users that I distilled into 3 main serviceable archetypes.
Nia, Brand Strategist, Bed Stuy 32
Flexible schedule in and out of the office. Prefers to sprinkle errands and “me moments” throughout the work week. Hasn’t sold at Beacon’s in forever but shops there. Has a blend of designer and non-designer items and wants to simplify her wardrobe after reading minimalist self help books. Has tons of stuff she never wears but might want to go through it with a buyer because if something is priced too low she’ll just give it to a friend.
Dave, 49, Construction Manager, Mill Basin
With his schedule Sundays is his big day off. Tries to get at least one large errand done that day. Is helping his mother clean out her house in Red Hook and heard from his niece that Beacon’s Closet buys clothes. He preferred to just call versus bothering with the website because he wanted to hear about the protocol “from the horses mouth” He prefers to know who he’s dealing with and have a point person much like on a site.
Lara, 19, Student, Tarrytown PA
Knows Beacon’s from instagram and her visit to thrift stores when she came for a weekend trip with her mom a few years ago. She’s always searching for new vintage dresses on their online store and hopes to someday shop their all the time. She did eventually try the bag it program but they didn’t take anything hurting her ego.
This site needed to manage a potential seller’s expectations and provide comfort in knowledge of the process, give people access to the where/when/what of each NY location & share the “do good” of one of the last bohemian bastions in NY.
Ideating User Priorities
Selling Expectations
Users biggest point of friction according to the research was expectations of the buying experience not being met. Most of the sellers complaining about their experiences seemed to not have received clear and thorough information about how the process works to sell clothes in it’s entirety.
Conveying shopping patterns to the public via informational bullets didn’t seem as compelling to potential sellers as the informational video in the “Sell in store” page. Prioritizing a video that itself manages expectations in an impersonal way seemed like an easy way to make education of the process more of a priority.
Potential sellers want to know How to Sell. When to Sell. What to Sell.
Store Locations
Users also just used the website to find the locations closest to them. From tourists to experienced shoppers many did not know there were more than one or two locations. Five years after the Bushwick store first opened their doors people still come in pleasantly surprised that they have a location in their neighborhood they didn’t know about!
In differentiating themselves from competitors the location information also serves as an opportunity to highlight the fact that this company is only in NY and only four and-mortar locations. Graphically prioritizing those four locations seemed like an easy way to separate the small company from the large and lessen the distance from the landing page to the location pages.
Clothing Life Cycle
In their digital presence the philanthropic work takes a back seat to the online store and feels like an add on. To some users that assume that clothes donated to charity through us just go to Goodwill. In store philanthropic pursuits such as grassroots neighborhood organizations, activist groups, environmental initiatives, as well as safe houses for abused people happen every day. The buried non specificity of these endeavors only serves to aid in the users/sellers distrust of what they believe is an arbitrary system of “cool or not cool”
Being more forthcoming about the monetary impact the company has made for important causes that seem to align with shoppers beliefs seems like an obvious thing to unbury.
Who Runs the Company
Educated shoppers shop ethically and with companies who’s core values align with their own. We found in our research that people were exponentially more open to the selling experience after they found out that Beacon’s Closet is a women owned an operated NYC company.
Along with the company’s philanthropy the scrappy tale of their founder is a quintessential Brooklyn creative success story that should be shared! Not to mention could be inspiring to the young creative people that shop and work at the store sometimes for decades.
Romantic familial foundings are what people connect with when deciding which companies they want to continue to patronize.
Proposed Changes
Hero Image & Inventory Sourcing
The logo we cleaned up significantly by removing the redundancy of the company name text, and subtext describing the company in hopes that the nav and the subsequent “Selling” section might further explain what the company is beyond reputation.
Users seemed to want about five key pages to get the content they were looking for. Some of the copy was updated as well to warm the philanthropic pursuits in particular.
Prioritizing the How-to selling video helps step right in front of any later selling misconceptions. All the nuance and logistics of selling with Beacon’s is audibly and visually digestible.
The digital team was creating beautiful editorial shots that besides the one hero image were getting a bit lost in the blog with the trend forecast. A carousel of the trends and the beautiful styling and modeling from the employees could connect users with the company’s ethos.
Online Store & Press
The online store functions as another branch of the company and while in the navigation it is a priority it can afford to fall lower on the landing page. New Arrivals or trend round-ups might be most effective after the information on selling and philanthropy.
A quote from a famous customer and the acknowledgement of all of the press that has made Beacon’s Closet a destination seemed enough to convey the reach without a press page.
Location Finding & Philanthropy
Presenting all of the locations together below the “To Sell” directions, we believe, will give a clear delineation between the national chain competitors and also help experienced customers discover locations.
Being more forthcoming about the monetary affect of the company would direct immediate attention to the philanthropy while also demonstrating that it is a core principal of the company.
A digital representation of the work Beacon’s has done might help shoppers align philosophically with the company. Many user interviews were surprised and then comforted by understanding the reach and dedication the company has to giving back.
Social & Founders
Instagram is essential to discovering a lot of small businesses. Creating a uniform aggregation of the beautiful images our customers have tagged them in can be a way to connect to consumers while also influencing engagement. Feedback we got over and over again was that the store and the employees were “intimidating” highlighting customers could help bridge the gap between the users and the business.
The founder’s story is essential to understanding and engaging with the brand. Presenting that in the forefront helps to not only drive engagement with the brand but delineates BC from it’s competitors.