Project Overview
Local Habitat for Humanity chapters typically finance housing projects within their locales by operating furniture and home goods ReStores. Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County, Michigan was falling well short of its leaderships' sales targets prior to any disruptions. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced their brick-and-mortar furniture ReStores to close, their problems were exacerbated. To help the chapter deliver on their commitment to provide affordable housing, a member of their Board of Directors reached out to me for help.
I was challenged to create a new online revenue stream to help them sell products with their doors closed and that could potentially serve as a foundation for growth after the pandemic's end.
The Problems
The only problem? They didn't have an e-commerce site, lacked an integrated PoS system and had never used digital marketing platforms like Google or Facebook Ads consistently. As such, the problem behind the problem of opening up new revenue streams online was the utter lack of digital presence. Some, but not all of the hurdles on my path were:
No operational processes to integrate support for online and in-person sales
Limited organizational understanding of product development processes
No internal marketing resources dedicated to product or e-commerce marketing
Getting internal cross-functional stakeholders to unanimously buy-in
The Proposed Solution
The solution to the problem eventually was determined to create an online e-commerce site for the chapter from scratch, market it online to drive traffic and improve brand recognition all while ensuring the new e-commerce sales didn't disrupt the ReStores’ complex operations. And, of course, do it all with consensus approval from non-profit leadership and their Board of Directors.
Final Prototypes
The Process
Requirements Gathering:
After being presented with the problem, I set out by first conducting interviews of key stakeholders within the Habitat for Humanity Restore management and then walking the floors of the ReStores. By interviewing the Director of ReStore Operations, ReStore retail employees and prospective users, I came up with a set of business, legal and function requirements for the site.
Heuristics, an Expert Review and Prototyping:
Once the requirements and users were understood, an information architectural design for the site was devised to improve the learnability of the site and optimize conversions. After ironing out the workflows of the site, I then incorporated other components of fidelity into the design such as the branding, interactions and content of the online store to refine the design. For the visual and interaction design components, I used simple, but effective design heuristics and got feedback via an independent expert review early in the process.
Early Prototype Samples
Pitching the Solution:
Following a demo on a high-fidelity design of the website, a digital marketing strategy, plans for maintaining the site as well as managing ReStore operations, I received approval from the Board to begin the project and was allocated a monthly marketing budget and ReStore employees to assist me.
Website Development and Co-Design:
After getting approval, I worked in tandem with the ReStore staff and several select customers to co-design the site and improve upon my original iterations. Internal compliance policies limited some of the design decisions, but the final product speaks for itself with respect to the initial prototypes.
Implementation and Deployment:
Following multiple rounds of testing and gathering feedback from prospective users as well as ReStore employees that would be operationally supporting the e-commerce site, we launched that site in May of 2020.
Final Product
The Results
What does "success" look like?
Following my pitch and the project’s approval, I was provided with several high-level key performance indicators for the site:
Improve ReStore sales revenues by more than the financial investment into the site and marketing campaigns, realizing a positive ROI through increased sales.
Increase the social media following of the ReStores’ accounts to improve reach and brand recognition to build a loyal customer base.
My efforts thus far had consisted of dozens of stakeholder and need-finding interviews, touring facilities, pitching to the board and then implementing a product that I had developed from scratch. All while developing a new marketing strategy to build a base of loyal users and spread awareness of the chapter and its mission. But just how successful was it?
Raising the Roof on Revenue:
During the first year of the new e-commerce site’s operations, Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County saw an increase in sales revenue from $1,303,435 in 2020 to $1,834,792 in 2021, an annualized increase of 41% from the previous year.
Growing a Base of Loyal Customers:
At the onset of the initial campaign, Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County ReStores had just over 1,100 followers between its two accounts. In the first year, we raised this over 10X. Today, the social media following between the two pages is approximately 27,000 followers, funneling hundreds of site visitors that yield many sales conversions per day.
Happy Customers:
Overall, the Board of Directors of Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County were grateful for my work. As a result of this project, they were able to keep afloat during the pandemic and following the re-opening have accelerated their growth as an organization by investing in the expansion of their Waterford ReStore and continuing their work in providing affordable housing. Additionally, they've recently moved to a better location for their Farmington Hills ReStore, improving business opportunities.