SweetWater Brewery is the home of Atlanta’s favorite beer. Their Taproom is a favorite with locals, featuring great food and good vibes. It also employs many locals. However, like many other businesses, COVID-19 has greatly impacted the Taproom's operation and employment in the past. In the event of a future shut down, as well as for a general increase of sales operations, SweetWater wants a solution that can drive local sales and satisfy their clientele during the pandemic.
Integrate an e-commerce platform into the main SweetWater Brewery website, allowing customers to order 6 packs of their brews and schedule orders for curbside pickup at the brewery.
This was completed as an unsolicited project.
Product Designer
Pen and Paper, Excalidraw, Figma
Market Analysis
Persona
Customer Journey Map
Site Map
User Flow
Wireframes
Prototype
Project Takeaways
SweetWater Brewery sells its products in liquor stores, box stores, grocery stores, and through delivery services. However, the goal is to increase sales of alcohol at the brewery itself. By comparing the pandemic responses of various carriers of Sweetwater Brew, and another local brewery, the weaknesses of SweetWater's current system could be seen, as well as opportunities for improvement with the new e-commerce platform.
• SweetWater Brewery's current weakness is the lack of ability to order alcohol online; the competitors all offer online orders of alcohol, with most also offering delivery and/or store pickup. With the pickup options, most competitors also allow customers to schedule their pickup time. While many competitors offer delivery as well, the state of Georgia currently limits home alcohol delivery to certain companies and services.
• The biggest opportunity for SweetWater, based on competitor analysis, is making sure that the new platform offers curbside delivery, and the ability to schedule pickup time.
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Jace Hawthorne represents the average consumer of SweetWater Brew- someone who is educated, wants to support local business, and wants to stay safe during the pandemic. Jace also loves SweetWater, and wants to be able to enjoy his favorite brew at home. Based on his persona, the new SweetWater platform needs to feature contact-free curbside pickup, time slot scheduling to avoid long waits, and transparent customer service contact points to avoid incorrect orders.
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Based on the above customer journey map, I was able to identify opportunities for SweetWater to incentivize their customer base to use the new e-commerce platform:
• Discount beer packs purchased directly from SweetWater; this incentivizes customers to not buy from a competitor, who may be more convenient to purchase from. Bulk purchases can also be offered at a discount if purchased directly from the brewery.
• Add a loyalty program to incentivize more purchases; gear, limited edition brews, and further discounts can use used as rewards.
• Adding more methods of online pay/account creation would remove customer frustration during the checkout process and make it smoother overall.
While SweetWater already has a site map, I recreated it to understand how best to integrate the new feature. Other than adding purchasing capability to the brew pages themselves, the main addition needed would be a shopping cart added to the primary navigation.
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The user flow shows the expected path a customer will take through the SweetWater site, as well as the pages needed to fully illustrate the purchasing experience in the prototype.
Home Page- The redesign of the home page focused on the hero section, which was geared towards informing customers of the new curbside service.Pmary navigation optimized for usability.
Please click and swipe through for full details about the redesign of these pages.
Brews Page- The brews page was modernized to match current e-commerce pages, with filters increasing navigability.
Please click and swipe through for full details about the redesign of these pages.
Product Page- The product pages added dropdown menus for purchasing different sizes and quantities of beer packs, and a review section for trust. Users can click the cart icon in the primary navigation to see the contents of their cart, or continue to purchase.
Please click and swipe through for full details about the redesign of these pages.
Checkout Pages- The checkout flow was designed around ShopPay's existing UI, with additions made for improving curbside services. The choice to use ShopPay's platform was deliberate- were this shopping solution to succeed, the next step would be to integrate it with SweetWater's gear site, which also uses ShopPay.
Please click and swipe through each full-sized image for full details about the redesign of these pages.
This project was an MVP made to test the need for a curbside delivery service for SweetWater Brewery. Based on user interviews, while customers are generally enthusiastic about supporting local business, that desire did not outweigh the general inconvenience of driving to SweetWater's location, or the convenience of buying from a vendor located closer to home. Hence, success of this e-commerce solution will rely on business-led incentives, such as brewery-only beer varieties, steep discounts, and a reward system for frequent customers.