tentree is a fast growing eco-friendly apparel startup. Sold in stores like REI, tentree (sic) appeals to “environmental-ish” customers — people who want environmentally conscious apparel, but not at the expense of fit and style.

tentree's overarching problem was unused capacity:

• Their website had beautiful design and product photography, due to talented in-house art direction. And while it sold well enough in spite of being unoptimized, there was a lot of room for improvement
• There was no in-house conversion rate optimization work being done. They were  coasting on organic social media traffic
• Credibility indicators such as customer photography on social, 5-star reviews, and press acclaim were abundant, but were not integrated into the user experience
• Their blog received millions of uniques from search, but the traffic was not translating into sales, to the point where they were considering shutting it down

The marching orders for my consulting engagement project were the following:

• Look for "deep optimizations:" opportunities to integrate strategic differentiators and unfair advantages in a way that clearly sets them apart from competitors
• Improve the shopping experience: meet-or-beat competitors such as Patagonia, North Face, and Prana. Operationally, that meant redesigns for:
  • The Home page (especially above-the-fold, where positioning content should be)
  • Product pages (i.e Elevation Men's Loose fit pullover hoodie)
  • Clothing type category pages (Men's hoodies)
  • Fiber type category pages (e.g. hemp, organic cotton)
  • Blog
• Increase conversion and revenue using the blog and social media traffic
• Increase email signs-ups: capture subscribers coming from organic traffic that are not ready to buy yet

I was contracted by fractional CMO Joshua Boone for a 3-month project, so goal was to impart as much value as possible in a short time frame.

There were three main challenges:

• The team was in Vancouver, British Columbia; I was in Portland, Oregon
• The dev team consisted of two developers with no eCommerce or conversion rate optimization experience
• The dev team's time was limited by other responsibilities they were limited in scope in regards to what they were able to handle in-house

I created several workarounds, including:

• Dispensing with detailed visual design and focusing on creating wireframes that were easy to implement at the template level, even on limited dev resources
• Using Codepen, so the dev team could see how the responsive elements worked
• Running Zoom hand-off meetings where I would explain my design choices and how they enhance the eCommerce experience

My design suggestions and templates resulted in more revenue and email sign-ups, reduced bounce rate, and longer time spent shopping. This lifted the conversion rate and resulted in millions of dollars in additional revenue.

Years later, tentree is still referencing and incorporating my work.

My assets were handed off to and utilized by a design agency during tentree's next big redesign to incorporate elements that the internal team didn't have the resources to implement.