twoshop
Helping people set up their ideal home offices with ease
twoshop is your virtual one-stop-shop for creating a conducive work from home office. It is a restricted access web app designed as a B2B2C offering. Employees of client companies can register for exclusive access to curated home office furniture and accessories, at deep discounts.
challenge & goal
When the pandemic hit the return to the office was indefinite or probably never. Companies and employees were both challenged to create supportive workspaces in homes overnight.
As a contract furniture dealer, how might we assist our customers through this transition to hybrid and/or permanent policies for remote work and set up home offices smoothly?
approach
A sudden shift to full-time remote work left us with no prior research on the challenges of setting up home offices at scale. So, we began with a trend research to gather industry insights about remote work policies and scale at which companies were adopting permanent work from home.
Industry Mapping to understand scale of shift and synthesizing research observations using Elito Design Model
Based on the learnings from the trend research we created our audience personas and developed hypotheses about potential user needs and challenges in setting up these remote offices. As a B2B2C model we focused on both companies + employees.
Hypotheses sheet based on a Target Audience and Personas
We interviewed teams of 12 client companies to understand their needs, challenges, and how they were addressing employee requests, while also validating our hypotheses.
After 3 rounds of interviews, analyzing and synthesizing the findings we did a service ideation prioritizing. We knew our biggest challenge was an early launch so we prioritized the service offerings our clients sought the most and developed a business model and concept for an MVP.
Example of a User Scenario, Business Model Canvas, and Concept Exploration for Service Offerings
product designing
As we set out to design the pilot, we developed sketches and lo-fi paper prototypes and did one round of testing with users. This informed our information architecture and helped create a strong foundation for developing the features of the e-commerce website.
Information Architecture and Concept Sketches
accessing the store
A quick registration process for users involved submitting only - name, email and a password. Because it is a restricted access service, users had to register or sign in using a verified work email addresses to gain access to the online store.
product browsing
A simple product discovery experience was important for user engagement. Users could browse products by collections and/or brands, using either the dropdown navigation menu or collection thumbnails on the home page. Users also had the ability to filter results inside a collection based on room types, furniture type, and themes that complemented their home layouts and vibe.
product ordering
A traditional e-commerce purchase flow made it easy for users to pick options and add items to their cart. To aid the purchasing decision both retail and discounted pricing was shown. Accordions were used for more product details to keep focus on primary purchasing factors.
inspiration browsing
If users wanted ideas for creating their home office, the Shop Your Room feature offered shoppable looks for different spaces in your home. The look details page had product links to purchase part or full look. If they didn’t like what they saw, they had the option to reach out to our experts for more ideas.
problems solved
Client companies were assured that the work from home transition could be made easy and taken care of by a trusted partner like us while they get to focus on company growth and productivity. Our promise:
Saving companies and employees time
Offering a vetted catalog of browsable products and shoppable looks
Giving choice of varied price points and styles
Offering commercial quality products at discounted pricing
An all-in-one solution for product (furniture, accessories) and fulfillment
outcomes and achievements
A secure and protected e-commerce website was developed and launched in 3 months after these interviews.
We tied up with close to 30+ designer furniture and accessory brands curating an extensive choice of products at deep discounts.
While 3 leading companies adopted the pilot program and rolled it out to their employees second quarter of 2021, as of December 2021 the program was open for all clients, as well as companies outside of the client roster as well.