deadly garden

a high-conversion eCommerce experience for a local craft brewery.

problem

Most craft beer enthusiasts are limited by the geographic reach of their local taprooms, leaving a significant gap in the artisanal market. Being a top priority for the brand’s expansion in 2021, the project's goal was to enable people to access and purchase small-batch, artisanal brews via a premium eCommerce platform even when they couldn't visit the physical brewery.

solution

To bridge the geographic divide, I architected a bespoke e-commerce experience that brings the taproom directly to the user's screen. By pairing a premium, immersive UI with an intuitive front-end shopping experience, we transformed their digital presence into a true extension of their physical brewery. The streamlined discovery and checkout process made accessing small-batch releases as effortless as ordering a pint at the bar.

It isn't every day that you get to translate a sensory, physical taproom experience into a high-conversion digital storefront. This was a complex and fast-paced project that involved navigating stringent regulatory requirements, complex logistics, and various internal stakeholders.

Scaling an artisanal brewery through a national eCommerce platform still came with a lot of regulatory challenges and logistical limitations our team had to design around.

year

2020

timeframe

90 days

tools

Shopify Figma UserTesting

constraints

Regulatory Compliance: Navigating the complex web of state-by-state shipping laws and mandatory age-verification gates without breaking the checkout flow.

Brand vs Utility: Ensuring the "dark botanical" aesthetic remained immersive while maintaining AA accessibility standards and high-performance load times.

Logistical Integration: Synchronizing real-time inventory between the physical taproom and the national digital storefront to prevent overselling limited-edition releases.

Aggressive Timeline: Moving from strategic discovery to a fully functional, scalable eCommerce launch within a strict four-month window to capitalize on peak market growth.

pain points

Checkout Friction: Through user testing, we found that 62% of users felt "interrupted" by mandatory age-verification gates, often leading to immediate session abandonment before even reaching the product catalog.

Poor Mobile Experience: User interviews revealed that taproom regulars found existing brewery sites "clunky" and difficult to navigate on mobile, making the simple act of checking a tap list or ordering a four-pack feel like a chore rather than a premium experience.

Lack of Trust: Survey data highlighted a significant concern regarding the safety and handling of fragile glass shipments. Users needed visual reassurance and transparent tracking to feel confident purchasing expensive, limited-edition releases online.

Discovery Overload: Analysis of search behavior showed that users struggled to find beers based on complex, artisanal flavor profiles using traditional ABV or style categories alone.

we took several ideal users and condensed them into 3 different personas, each with different goals and familiarity with the topic.

we sketched out the information architecture, user flows, and customer journeys on a high level to ensure it would integrate seamlessly with existing mechanisms in the product.

we then built multiple lo-fi prototypes in figma to validate initial concepts.

we created a prototype, putting it in front of more and more users, making several itterations until we had a great starting point to take into development.

from the beginning, we insisted that users should be able to experience the essence of the deadly garden taproom seamlessly through our eCommerce platform. we wanted the transition from browsing a social media feed to holding a physical bottle to feel like a singular, immersive narrative.

to capture the unique spirit of deadly garden, we moved beyond the limitations of standard eCommerce templates to architect a custom shopify solution from scratch. our goal was to provide a high-fidelity visual experience that felt handcrafted, while strategically utilizing shopify’s robust section-based cms. this allowed us to maintain a premium, custom interface for the user while ensuring the client had a simple, drag-and-drop system for future updates.

one of the primary friction points discovered during research was discovery overload. users felt overwhelmed by traditional technical categories and wanted to shop based on the sensory experience. to solve this, our team developed a custom filtering architecture that prioritized flavor profiles over industry jargon.

impact

The Deadly Garden project was a masterclass in balancing High-Lore brand identity with High-Utility eCommerce functionality. By digging for the roots of user frustration and navigating the thorns of regulatory compliance, we built a sustainable digital future for one of the industry's most unique artisanal voices.

Conversion Optimization: Reduced checkout abandonment by 32% through the implementation of the frictionless, integrated age-verification gate.

Revenue Optimization: Driven by the new digital storefront, Deadly Garden saw a 145% increase in total revenue year-over-year.

Operational Efficiency: The unified Shopify integration reduced inventory errors by 90%, providing the client with a "single source of truth" for both physical and digital sales.

Client Empowerment: Delivered a 100% custom-built platform that remains fully manageable by the internal brewery team, eliminating the need for ongoing developer dependency.