Christiania Bikes America
Christiania Bikes Home page
Peter James, Danish native entrepreneur, wants to import the luxury brand Christiania Bikes, to the US. He had an existing site, however, it wasn’t built to sell bikes, so he asked me to help him create a new experience. 
Homepage before
This was the previous state of the website when I was hired to work on it.
Home Page screen shot
I designed and developed Christiania Bike America (CBA) from end to end and created a build-a-bike feature that allowed customers to customize their cargo bike. I worked directly with the CEO, Marketing expert, and the Design team at Christiania Bikes Denmark, acting as Principal Product Designer. 
Scope & Constraints
I was required to use Shopify because the CEO was familiar with it. And matched and coordinated over 150 accessories with specific bike models. The project was expected to be complete in 3 months. Expected launch date was May 2021, Bike week.

I entered over 400 cargo bike variations (10 different models) with special SKU's, pricing, images and tags. Max number of variation options were limited to 3 due to limited budget to work with.
Role
In my role as Principal Product Designer, I was in charge of designing and developing the end to end design of CBA's website in Shopify. The owner wanted a theme similar to Artisans & Agency that included side bar filtering and add on product options for a build a bike feature.

I partnered with the business owner, business consultant and digital artist while leading the design process. Our team of 4 collaborated weekly on ideas and took on different aspects of the project.
Objectives
Create a new website for Christiania Bikes America that focused on multiple product options allowing customers to customize and purchase their cargo bike directly from the site. And create a tagging convention for custom side bar filtering.
Christiania Bikes Variant options
Research summary of Model No Box, Model No Box +30 and Model T with their product options.
Christiania Bikes Variant options
Research summary of Model P, Model S and Model T with their product options.
Christiania Bikes Variant options
Research summary of Model Short, Model Light and Model +30 with their product options.
Users and audience
Christiania Bikes is a luxury brand for wealthy bike lovers willing to pay for bikes starting at ~$3,000.00. Users of Christiania Bikes enjoy the outdoors and are looking for alternative transportation with extra cargo space. The target audience consisted both of educated men and women 35-60.  Who has younger children and/or owns a business. 
Personas
I created 4 Persona’s using sketch and free images from Pixaby. And I conducted interviews with the owners of Christiania Bikes and researched past customers.

Some of the questions I asked were: What are your customers like? Married, single, own a business, has children? What are their needs for the cargo bikes? Income range? Where do they live? Education? and What goals are they looking to fulfill?
Persona Single business owner
Persona of a Single Business Owner that uses a cargo bike for coffee deliveries.
Persona Married with children
Persona of a Married women with small children.
Personal Married community director
Persona of Married women who works as a Sr. Director at a senior community.
Persona Married Business owners.
Persona of a Married Small Business Owners with small children.
Discovery
I gathered the stakeholders for a meeting to discuss the project. During this time we realized we would need to create a new domain and build a website specific for large product catalogs with sidebar filtering. I created a list of actions to keep our communication open.  And decided to document a roadmap of our work. My initial focus was to know who the customer was, and to understand the personality of the customer.
Competitive Analysis
I identified Christiania Bikes direct and indirect competitors and targeting the same customer base. I also analyzed their competitors online presence and evaluated their website functionality. I looked at things like: How easy is it to shop on their website, do they offer a build a bike feature? and what are their policies and delivery costs.

While conducting the analysis I visited online reviews and blogs to get more insight on their customers experience. Identified their strengths and weaknesses and used this information to focus on specific areas that Christiania Bikes America can capitalize on. I noticed that most bike websites did not have the ability for customizable features. We solved it by using a theme that allowed large catalog options and product option features. 
Research
I studied Christiania Bikes website to get a better understanding of their product, the owners were looking for similar features for their website.

I found the importance of product filtering, how and why Christiania upsells their equipment rather than offering it as a full package and how they market their cargo bikes? Along with what type of customers would buy a cargo bike, where they live, education and goals they want to fulfill.
The Original Christiania Bikes
Screenshot of "The Original Christiania Bike" website.
Creating the customer profile
With the data from the study I was able to uncover that most buyers have small children, educated, upper class and/or own a business. Between the ages of 35-60.
Empathy map
I surveyed the owners and past customers to understand Christiania Bikes demographic. With the data from the study I was able to uncover couples with small children and business owners love the idea of having cargo a bike because of it’s capabilities. Here is what they said: "Game changer!", "Fun to ride", and "Great for versatility and hauling!"

I created an empathy map of a married couple with children that need a cargo bike that can transport kids and run errands to gain a deeper insight on who they are. I found that they need the cargo bike to take their kids to school and scoot around town, they see these type of bikes as functional. Families that have purchased these bikes are enjoying the time they are able to interact together while riding together.

One of the pains they experienced is the bike is expensive and large to store. However a gain is the quality of the product, it's easy to ride and riding together allows them to have extra time with their family.
Sidebar
The sidebar helps the user to easily navigate the site while searching for specific models and accessories.

To see a more in depth view of the sidebar please visit Christiania Bikes America.
Gif image of Christiania bikes website
Macbook Home screenshotMacbook All Models PageMacbook Accessories  PageMacbook Accessories Page
Outcome
In 2020, initial revenue for Christiania Bike America was ~$6,000 month. After the site launched in May 2021, Christiania Bike America’s monthly revenue increased by 233%.
Conclusion
I love the simplicity of the website. I made great choices creating a vision that fits Christiania’s business model. I do think I could have sped up my designs by minimizing product options even further and not focused on the small details and perfection.

If I could change anything I would of pushed back on project creep, requesting the client to narrow down image choices for each product (instead of searching through a large database) and require product descriptions and pricing before starting the design. Working with an action plan helped ease communication and progressing forward. In addition I will improve the way I document the project progress. I enjoyed the process of creating this website and as a result, I expanded my knowledge even further and pushed my limits.

Thank you for reading my case study. If you have any questions regarding my work or would like to connect contact me here. Or email to email me direct.
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