Shopy Banner

Shopy - BrainStation x Shopify

24 hour Cross-discipline Hackathon - 2022
Project Overview
As part of BrainStation's collaboration with Shopify this year, students from all disciplines within the bootcamp experience were given the opportunity to undertake a 24-hour cross-discipline hackathon where we collaborated to enhance the online ecommerce experience by leveraging the existing ecosystem of the platform itself.

With that, my team and I created Shopy, an integrated marketing assistant that suggested recommended tools for Shopify's merchants based on their personal budget, business goals and fundamental needs.

This exhilarating project was a great success and we were able to score first runners-up within a group of 200+ students.
Project Type: Cross-discipline hackathon

Responsibilities: Secondary Research, Sketching, Wireframing, Prototyping.
‍
Tools: Figma, FigJam

Platform: Integrated Web App
‍
Timeline: 24 hours

Data Science: Fatima Haq
‍
UX: Jessica Fang, Raymond Xian
‍
Web Development: Raquel Pantin, Ismet Cetin
How can you imagine Shopify using its Ecosystem to help lower the barrier to entrepreneurship in entirely new regions, demographics, and business sectors?

Missing Out?

When it comes to global e-commerce, Shopify dominates already over 20% of the market share and the number grows everyday. Though the platform empowers over 2.1 million daily active users, merchants have a plethora of choices when it comes to enhancing their online store experience; so much so that they might not be able to take full advantage of what Shopify has to offer.

The Apps feature within the Marketing tab is one of the most convoluted services within the main Shopify Ecosystem, making it hard for new merchants and potentially demographics to pick up and understand its purpose and strength. At the moment, it only suggests a generic list of apps based on algorithmic popularity and use frequency. We can change that.

Shopy: An Integrated Marketing Assistant

By understanding the merchant's budgets, marketing experience and ultimately business goals, Shopy brings about a curated app suggestion experience integrated into the Shopify Marketing tab that is simple, scalable and most importantly, human.

The Power of a Tailored Experience

Shopy serves to be a scalable solution that is applicable to the different services that the Shopify platform provides. By leveraging a human-centered approach Shopy helps merchants get a more tailored experience to better suits their needs and goals without the hassle of learning a new type of skill from the beginning. This already alleviates potential pain points of new merchants, making it easier for new demographics to see Shopify as a powerful alternative.

Just as it is scalable, it is also feasible. Shopy can be easily coded and created as a templated format to be applied to more distinctly complex services such as SEO and Data Analytics, making those services versatile and easier to access than before. For Shopy to truly succeed, we would be measuring its prolonged use from merchants but also conversions towards the apps that Shopy suggests from the Shopify App Store. In order to truly achieve its connection with the Shopify Ecosystem, we may also look into integrating themes and specialized experts into Shopy in future implementations of this project.

Key Takeaways

Constant Communication

Touchpoints were critical when keeping everyone in the same page. Even prior to the ideation phase, it was important to set check-in times with the entire team to ensure that expectations were realistic and were met within the right timeframe from each other.

Respecting the Time Crunch

With such a short timeframe, it was important to hit the ground running but with a focus in mind. Planning and prioritizing thoroughly enabled us to set realistic yet feasible solutions; making sure to address our users' main pain points and underlying needs.

Presentation Slidedeck