Designing a digital storefront to captivate visitors
You may be wondering: how does a digital storefront increase my sales on my online store? An online store with interactive webpages is simply a richer experience for your visitors and potential customers. Whether you’re a visual artist selling prints, a musician promoting merchandise, an artisan selling your homeware, or anyone with something you’re trying to share with the world– this is a great way to attract new customers and build loyalty with older ones.
Picture this: you’re walking with a friend in a new part of town. A sun catcher dangles from behind a storefront window. It catches your eye and invites you to walk in. You’re sold. You want that glistening sun catcher, and you weren’t even looking for it.
That’s the beauty of a well designed physical window front. The brick and mortar stores we love tend to put effort into constructing memorable ones. They give a great experience from the moment a patron walks into the store to the days you’re raving about their products to their friends and family. Crafting a captivating window to draw visitors to your online shop can also be a very effective way to attract new customers.
Whether the storefront is a brick and mortar window display or a digital storefront– it’s all about expanding on the visitor’s experience and telling your story. Adding an interactive storefront to your online stores can enhance your visitor’s experience.
Let’s walk through how different creatives use Hatch to do just that. Leveraging interactive webpage experiences to tell your story can also be just as fun for you to create as it is for your audience to experience. For inspiration, we’ll check out how different Hatch creators did it themselves. Though their approaches are each authentic to their brands and stories, we hope experiencing their webpages helps spark your own interactive webpage visions.
The interactive webpage as the storefront to your online store
One way to utilize interactive webpages to promote your shops is to build out a world through which your visitors walk through. @Skeir does a great job of creating a world around her shop. Physical shop owners have only a few windows to display their work, but with a webpage– the possibilities are endless. In @Skeir’s case, they’re as vast as the universe is large.
She’s already on Etsy and a few other shop sites, so she uses this as a portal to the many spaces you can buy her work online. It’s not just her links page, but a palette cleanser between her social media sites and her offerings to the world. Her online stores are elevated because of this portal-like experience visitors get through her Hatch interactive webpages, Feel free to also dive deeper into her cloudland world outside of the mobile experience.
You could also imagine how an interactive webpage with cool effects could function as a great introduction animation to your products. The fashion apparel and beauty industries always push the edge of what’s expected. The above project by @Betweenwonders is more than just an intro animation. It’s gamified, so it requires your attention and presence. Click through the screens to get to the end. This immersive intro experience really takes these designs to the next level.
Using interactive webpages as part of your offering
@DarkPotionStudios has used Hatch webpages in numerous ways. In addition to assembling a robust and awesome links page, they also offer an accompaniment to an analog card game they’re selling. We all know that card games, alongside board games and even online games require instructions. We also all know those little pamphlets are never read. They’re skimmed or opened only when players are in a quarrel and someone wants to prove a point.
Gameplay quarrels aside, Dark potions studios saw this as a great opportunity to enliven the learning phase of a game. That’s where interactive webpages improve the beginning stages of learning a game. This game is for musicians and sound artists who want creative inspiration or to embark on creative exercises. Many of the pages serve as reference guides for the sounds the cards represent.
Dark potion studios offers their instructions via a Hatch webpage. They’ve actually made their project remixable, which means you can dive into the inner workings of it and learn more.
Hatch webpages can expand your merchandise
Another musician who uses his Hatch webpage to expand his fans’ experience is @Propsongs. He emphasizes the power of interactivity on his Hatch webpages in many different ways. From a link in bio for his social accounts to an exclusive offering that accompanies his CDs, Props maximizes Hatch’s interactivity and features to surprise and delight his listeners and fans.
Anyone born before the 2000s probably remembers CD liners. If you don’t, let me jog your memory. They were pamphlets that came with your CD that outlined each song. Sometimes the pages were filled with lyrics or the background story behind the songs. Other times, they were a collection of album artwork or photos of the artist.
We’ll show you Props’ links page, because the album artwork webpage he put together is part of an exclusive offering. You probably haven’t yet purchased his CD– but you totally should if you’re into indie rock with great lyricism and sounds.
On his links page, Props uses a few interactive web features that make his page stand out. Adding the draggable effect to these collage elements invites the viewer to move them around to make their own collage. Recreating this magical and immersive effect is as easy as adding the ‘draggable’ effect via the effects panel.
Overall, Hatch webpages are a great way to offer an exclusive offering that accompanies your product, just like what Props does. This is a great way to add more value behind the work you put so much of yourself into. You could also add a QR code to your handwritten notes when you thank customers for their patronage. Your Hatch page could also just be a fun interactive experience, like a game, or just something delightful for the sake of joy.
Decorating an interactive storefront to your online store on Hatch
Now that you’ve seen some of these innovative ways other creators have used Hatch to expand the breadth of their products, it’s your turn! Cool webpages expand the experience of purchasing products and can be used to elevate brand loyalty, build a sense of community, and so much more.
You’re creative and motivated, otherwise you wouldn’t be on this journey trying to share your work with the world. You’re probably also a multidisciplinary creative, creating content on multiple platforms and wondering what else you can do. Think of Hatch as another medium for your creativity. We invite you to come up with your own memorable and unique ideas and watch your online shop flourish.