Micasia - home decor multi brand eCommerce UX case study

Micasia is a French multi-brand eCommerce website with home decor inventory including wallpapers, posters, paintings, window films, wall stickers, etc. There you can find reproductions of art pieces of renowned artists such as Claude Monet, Frida Kahlo, Vincent van Gogh and many more. 

Besides the famous artists, Micasia also has a range of products featuring the works of modern, lesser-known, and independent artists. These artist essentially play the role of the brands on this multi-brand ecommerce platform.

While the storefront layout is generally quite conventional, there are a few little details and features here and there that help to improve the user experience.

Let's dive straight in and take a closer look!

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Navigation

As we've seen in many other examples, there is a fairly standard megamenu on desktop, and a hamburger menu accessed from the top left on mobile. One interesting thing to note on mobile is how the subcategories are contained within dropdowns, accessed by touching the '+' symbol

You could be quick to say that UI/UX designers are lazy or lack inspiration, but the fact of the matter is that many websites follow the same format because it’s what the general population is used to interacting with. Stray too far from what people know, and they may have a hard time navigating your platform, which, in turn, might hurt conversion rates.

Homepage

Instead of featuring their current promotion in the main banner as many other websites do, they opted for placing it more discretely just below the navigation bar. By doing so, it draws more attention towards their unique product offering, depicted by the stunningly stylistic home interior photo in the main banner.

Notice how the banner text overlays the image on desktop, whereas on mobile the text is displayed underneath the image.

On both devices, the next section of the homepage has the top categories presented in a very visually appealing way (thanks again to the wonderful home interior images).

Then we see a side-by-side section featuring some of the latest categories.

And then a three-element section dedicated entirely to kitchen-related products.

Here we see some of the advantages of shopping with Micasia followed by links to some of their blog posts.

You'll notice a lot of ecommerce websites choose to include an 'advantages' section on their homepages, and in almost all cases one of those advantages will be related to safe or secure payment/shopping.

Including such a simple snippet of text can be quite influential with regards to building trust with users. More trust = more conversions.

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And finally, a modest section at the bottom of the homepage devoted to the most popular artists listed on their platform.

Always leave some room for promoting your brands on the homepage if you're building a multi-brand ecommerce platform!

Not only does it provide users with another way to discover products, but it's beneficial for the brands themselves and it can even make your platform more appealing to new brands who could potentially be selling with you.

Footer

The footer has a slightly different layout than we seen in some of our other examples, but overall, it's nothing out of the ordinary. 

Similar to lights.ie, they offer a discount to encourage people to sign up for the newsletter. The discount itself, of course, isn't a design decision but rather a marketing decision.

Artist Listing

The first section of this page presents the most popular artists listed on the website. We see a combination of famous artists (whose related products are reformatted into Micasia’s mediums) and new artists (whose products have, in some cases, been created specifically for Micasia.)

This then leads directly into the product listing, with filters on the left-hand side on desktop and hidden within a popup UI on mobile.

Notice how new items are tagged with an orange sticker and that items can be added to the user's wishlist by clicking the heart icon.

Artist Page

The individual artist pages simply feature the artworks of that artist and nothing more. Art can (and perhaps should?) speak for itself!

Category Page

The top-level category pages borrow some elements from the homepage design, such as the main banner and subcategory blocks, but with the addition of a standard product listing section below the more visually appealing top parts of the page.

Notice the different colored tags that highlight particular products for what they are.

Product Page

What we see on the product page varies depending on which product it is. Some products come in one size, one material, and without any accessories that can accompany them, whereas others come with a variety of options to choose from.

There is also a sticky add to cart button, making it easy to add the product to cart at any time while scrolling.

As mentioned, other products do indeed have different options, in which case the UI appropriately displays the elements that allow for making those selections.

The more in-depth product details, as well as delivery information are hidden within dropdowns below the top section.

They also opted for a sticky add to cart button on desktop (although it’s only half-page sticky).

The bottom of the product page feature two sections; one containing recommended products, and the other containing different products using the same design. The latter could certainly serve as a conversion rate booster if, for example, a user likes the design but isn’t fully convinced by the medium it’s printed on.

Cart

The cart has a few interesting details such as the four trust-building, buyer-assuring details at the top, a CTA to subscribe to the newsletter and gain store credit, and an option to enter a discount code (often seen on the checkout).

Checkout

Micasia takes a slightly different approach compared to some of our other case studies by including the order summary on the right-hand side, although this is absent on mobile. Besides that, they follow the same principles when it comes to the checkout UI. 

We’ve mentioned it before in other blog posts, but we’d like to stress it again - customizing the checkout design or checkout flow beyond recognition is generally bad practice. Aside from users potentially dropping off due to an unfamiliar (i.e., untrustworthy) UI, it requires more time, effort, and money, which could be better spent elsewhere.

Summary and suggestions

Micasia is a fascinating website that has a unique product offering that provides independent artists with a platform on which they can sell their works and make a name for themselves.

Besides the artists, Micasia goes to great lengths to service their customers. There are many ways to discover the designs, formats, sizes, or materials that best suites each customers interior design needs.

One thing that could be of great benefits to both customers and artists alike would be to include product bundles.

A bundle allows a retailer to sell several products together as a fixed, customizable, or semi-customizable group, usually at a price lower than purchasing each item in the set individually.

In this context, bundles could include fixed pairings of artworks that work well together for one room, or a set of artworks for multiple rooms such as the living, kids bedroom, kitchen, etc.

This could potentially improve total sales as a result of increased average order value, but it could potentially assist less popular artists by grouping their designs together with some of the top sellers.

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UX deliverables guidelines

When it's time to upgrade your storefront design by using a more custom solution, here a few things to help streamline the process:

• All layouts should be designed mobile-first, desktop-second (but you will need both)
• Using pre-made components shortens the implementation time
• Layouts should be presented following the user journey in an orderly fashion
• All actions and menu or navigation states should be included
• All brand or icon assets should be in SVG format 
• UX design hand-over using Figma.com or a similar service is recommended
• UX questions & answers sessions should be included
• Follow up adjustments or corrections should be anticipated

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