Casablanca Market: Pioneering the Digital Marketplace for Sustainable North African Small Businesses & connecting them with U.S. Customers.

Casablanca Market is an early-stage startup (recently acquired by Centurica) that was in the process of evolving from a minority family-owned brand into a growing online e-commerce platform, connecting U.S. customers with sustainable Mediterranean brands and small businesses.

As Founding Product Designer at Casablanca Market, I played a pivotal role in transitioning the brand from a storefront shop to a fully online e-commerce experience. I conducted user research, usability testing, developed and maintained a new design system, led stakeholder workshops, and collaborated with engineers to enhance the mobile-first experience, optimizing navigation, checkout flows, driving a 52% increase in sales, and worked on reinventing and developing new user experiences.

Mobile experience before I came to work at CM:

Key Initiatives and Outcomes:

AI-enhanced Holistic User Research

• Approach: Utilized tools such as Hotjar and Google Analytics for data collection, conducted competitive audits, and employed AI to prepare, optimize, and synthesize user research. Developed user personas, journey maps, and service blueprints to inform design decisions.

• Outcome: Identified critical user pain points and preferences, leading to design solutions that enhanced user satisfaction and engagement.

  
  

Shoppable Recipe Experience

• Approach: Designed an interactive feature allowing users to purchase ingredients directly from recipes, integrating content with commerce.

• Outcome: Increased average order value and user engagement, as customers found value in curated, ready-to-purchase ingredient lists.

  
  

Design System

• Approach: Established a scalable design system in Figma, creating reusable components and standardized guidelines to ensure consistency across the platform.

• Outcome: Reduced prototyping time by 45%, accelerating development cycles and maintaining a cohesive user experience.

Optimization of Homepage, Navigation, Search, and Browsing Experience

• Approach: Redesigned the homepage with a focus on mobile-first user-centric experience, streamlined navigation, enhanced search functionality, and improved browsing features.

• Outcome: Achieved a 60% increase in user engagement metrics, including time spent on site and pages per session, surpassing the initial KPI of a 50% increase.

Add to Cart and Checkout Process Enhancement

• Approach: Simplified the add-to-cart and checkout processes by reducing steps, enhancing form usability, and providing clear progress indicators.

• Outcome: Improved conversion rates by 55%, exceeding the initial KPI of a 20% improvement, leading to a significant boost in sales.

Merchant Onboarding Experience

• Approach: Developed a seamless onboarding process for Mediterranean small businesses and artisans, including intuitive registration, product listing tools, and support resources.

• Outcome: Onboarded 10 new Mediterranean brands within the first 6 months of the test feature, exceeding our initial KPI of 5, enriching the platform's product diversity, and informing the further iterations of the new feature.

Conclusion

Through strategic design processes and a focus on user-centric solutions, Casablanca Market solidified its efforts toward building a new e-commerce platform. This platform represents fair trade, sustainable Mediterranean small businesses, artisans, and farmers, supporting their crafts and contributing to the development of a sustainable economy by connecting them to larger international markets.​