Sudara helps women in India escape human trafficking by providing gainful employment to those at risk. Every item they sell represents is made by a woman who has escaped, and every style is named in honor and celebration of a woman at one of their sewing centers.

A new custom Shopify theme was created to allow Sudara the ability to not only make their previous online store easier to manage, but provide improved branding opportunities and messaging.

The largest issue their previous website had was how difficult browsing product info was. A powerful search helped customers find the products they needed while improved category menus made browsing much more enjoyable.

To remedy this, the product was central to each key page of the website. Large call-outs to collections and new product banners brought higher visibility to store offerings.

The handmade clothing sold by Sudara is beautifully crafted and each item shares a unique story.

Using high quality studio photography for each product, the garments sell themselves. Each piece of clothing is also presented with the story behind each garment.

Working with a business who puts a value on humans above profits is a rare opportunity.

Highlighting the work being done in India by Sudara was as important as making products easier to purchase. Most of Sudara’s supporters and customers are heavily interested in the work that is being done overseas and customers love learning how they are directly helping women’s lives in India.

It was important to provide the Sudara team with a design and custom theme they could build upon as time goes on. To make this easy, graphical templates and readme documentation was provided to make any change effortless.

The time spent with the development team to make each page run as perfectly as possible was well worth it.

Unless there is a really good reason to deviate from traditional e-commerce conventions, stick to what consumers are used to.

Requiring users to re-learn visual patterns such as navigation and cart layouts was an idea that was scrapped very early on.

I believe as digital designers we strive to push boundaries. There will always be a push and pull relationship with using unconventional methods on websites, however end-users’ needs should ultimately be met by the simplest method.