- Project
- Client Work
- Industry
- Vintage Retail
- Scope
- Website strategy, Custom design & development, Collection & browsing architecture, SEO foundations, Buying-guide content structure
01
The Challenge
Gathered Goods Co. is a small, curated vintage shop based in Blackshear, Georgia. Every piece is hand-picked and one of a kind (glassware, dishes, home goods, décor, and collectibles), and every sale happens on third-party marketplaces: Vinted, eBay, and Facebook Marketplace.
Marketplaces are good at checkout and buyer protection. They are not good at brand. On each platform a shop is one profile among thousands, inventory is split across three places, and the care that goes into choosing each piece is easy to miss. The business needed a website that could carry the brand, gather every listing into one browsable collection, and still send people to the marketplaces to buy, without anyone wondering where checkout happens.
02
The Strategy
We treated the website as the shop floor and the marketplaces as the register. The site's job is discovery, trust, and brand; the marketplaces handle payment and buyer protection. Rather than build a cart the business didn't need, the site makes the hand-off explicit and calm.
- Every product card names the marketplace where the piece is listed, with a clear “View & buy on Vinted” style action that opens the live listing
- A three-step “How buying works” sequence on the homepage, plus a dedicated How to Shop page, so nobody goes looking for a cart
- Collections organized the way people browse vintage (Home & Table, Glassware & Dishes, Timeless Treasures, Collectibles & Curios), with a Vintage Clothing collection ready for when that inventory arrives
- Seller ratings and feedback from each marketplace surfaced near the top of the homepage, each linking back to its source
03
The Experience
Collected, not cluttered
A warm editorial palette, serif headlines, and still-life photography give the shop the feel of a well-kept antique store rather than a marketplace grid. The atmosphere does the brand work; the product grid stays clean so each piece is easy to judge.
Browsing built for one-of-a-kind inventory
The Shop page combines search, collection filters, price bands, and sorting with live counts, so a visitor can narrow a large catalog of unique pieces quickly. Saved Finds lets shoppers keep a shortlist, which matters when nothing restocks.
Honest about how buying works
The site states plainly that there is no cart or checkout here. The FAQ separates buying, shipping and returns, condition, and availability, so common hesitations are answered before a shopper clicks through.
A brand story with a point of view
Our Story and the “Why shop Gathered Goods” section explain the sustainability and one-person curation behind the shop, giving the business a voice the marketplaces don't allow.
04
The Customer Journey
Arrival
A clear promise (“Beautiful things don't have to be new.”) with direct paths to shop every find or browse by collection.
Understanding
A short how-buying-works sequence explains the marketplace hand-off before it can cause confusion.
Trust
Marketplace ratings and feedback, a 48-hour shipping commitment, and plainly written shipping, returns, and condition answers.
Exploration
New arrivals, collections, filters, saved finds, and Journal buying guides give shoppers reasons to keep browsing.
Action
Every piece ends in one clear action: open the live listing on the marketplace where it's for sale.
05
Search & Content Foundation
- Descriptive, unique titles and meta descriptions for the homepage, Shop, collections, Our Story, How to Shop, and FAQ
- Dedicated collection pages give each product category its own crawlable, indexable home
- The Gathered Journal publishes practical buying guides (buying vintage online, glassware and dishes, clothing sizing) that answer real pre-purchase questions and link back into the shop
- FAQ content written as direct question-and-answer pairs that search engines and AI assistants can quote accurately
06
The Mobile Experience
Vintage browsing often starts on a phone, frequently from a social link. On mobile, the headline, the primary Shop action, and the collections link all sit in the first screen, with search and Saved Finds kept in the header.
Full-width, high-contrast buttons and generous type keep the experience comfortable to use one-handed, without stripping out the atmosphere that makes the brand feel different.
07
The Result
Gathered Goods Co. now has a branded home base that does what the marketplaces can't: it presents the whole collection in one place, tells the story behind the shop, and explains the buying process before sending each shopper to a trusted checkout.
Because the site is structured around collections, guides, and FAQs, it has room to grow. New collections, more Journal content, and clothing inventory can be added without rethinking the architecture.
Related service: Custom Websites · Pricing
Next: Hauntly →