Upgrade of Marketplace Platform Going Through Exponential Growth
The client
Artemest is an Italian e-commerce site carrying lifestyle art, jewellery and curated pieces for the home, all made by leading Italian artists. Its purpose is keeping centuries-old technique alive and preserving the heritage of artisans who, in many cases, would otherwise have closed.
It was founded by Ippolita Rostagno, a fine jewellery designer based in New York, who had watched Italian makers struggle to compete in a global market and wanted a way for them to reach an international audience.
The challengeWhat the teams actually needed
Reaching a potential client is steadily harder for a small local vendor, and unprofitability follows quickly from that.
Challenge 01Craft losing its market
Extraordinary skill is no defence against being invisible to the people who would buy the work.
Challenge 02An international audience
The platform had to put Italian makers in front of buyers well outside Italy.
Challenge 03Growth the platform had to carry
A marketplace going through rapid expansion puts pressure on everything underneath it.
What we did
A marketplace built to carry a heritage
The work went into a platform that lets artisans sell beautiful objects to buyers anywhere.
A collection, not a catalogue
Home décor, jewellery and lifestyle art are curated rather than listed, which is what the proposition rests on.
Italian makers, global buyers
The platform connects craftspeople with an international audience they could not reach alone.
Worth the objects on it
The interface has to do justice to work made by hand using techniques centuries old.
Businesses that stayed open
Many of the artisans on the platform would have shut down without it, which is the measure that matters here.
Client testimonial
We have roughly four to five new artisans each week, but we also get new products from the vendors who are already on the website. We need to maintain that pace but also provide a reliable infrastructure to serve that growth.
More like thisOther places we scaled product teams for growth.
What’s next