Imperial Yeast

eCommerce Website

Imperial Yeast, a premier yeast supplier for professional brewers and homebrewers, approached us to resolve confusion among their audience segments. We developed a streamlined website to guide each customer group (professional brewers, homebrewers, and retailers) through tailored purchasing paths. As a result, Imperial Yeast saw improved navigation and clear-cut paths to purchase.

My Role: Project Manager & Senior UI/UX Designer

Overview

The Opportunity

Imperial Yeast needed to address customer confusion stemming from a lack of clear segmentation between professional brewers, homebrewers, and retailers. Homebrewers were mistakenly trying to purchase from the professional e-commerce site, leading to frustration and missed sales opportunities.

The Goals

  • Simplify user navigation with clear segmentation for different audiences
  • Increase sales conversions by providing direct and intuitive purchasing paths
  • Reduce customer confusion around product availability and purchasing options
  • Reinforce Imperial Yeast’s brand as an educational resource for the brewing community

The Solution

We designed a website that clarified the three distinct purchasing paths and reinforced product availability across all pages. Key design decisions included:

  • Clear and prompt wayfinding for professionals, homebrewers, and retailers
  • Tailored landing pages for each audience that serve as a homepage for their segment, highlighting relevant yeast strains and other resources
  • Personalized navigation using cookies to remember user types and adjust the product index automatically
  • Exclusion of packaging images to avoid confusion across customer types
  • Robust educational resources, including calculators and document libraries, accessible to all user types
The Process

Let’s get into it.

The Process

Research & Discovery

Audience Sementation

Imperial Yeast serves three main customer segments: professional brewers, homebrewers, and homebrew retail store owners. Each segment has unique product availability and purchasing options, which led to confusion on the previous site.

  • The primary audience, professional brewers, could purchase in bulk through their ecommerce portal
  • Retailers could purchase through that same portal but products came in Pitch Right pouches and had different availability
  • Homebrewers could only buy Pitch Right pouches through third-party retailers

Our main focus was introducing the three purchasing paths as early as possible and defining each in clear, simple terms.

The Process

Ideation & Prototyping

User Flows

Despite distinct product availability for each audience, the site used a single product index. Filters determined which strains were available to each consumer, and availability was reinforced on individual product pages. Cookies ensured that once a user selected their group, they remained in the correct segment as they navigated the site, preventing exposure to products unavailable to them.

Landing Pages

We created dedicated landing pages for each customer segment. These acted as a homepage for the segment, presenting relevant strains, resources, and paths to purchase so users could immediately engage with content tailored to their needs.

Reinforcing Availability

Not all customers arrive through the homepage. Some find a strain via organic search, where cookies won’t yet capture their segment. In these cases, clearly displaying product availability on each strain’s page is critical. To reduce confusion about format and purchasing options, we intentionally omitted packaging images, keeping the focus on the strains themselves.

Calculators

Calculators were a standout feature that competitors didn’t offer. Many brewers bookmarked them and relied on them regularly, driving repeat visits. New customers discovering the calculators were exposed to Imperial Yeast and the site’s other resources, increasing engagement and brand familiarity.

The Results

How it all came together.

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