Creating a Shopify portable power station microsite for Rayovac has been revolting ?:-)

Okay, okay, not revolting, but empowering. (This is why my nephews call me Machine Pun Kelly)

I am pleased to announce the launch of my company's new Rayovac Solar Portable Power Stations & Solar Power Panels microsite. I can say that working with the well established Rayovac brand for these cool products was quite an honor. I got to have a hand in the design of the product, the packaging, all of the digital marketing content and full ecommerce buildout.

Given that I've been in the ecommerce space developing ecommerce hosting solutions with Verio/NTT, and providing digital advertising strategies for many popular brands across a diverse set of verticals, including tech, lifestyle, fashion, financial, home improvement, home decor etc. for over 20 years, I was able to finally leverage my UX, Branding, Programming and Product design in bringing this nifty product line to market in under 90 days.

This does not go without mentioning my team of designers and copywriters hitting their deadlines in producing website content, graphic assets, video content, UX, CRM structure as well as launching Amazon Premium content for five products in concurrence with a dedicated online store. This all going on while creating content for 4 other brands. Special shout-outs to my lead Content Strategist Lori Serra for spinning and calculating the specifications of these products so that anyone can understand them.

Rayovac is a very respected 100+ year old American brand and is currently part of the Energizer family of products. We received an abundance of marketing and consumer targeting behavior data from the brand which in turn assisted my team in designing assets and content that speaks to the target and teaches consumers about the "technically heavy" capabilities of portable, rechargeable power stations.

The Target

We discovered that the Rayovac brand resonates highly with women as head-of-household, ages 35-55. Our content and visuals were designed with that in mind to create a user-friendly and stylish approach for a technical appliance. The competition in the portable power station space is fierce as we wanted to differentiate the Rayovac brand of portable power stations from the likes of Jackery, GoalZero and Bluetti. Our devices provide the latest in portable, rechargeable battery technology, added connectivity as well as powerful features the other brands lack.

These power stations are designed for immediate and dependable power convenience around the home in cases of emergencies, as well as being able to move power around outside the home or on the go. Of course these batteries can be used for camping and powering your portable grill at tailgates, but they can be quite an asset for those that experience frequent black or brown-outs. And they are very attractively designed. (something about that electric Robin's egg blue)

The site is built with Shopify. The store contains five main products, so it's structure is very similar to a microsite. I owe it to Izza Enriquez our graphic and UX specialist for laying out the site for desktop and mobile utilizing Figma and working to finesse a basic Shopify theme in order to capture the essence of ease we are trying to establish with these devices.

Product Positioning

In the store, there are three main power stations and two sizes of portable solar panels. The "Sun Snares." With Shopify, I am able to integrate CRM and Marketing Apps that automate all of the customer interaction, logistics and support management. I have worked with Salesforce and HubSpot Marketing and CRM platforms, but we needed a quick and powerful CRM that was scalable and already integrated into Shopify.

We also included a significant amount of educational materials about the technology in the way of detailed FAQs and video user manuals since there are many different configurations and capabilities in this product line. I remember as a kid in the Mid-Atlantic hearing the line "an educated consumer, is our best customer" from Sy and Marcy Syms commercials - that axiom has always resonated with me.

Assets

A big challenge we encountered was getting photography of the products for lifestyles and use cases. The above image is an AI generated scene with actual products added as part of the composition. I really owe it to my Senior Graphic Designer Natasha Rumantier of pumping out hundreds of lifestyle and product infographics in record time, while maintaining a professional and cohesive brand aesthetic for this stylish product.

My videographer, Ariel Valdez has had years of experience spinning products on a Lazy Susan in front of cameras and came up with some very comprehensively designed "video brochure" footage that details the features and benefits of each model. A script was created, product shots and animated graphic overlays were added for instruction and functionality. Here is one of the videos that emulates the Trek 600's user manual.

Soft Launch

The site launched in late July to accompany our Amazon Store that launched four weeks prior. We were very excited to have Amazon A+ Premium content approved quickly and get us listed. I would like to assume that the Rayovac brand and its notoriety was the reason the Amazon Rep pushed getting us listed so fast. With our other brands, it did take Amazon several weeks to months. This Rep was very attentive.

In closing, I would like to get user impressions, questions about techniques and technologies that I implemented to bring this store to fruition.

Here is a list of the Shopify Apps - let me know if you have any questions about their use, installation and configuration.

• Automizely Email Marketing, SMS
• PageFly Page Builder - for layout changes and templating of the theme
• Judge.Me Reviews
• Stoq - Preorder and Out of Stock (Formerly ReStock Rocket)
• Sellercloud - Logistics Partner

Here is a list of the current Rayovac Solar products:

• Trek 600 - 540WH Portable Power Station
• Journey 1000 - 1008WH Portable Power Station
• Odyssey 2000 - Forthcoming
• Sun Snare 100 - 100 Watt Foldable Solar Panel
• Sun Snare 200 - 200 Watt Foldable Solar Panel

Thanks for reading and I hope you got a CHARGE out of the story. :-)