Museums in Europe are amazing! Last year, during our 3–weeks trip in Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, and The Czech Republic we visited some amazing places — including museums. I was amazed by the curation, the style of tours, depth and breadth of artefacts and collections.

More recently, as I was buying some mouth-care products from Salt, I realised that almost all D2C websites in the same category look the same or similar. The only thing that truly differentiates them are the exact products (and the categories) that they’re selling.

Here are some ideas

…from museums that can help each D2C product websites differentiate.

1. Include creators interviews/stories in product pages. This will give customers a peek into the thought behind the products from the folks who created them.

2. Showcase the craftsmanship of engineering, design, research, manufacturing in your catalogue for users to appreciate the work gone behind making the product. Use documentary style videos, walkthroughs, voice overs to walk through each of the stages.

3. Make each portion of the product content feel like a curated gallery — in addition to detailed graphics/imagery, add an honest story behind the part/feature and how it came out to be. This story could be in the form of a sentence or long form.

4. “Behind the scenes” tours showing videos or stories of how the products are made from concept to finish, manufactured & tested. For interested users, this will give them impressions of a thoughtfully made product.

5. Unusual curated collections that are regional and seasonal can become interesting too. Imagine a mixer grinder page with “Spices from around India” collection — where they show how different popular spices from Rajasthan, Karnataka, Maharashtra grind in the product.

6. Have chefs, homemakers, small business owners, home cook review your kitchen appliance than a generic influencer. Have a mixologist, mom review your refrigerator.

7. Every Indian kitchen has a history. Give historical context to make visitors on the website engage more. Sections on how traditional cooking methods evolved into modern-day appliances make content interesting and visitors learn without realising.

8. Include a timeline on how the product evolved over time — from early prototypes to the final design. Even better? Show how the product in your category evolved over time; the history of cooking to invention of pressure cooker to your present day solution. This will give potential buyers a sense of innovation as well.

9. Shoot customer testimonials in short documentary-style videos where they walk you through their kitchen and explain how your appliance improved their life. Shoot in natural style.

10. Feature “curated kitchens/living rooms/ travel etc.” from different parts of India, where visitors can explore how your product is being used in various states and even in various contexts.

Leave your comments & share ahead if you found this useful!