Role: Product Owner · Client: Gana's Hasthakala (traditional handicraft business) · Status: Prototype live · Shopify launch in progress

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Gana's Hasthakala makes traditional handicrafts — nettipattom (elephant caparisons), thidambu, wall hangings, and wedding/engagement thattu decor — sold entirely offline until now. I own the end-to-end product for bringing this business online: catalog structure, pricing model, and purchase flow.

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Live prototype: helpful-quokka-778ca8.netlify.app ↗ — the screens below are deployed here. The full commerce build (checkout, payments, order management) is going live on Shopify, currently in progress.

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The Problem

The business has real demand and real craftsmanship, but zero digital presence: no catalog customers can browse, no way to quote prices beyond word-of-mouth, no path for the diaspora/international buyers who'd want these pieces shipped abroad. Everything currently runs on WhatsApp forwards of photos and manual price quoting — which caps how many customers can be served and makes the business invisible to anyone outside the existing network.

Users

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The business owner — my mother

Goal: showcase real craftsmanship without needing to personally answer every price/size question

Constraint: not tech-savvy — needs to review products as drafts before anything goes live

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Diaspora / out-of-town buyer

Goal: order a nettipattom or wedding thattu decoration and have it shipped internationally

Frustration: today, this requires knowing someone who knows the family — there's no discoverable storefront at all

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Product Lines & Real Pricing (as scoped so far)

Key Product Decisions

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Hosting: chose free static hosting (Netlify) for the storefront itself, with Shopify running in parallel for checkout/catalog. Kept Shopify optional rather than the default — my mother already paid for it, but a static site keeps ongoing cost near-zero while we validate demand.

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Draft-first workflow: every product is created as a Shopify draft, not published, until my mother personally reviews the listing — she's the actual domain expert on whether a description or price is right, not me.

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Size-driven pricing UI: nettipattom needed a size selector that updates the price live, rather than one listing per size — mirrors how she actually quotes customers today ("what size do you need?" comes before price).

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Core User Flow

flowchart LR
    A["Customer lands on site"] --> B["Browses category<br>(e.g. Nettipattom)"]
    B --> C["Selects size on<br>product page"]
    C --> D["Price updates live"]
    D --> E{"Ready to buy?"}
    E -->|Yes| F["Checkout & pay online"]
    E -->|Has questions| G["WhatsApp enquiry"]
    F --> H["Order confirmed"]
    G --> H

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Open the live prototype ↗

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Screen-by-Screen Breakdown

Matches the live prototype: helpful-quokka-778ca8.netlify.app ↗

1. Home — category navigation (Nettipattom, Thidambu, Wall Hangings, Wedding Decor). Full, uncropped product photography, no price/size burned into the image — pricing lives in the product page, not the photo.

2. Category listing (Nettipattom) — a handful of representative photos rather than one listing per size variant. Browsing is by product type; size is a decision made on the product page itself.