TOP SHOP—

A rewards program for brands on Faire

Launched in fall 2021, Top Shop is Faire's premier rewards program, created to recognize brands that excel in quality and service. The program empowers brands to improve shop quality with two key benefits: equipping them with essential tools for success and helping them navigate the complexities of driving sales. By providing targeted education and demystifying the platform's "unknown algorithm," Top Shop builds confidence and promotes best practices.

Brands that meet the program’s criteria earn a badge for the following quarter, boosting their visibility in the marketplace and fostering trust with retailers, especially when considering new brands.

As the lead (and sole) designer on this 0-to-1 initiative, I collaborated with a product and engineering lead and a small team of front-end and back-end engineers to bring Top Shop to life. Since its launch, Top Shop has driven a 3-4% increase in GMV, exceeding our goals, and has become a cornerstone of Faire’s product experience.

  • Faire began in 2017 with a simple vision: to help small businesses come together to compete on a more level playing field with the likes of Walmart and Amazon.

    Today, Faire is the online marketplace where retailers discover their next bestsellers from independent brands across the globe.

  • As the inaugural lead product designer, I was instrumental in defining, executing, and scaling the Top Shop program from 0 to 1. Within six weeks, we launched a comprehensive end-to-end experience for both sides of the marketplace, laying the foundation for future iterations.

  • Since its launch in 2021, the program has delivered a 3-4% increase in global GMV and remains a pivotal component of the brand experience on Faire.

get in touch to view full case-study

The origin story of Top Shop

In early 2021, Faire launched the "Preferred Partner" program, which focused on driving the adoption of Faire Direct, our primary channel for retailer referrals on the platform. However, brands quickly shared that the criteria felt too heavily weighted toward Faire Direct, overlooking their overall value and quality in the marketplace.

After evaluating whether to integrate quality metrics into the existing program or create two distinct ones, we chose the latter, believing this would provide a better customer experience and greater business impact.

Program goals and design

The decision to create a standalone Top Shop program was driven by its potential business impact and its significance to both of our core customer groups—particularly brands struggling to stand out on Faire. To succeed, the program needed to:

  • Incentivize quality by rewarding brands that excel in the marketplace.

  • Educate brands on improving their Faire Shop and service.

  • Build retailer trust by enhancing quality signals and brand discovery.

We structured the program design around three key components: Criteria & Thresholds, Rewards, and Evaluation Cadence

Criteria principals

To begin, we prioritized defining clear and effective criteria and thresholds, a task made challenging by the wide range of potential quality metrics available.

To navigate this, we established core principles to ensure the criteria aligned with customer needs and maintained a focus on fairness.

Selection process

We then compared potential criteria against our core principles to evaluate and debate their trade-offs. Further validation came from customer research, where retailers ranked the most relevant and effective brand criteria.

For the MVP, our goal was to craft the simplest yet most impactful solution to optimize customer value. From an extensive list of potential criteria, we strategically narrowed it down to six key criteria—brand rating, orders, late shipments, canceled orders, and merchandising score.

These criteria effectively captured the brand behaviors we aimed to incentivize, aligned with retailer priorities, and adhered to our principles. They were also easy to understand and implement, which was crucial given our time constraints.

Final criteria

The Top Shop program introduced 'baseline quality' criteria alongside best-in-class behavior for Top Brands inclusion. We recommended these requirements to reinforce expected brand behavior and maintain retailer trust by excluding brands with pricing parity issues or Terms of Service violations. We established the following criteria for brands to meet:

  • Ratings: Maintain a 12-month average rating of 4.8 stars or higher.

  • Orders: Fulfill 5+ orders during the quarter.

  • Late Shipments: Keep late shipments at or below 10% per quarter.

  • Canceled Orders: Limit cancellations for avoidable reasons to 3% per quarter.

  • Missing Items: Keep missing items at or below 3% per quarter.

  • Merchandising Score: Earn at least 60 points by improving shop quality, such as adding new products, complete descriptions, quality imagery, or running promotions.

Custom program branding and identity

Design-wise, our first step was to create a distinct and memorable brand identity for the program, incorporating custom colors, iconography, and visuals. We teamed up with a brand studio to ensure this identity was consistent with the overall Faire brand.

In parallel, we worked with content design to craft a specific voice and tone for the program. The process began with a naming exercise, then moved to customer research to pinpoint what resonated most effectively with brands and retailers.

THE RETAILER EXPERIENCE

A new way of discovering brands

We then designed a retailer experience that integrated these branding elements across key discovery surfaces in the marketplace, making it easy for retailers to find top-performing brands on Faire.

Key experience additions included:

  • A first-time UX experience introducing the program

  • A dedicated homepage navigation entry point

  • A Top Shop page for in-depth exploration

  • Clear badging on product and brand tiles for easy browsing and searching

  • Distinct badges on brand pages for Top Shop brands

To clarify the purpose of the new visual elements, we added subtle educational cues like tooltips and hover states throughout the marketplace.

The brand experience

Introduction to the program

For the Top Shop brand experience, our goal was to guide brands through the qualification process with clear steps and rewards to help them achieve and maintain their status.

Key experience additions included:

  • A first-time UX experience introducing the program and its benefits

  • A landing page detailing criteria and improvement strategies

  • A homepage widget for real-time progress tracking

  • Go-to-market emails updating brands on their status, evaluation periods, and opportunities

For brands already eligible for Top Shop rewards, these UI elements highlighted the tangible benefits, such as increased visibility and boosted sales.

The brand experience

Earning the Top Shop badge

The final aspect of the user experience was ensuring brands could easily track their performance and feel celebrated upon earning the Top Shop badge—the primary reward for qualification.

We achieved this by designing personalized emails, dynamic landing page states, and a responsive homepage widget. These touchpoints effectively communicated when a brand met the criteria and achieved Top Shop status, making the accomplishment both visible and rewarding.

Upon launch, we not only met but exceeded our goal, achieving a 3-4% increase in global GMV driven solely by the program. Since its inception, Top Shop has remained a cornerstone of the Faire product experience.

To view full case-study get in touch

  • alysegilbert@gmail.com

  • 510.501.5270

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