As the website manager for Mica Art Space, and with the founder's recent initiative to create an e-commerce platform under the same brand name, I have been tasked with managing this new venture. The goal is to introduce and sell mind-body-spirit products to domestic consumers. This idea, coupled with my personal experience with a miraculous soap that sparked my strong curiosity in the mind-body-spirit industry, has inspired me to conduct research on six well-known domestic mind-body-spirit brands.

From June 29 to July 20, 2020, I spent three weeks analyzing and testing the business models and usability of the e-commerce websites of these six brands. This study aims to provide a simple report to the Mica Art Space founders to help them decide whether or not to pursue this new business.

This research is divided into two parts:

1. First, using the "Industry Analysis Nine-Box" method, I analyzed the business models and industry status of the six domestic mind-body-spirit manufacturers.

2. Second, using the "Expert Review" method, I personally tested and evaluated the usability of the six e-commerce websites, following Jakob Nielsen and Donald A. Norman's "Ten Usability Principles" from 1995. I went through the shopping process from logging in to browsing the website, selecting products, joining the membership, and completing the purchase. I recorded, analyzed, and graded the results to provide optimization suggestions for each brand's products.

To begin with, the research results indicate that the spiritual health care industry is a relatively closed system with high barriers to entry and difficulty in maintaining the market. The business models are relatively similar, and the success of running the brand depends on the founder's charisma, spiritual awareness level, cult influence, product positioning, business plan, offline events and vertical community interactions. In addition, spiritual wellness brands are rooted in the belief system, and for e-commerce activities, the products act primarily as a channel to promote the belief system, reaching a wide audience and helping practitioners on their spiritual journey, rather than acting as the primary source of income.

Furthermore, after conducting practical tests, it was found that the mobile version of the user-friendly spiritual e-commerce platform is significantly better than the web version. It is speculated that the reason for this could be that the vendor created the website initially and then developed a separate mobile version in the smartphone age, resulting in inconsistent versions. and co-exist. Additionally, both versions score poorly on metrics like “minimalist aesthetics,” “effective flexibility,” and “site guidelines” that need fixing and optimization.

Finally, products in e-commerce platforms tend to be "categorically ambiguous", resulting in many products being displayed over and over on the site. The analysis shows that, due to the special nature of spiritual products, they often carry cultural or religious connotations, making it difficult to accurately classify into fixed groups. When products are classified into common product categories, it can reduce their sanctity and selling price. This unique phenomenon can cause users to repeatedly browse products or advertisements over and over, leading to excessive browsing anxiety.