Brand before build
We locked the look (retro, modern, and classic gaming, blended) and Dylan's voice first, then built the rest of the brand and site to match.
Brand · Web Design · Copywriting · Astro Build
CTPicker
A retro-game retailer built around mail-in buyback, with a brand bold enough to make a stranger comfortable shipping a whole collection.
Business vitals
- Client
- The CT Picker
- Industry
- Retro & modern game buyback
- Role
- Brand identity, web design, copywriting, Astro build, SEO
- Platform
- Astro
Who they are
The CT Picker is Dylan Kekacs. Searching for a career, he found his way flipping finds from Goodwill and yard sales to get by. That hustle grew into a retro-game specialty, then a nationwide mail-in buyback business with more than $2M in lifetime sales. He buys whole collections from people he's never met and resells them live on Whatnot and on eBay — one collector who actually plays this stuff.
The challenge
A buyback site has to feel safe. It also has to feel like someone.
Price lists, condition tiers, shipping rules, payout timing: the logistics that make a buyback trustworthy are also what buries the person behind it. Plenty of buyback sites read like a faceless form. So we built the brand and Dylan's voice first, then made the logistics fit inside it.
What we did
Three decisions that kept a logistics-heavy buyback site feeling like a person, not a form.
Proof, never claims
No "trusted by thousands." Just real, checkable numbers: Whatnot 5.0, eBay 99.9%, $2M+ lifetime.
One collector, in frame
Dylan stays visible throughout, so the site reads like a person, not an intake form.
The outcome
The brand earns the trust it takes to ship a $2,000 collection to a stranger.
The hardest ask in this business is trust: getting someone to box up something valuable and mail it to a stranger. So we didn't just build a brand that looks good. We built one with a voice real enough to earn it.
Got a business that's better than its website makes it look?
Let's build one that earns trust the second someone lands.