SHOPTIMIZATION
Designing a social shopping experience
DESIGN CHALLENGE
Optimize embedded shop designs to increase average Fermat shop conversion rate from 0.3% CVR to industry target of 6%.
MY ROLEProduct designer, ux researcher, design lead
ITERATIVE DESIGN PROCESS
I used an iterative design framework for the project. After each design release, I used data to evaluate design efficacy and inform future iterations using:
- Funnel performance to identify points of friction
- Time studies to understand user engagement
- A/B testing to optimize new features
- Qualitative performance analysis to emulate successful design elements across the user experience
DESIGN CYCLE
I established a design cycle for efficient collaboration and alignment between design, marketing, dev, and business development teams.
I began research with an analysis of qualitative features associated to best and worst performing shops as a starting point to identifying the reason for conversion volatility across Fermat shops. Key trends included:
Trends by brand
- High volatility across branded shops within same brand
Trends by influencer
- Influencer conversion rates had more stable performance across shops
- Influencer shops with fewer products had higher conversion rates
Trends by category
-
Consumables were among top performers.
- Technical items were low performers.
- Apparel performed well only when referenced directly in user-generated content.
Based on trends by brand and category, I conducted stakeholder interviews with business development partners and clients to understand how Fermat product detail pages (PDPs) differed from existing brand strategies.
COLLABORATION WITH HIGH-IMPACT INFLUENCERS
Hero Bread was a top-performing Fermat shop that noted collaboration with a high-impact influencer was important to their conversion strategy.
REPEAT REPLENISHMENT + UPSELL
Head Kandy’s brand strategy focused on targeting repeat customers who are loyal to a particular consumable product and using upsell to increase AOV.
EMPHASIZING PRODUCT-SPECIFIC FEATURES
Nood, a hair removal device company, noted the importance of calling out particular product features such as FDA-approval and money-back guarantees.
Based on qualitative trends in shop performance, stakeholder interviews, and user research, I identified that consumers could be sorted into two shopping styles: quick-buy and browse. Fermat shops worked well for consumers interested in a “quick-buy” experience, but wasn’t optimal for consumers interested in a browse experience.
1 | Quick-buy consumers
- Impulse purchases
- Consumables
- Replenishments
2 | Browse shoppers
- Technical items
- Fashion
- Beauty
- Home goods
To better understand opportunities in the browse experience, I conducted heat map analysis on existing shops with both quick-buy and brand-oriented shoppers..
FINDINGS
- Heavy use of search bar for consumables, suggesting an opportunity to display previous purchases or best-sellers at the top of the experience.
- Products which were featured in influencer content prior to linking to shops received the most clicks, suggesting the importance of recommendations in the browse user experience from social media to Fermat shops.
- Users were engaging with profile pictures, suggesting that users were interested in continuing their browsing experience on influencer landing pages with additional product recommendations.
Task flow analysis of the Fermat experience revealed additional opportunities for improvement for product detail pages and landing pages.
Users were frequently leaving Fermat shops to gather information from the brand websites directly.
Users were most interested in engaging with products that were curated, whether that included best-seller tags or influencer recommendations.
Based on the research and iterative design process, the product detail pages and browse experiences ultimately did enable Fermat to achieve conversion goals of 6%, with average conversion rates for Fermat PDP’s exceeding 7.4% in the 3-months following the new product detail page launch. Key learnings from the project became the guiding principles for the consumer-facing ux strategy.
1 | Modularity
- Modularity is essential for successful PDPs for diverse clients. Text-based product “chips” which callout key product benefits enabled Fermat to be flexible across industries and brands.
- Detailed product descriptions and technical specifications are essential in building purchase intent, including fit guides, approval tags, and product guarantees.
- Branding is essential to conveying a trustworthy shopping experience and keeps users on-site.
- Branding is essential to conveying a trustworthy shopping experience and keeps users on-site.
2 | Curation
- Browse-oriented users prefer curation when shopping from embedded social links.
- Quick-buy users convert 3x faster when products were curated by “Best sellers” and “Previous purchases.”
- Branded video shops with tutorial content increase conversion by 64% for brands with technical products or large product offerings, such as beauty or makeup
3 | Influencer connection
- For browse-oriented users, influencer recommendations are a desirable browse feature.
- Influencer content is most important in the social media phase of the Fermat embedded shop user journey.
- Video content featuring influencers is more effective as part of imagery on a PDP than as a shopping experience for influencer shops.
Product detail pages
Design iterations on the browse experience