Challenge
A consumer brands group ran three online stores on closely related designs. Sales depended on advertising traffic, and the team suspected the stores were losing shoppers between the product page and the checkout.
Opinions on what to change were plentiful. What was missing was evidence: where shoppers actually dropped out, and whether the cause was the site or the audience being sent to it.
Approach
We audited the stores for usability and conversion using the shoppers' own data, and presented the findings to the team as a working session.
- Review all three stores page by page, on phones and on desktop.
- Study thirty days of visitor data for each store.
- Separate problems caused by the site from problems caused by the wrong audience arriving.
- Rank the suggested changes by their likely effect on completed orders.
- Flag where usability and appearance pulled in different directions, for the team to decide.
Result
The team left with a ranked list of changes grounded in how shoppers behaved.
- Findings shared across all three stores where the designs matched.
- One brand identified as an audience question, not a design one.
- A clear line between what the data showed and what was opinion.
Our advice
More visitors and fewer orders usually means the wrong visitors. Check who is arriving before you redesign what they arrive at.
Related service: Websites & e-commerce.