Purchase Experience Optimization
When we kicked off our 2023 goals, prioritizing cart and checkout upgrades was a no-brainer. After a year of hard work moving the site to a stronger, sleeker infrastructure, this final piece brought everything together. Over six months, we smoothly shifted the purchase flow to Next.js, integrated sales tax collection, and gave the UI a facelift using our updated Dorado design system—all while iterating on the experience to drive better purchasing results.
Role
Design & Research Lead
Timeline
Q2 2023 - Q4 2023
Goals
Increase AOV and CVR
Mobile optimization
Implement sales tax collection functionality
Problem statement
Sumolings are facing a checkout process that is overly complex and suboptimal especially on mobile devices, which is impacting their ability to quickly and easily complete transactions
Research
Our research unfolded in several interconnected phases, each tailored to the specific task at hand. To establish baseline metrics, we teamed up with our Business Intelligence team to dive deep into quantitative data for each individual market segment so that we could start to understand their purchasing patterns. We then layered onto that heat maps and session recordings using Microsoft Clarity. We had suspected that mobile purchasing was a huge growth opportunity for us, and this validated it.
With that insight, we focused our next research phase on the mobile experience. I planned and conducted user sessions with both new and existing international customers. During each session, I did a brief interview regarding their experience with us, and ran an unmoderated usability test using our existing mobile checkout.
Bringing those insights to a design sprint with our stakeholders, we crafted a prototype to test a variety of fresh ideas. Key features included streamlining the mobile checkout by reducing form fields, adding more flexible purchase and sign-in options via social accounts, and enabling currency conversion to enhance the experience for international buyers.
Goals
Methods
Quantitative data analysis using tracked metrics and behavioral recordings
Light heuristic evaluation
User interviews
Unmoderated prototype usability testing
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Where we've been...
In addition to user interviews, we were able to discover some “low hanging fruit” improvements throughout the checkout flow that could be of huge value. To name a few:
1. Updating the flow to be an auto-progression instead of manually selecting “continue” at each step
2. Simplifying unnecessary and/or overly complex sections to make room for necessary improvements like tax collection and more clear visibility into terms & conditions
3. Improving way-finding by giving the customer a persistent view of their cart & order summary -
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Stakeholder Workshop
Using AJ&Smart’s design sprint methodology, we held a 2-day stakeholder workshop where we talked through key goals for the purchasing flow, and where we wanted to focus our energy. While many different variables within the purchase flow needed to be improved, the team decided to prioritize testing mobile optimizations, currency conversion, and simplified UI.
Behind the scenes, our engineering team was getting to work with back-end payment processing improvements.
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Sales Tax Collection Implementation
Sales tax collection
A key business update needed for this project required the implementation of sales tax collection. The Design team collaborated with Engineering to ensure the front end ran smoothly within the existing user flow as this new payment functionality was built in.
Tax exemption
We have a large customer base that purchases on behalf of businesses, so it was important that we accommodate those that have tax exemption status. Adding this functionality to the checkout also meant updating the account user flows so status could be maintained across checkout sessions. -
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Currency Conversion
During usability testing, we took advantage of our international customer base and presented them with a hypothetical currency conversion feature, and discussed the user’s needs and preferences after doing an unmoderated usability test.
Key findings included the need for clarity around how the transaction is being processed (i.e. are we just seeing the amount translated but would be processed in the US) and interesting new learnings came to light about how international customers “game” exchange rates with various cards from different countries.
While this is a future state, these findings opened the door for discussions into updating payment processing, and alternative ways to purchase via 3rd party tools or and on-site wallet feature. -
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UX & UI Improvements
We used a mobile-first approach to tackle the updates and build the prototype, and collaborated closely with Engineers, Product Stakeholders, and cross-functional partners to prioritize 7 essential updates:
1. Overall look & feel of the UI was simplified and brought up to date with our Dorado design system
2. Form validation was updated from manual to auto progression to improve purchasing speed
3. Sales tax exemption fields were added
4. Payment method step was redesigned to include the new Stripe payment widget, which allowed a huge expansion of payment options based on customer location
5. Cart view was collapsed into an accordion
6. Mobile way-finding was improved by making the order summary and buy now CTA ever-present
7. Legal verbiage and social proof got a facelift to increase prominence on the page
Outcomes
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Common practice at AppSumo is to A/B test new functionality prior to full launch, especially when it’s such a large portion of the user flow. Through rigorous QA testing and successful releases to portions of the customer base, we were able to make some small iterations to the front and back end and release it to our full customer base.
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Post-launch, cart & checkout improvements resulted in a 3.34% CVR improvement, 1.74% increased AOV across all payment methods when “buy now, pay later” messaging was added, and a 47.28% improvement on Plus membership sign ups.
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AppSumo’s purchase experience continues to evolve. The team is diving deeper into currency conversion and international payment processing to improve the experience for international customers.
By widening the range of recommended products through smart upsell opportunities, even more value can be added to the Sumoling community.