KOHL: Conversion rate optimization research
Background:
This research I did as a Design challenge provided by Retail Ecommerce Ventures. As the sole UX designer, I contributed to the project following UX principles.
Timeline:
Three days. April 12-15, 2021.
Challenge:
Imagine you’re a product designer for https://www.kohls.com/. Your team has noticed customer conversion rates for adding items to the digital shopping cart have fallen to 4.3% compared to the company’s 5% goal. The team is eager to make experience improvements that increase the likelihood a customer selects and adds an item to their shopping cart. Please assess the existing Kohl’s experience from product search to selection and discover areas of opportunity using any relevant methodologies such as literature reviews, usability testing, teardowns, competitive audits, etc. From your findings, provide any recommendations with supporting justifications. Please also include a sample design of how you might approach solving for one of the opportunities discovered. Feel free to note any additional methodologies, data, or questions that you would have found helpful to solve this challenge. The final deliverable should be in presentation format and cover your discovery process, findings, recommendations, and an example of a design solution for one of the identified opportunities.
Solution Process:
I have done the research following the steps below.
-Objective setting
-Analysis & Recommendations
-
- Site speed analysis
- Profile analysis
- Competitor analysis
- Traffic trends
- Engagement metrics
- Keyword analysis
- Referral sites
- Social engagement analytics
- Website feedback survey
- Remote user testing
- Heuristic analysis
-Prototype Design
Reach conversion rates for adding items to digital cart at least 5%, current is 4.3%
Analysis & Recommendations:
Site Speed Analysis
The analysis is done through Pingdom only for desktop.
Speed scores
- Homepage: Performance grade: E 60, Page size: 6.5MB, Load time: 3.29 s, 474 requests
- Department page: Performance grade: E 60, Page size: 3.8MB, Load time: 4.22 s, 422 requests
- Product page: Performance grade: E 60, Page size: 5.5MB, Load time: 6.51 s, 551 requests
- Cart page: Performance grade: A 100, Page size: 3.5MB, Load time: 65 ms, 2 requests
Key takeaways
- Website loading time needs to be reduced
Opportunities
- Avoid URL redirects
- Reduce DNS lookups
- Make fewer HTTP requests
- Compress components with gzip
- Use cookie free domains
- Add expires headers
- Config entity tags
Traffic Engagement Ranking
Tool used
Alexa
Alexa Rank
A daily estimate of a website’s popularity. It is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors to this site and pageviews on this site over the past 3 months.
Key Takeaways
- Rank reduced by 637 in 90 days
- Missing current niche demands and trends might be the reason
Competitor Analysis
Tool Used
Alexa
Key Takeaways
- Macy’s and Target has most overlapping audience, and holds better rank than Kohl’s
- Analyzing their design philosophy to improve Kohl’s profile
Traffic Trends
Key Takeaways
- Macys and Target are in better traffic rank compared to Kohls. Analyzing their strategies can lead to opportunities.
Engagement Metrics
Pageviews Per User
The estimated daily unique pageviews per user for this site
Key Takeaways
- Macys unique page views are higher than Kohl’s.
- The keywords or engagement strategies of Macy’s to get more diverse interest of the customers are more effective.
Bounce %
Estimates percentage of daily visits to this site that consist of a single pageview.
Key Takeaways
- Macys is showing a consistent lower bouncing rate which is an indication that their homepage products are relevant to the most of the customer’s interest, regardless of source
Time on Site
The estimated daily time on site in seconds for this site (in seconds)
Key Takeaways
- Kohl’s is falling behind Macy’s and Target in holding customer interest. Perhaps focusing on more timely niche or trend can give customer engagement a boost.
Keywords Analysis for Optimization
Keywords Gap
Keywords driving traffic to competitors, but not to this site
Key Takeaways
- The gap shows missing keywords which can drive more traffic to Kohls
- Matching the new keywords with the inventory important before adding
Easy to Rank Keywords
Popular keywords within this site’s competitive power
Key Takeaways
- The items that has high popularity and low competition, definitely demand more attention for increasing conversion rate
Buyer Keywords
Keywords that holds purchase intent
Key Takeaways
- Focusing on the keywords with purchase interest is a direct contribution to increase conversion.
- Specially focusing on the targeted competitors’ profile can be beneficiary because of their proven success
Traffic Sources
Key Takeaways
- Focusing on the keywords for better search result and increasing referral link can drive more traffic
Referral Sites
sites that drive traffic to them
Key Takeaways
- Finding the backlink of the targeted competitors and joining the relevant and post popular sites can benefit out traffic in a great number
Social Engagement Analysis
Key Takeaways
- For additional traffic we can analyze the most popular social engagement topics to identify our next trend and niche
Website Feedback Survey
Key Takeaways
- Customers demand more visually pleasant experience
Opportunities
- Redesign based on modern successful design trends
Key Takeaways
- Product finding experience can be improved
Opportunities
- Things can be well sorted
- Departments can me more customer behaviours based organized
- Homepage sections can be more direct and focused on different niches and offers
Key Takeaways
- Product finding experience can be improved
Opportunities
- Increase page load speed
- Declutter, reduce pop up and eliminate slideshow distraction
Remote User Testing
Platform
www.usertesting.com
Participants
3
Tasks
- Task 1.Without leaving the homepage, what are your initial impressions of the website? Explain your answer.
- Task 2.Try to guest checkout a pair of shoes (do not buy them) . Please describe out loud what you expect to happen. When you’ve decided, move on to the next task.
- Task 3.How not confident (1) or confident (7) are you that you completed the task successfully? Explain your answer
- Task 4.How difficult (1) or easy (7) was it to understand the information on the website? Explain your answer
- Task 5: Overall impression bad (1) or good (7)
Testing Analysis
Takeaways
- The website is not a ‘special’ one. It is average compared to the similar brands
- Too crowded with promotions, difficult to focus on one
- Nothing is well structured, no clear space division provided
- There are so many confusing options to find a product, that it becomes impossible to predict the definite path
- Younger customer are looking for value propositions
- Everyone loves colourful, bright, emotive images
- Doubts about inclusivity, as fonts are too small
Heuristic Analysis
Heuristic means discovery
- Discover all of the problems that I can perceive on the site
- Discoveries based on conversion optimization best practices
Reference website
- Initially considered Macy’s, for design inspiration
- But usability testing showed that customers are finding most of the competitor’s website uninspiring, including Macy’s
- So focused on making an Out of the Box modern, clean and niche based experience.
- Inspiration from a lot of modern popular resources, including but not limited to, Louis Vuitton
Homepage Observations
Findings
- Crowded with distracting features
- Unorganized sections in display
- No hierarchy, and colours are all over the places
- Confusing to find product as repetitive sources exists
- Pop ups are annoying for customers
- Menubar is overly crowded, and fonts are too small. Very hard to find anything
Action
- Add value proposition by prioritizing customer’s Time, Experience and Services.
- Focus on support and giving back to keep the trust and reliability from customers
- Prioritize on seasonal niches. Keep it limited and display in minimal, organized way with emotional big images
- Highlight best sales section, do not put all types of offer there
- Eliminate ‘Hamburger’ menu as Kohl’s offers a lot of different types of products. Take them to a different page from navigation bar to make the finding experience an easy one
- In this pandemic time, highlighting the safety and delivery services is necessary
Department Preview Page Observations
Findings
- There is a dedicated page for departments which can be accessed though menu bar. But as a customer gets busy to find the right sub-category from that overcrowded menu, the department page stays unexplored
- Again there is a lot going on in department pages. There are too many unorganized promotions, and they are not showing in proper clean structured boundaries
- Department are showing both promos and products, which is very aesthetically unpleasant
- There is again a side bar with impractical amount of filters
Action
- When selecting a department from navigation bar, bring a dedicated page with one big relevant image
- Keep the sub-categories very minimal, effective and non repetitive
- Having one definite clear path to find a product is better than having more everywhere repetitively
- If the sub-categories need their own categories, make them appear in another column beside with equal weight font and space
- Change images for each selections
Products in Department Page Observations:
Findings
- Product images are small, and category images are smaller. Variation in size and distraction from focusing on displaying individual product is hampering the shopping experience for customers
- There are still filters all across the page
- There is no boundary indication for an item or their information
Action
- Keep the filter titles on top.
- Make the images big
- Provide grid or cards for individual products
- When the filter is clicked, a side bar pops from the left, which hides the product display page behind. When the filter selection is completed, click done to go back to filtered product. In this way product presentation will always be perfect
Product Page Observations
Findings
- There is only one big image with other smaller images for selection
- The shopping options are provided on the side bar, and in the bottom we have so many things. Description, relevant products, relevant many product suggestions etc. and again relevant product
Actions
- Keep the images in big sizes on the left
- Keep all the text on the right side of product info, and shopping options
- Keep the reviews in collapsed option
- Provide only 3 relevant product at the bottom of the page, in equal sizes
After adding to Cart observations:
Findings
- A pop up comes from top with more product recommendation hindering the purpose of checkout
- The page width is full size which completely interrupts the experience of continued shopping for that moment.
Action
- Make the pop up come from right, with clear information. And only give two options in the bottom: keep shopping or view cart
- Keep the background page hidden in dark, but customer can click there to go back to continuing to shopping
Cart page observations:
Findings
- All the products come in a table with many text based information
- At the time of checkout they should be presented more aesthetically to confirm purchase decision
- Promotions are all over the place, whereas helpful support info is in the middle hidden ineffectively.
Action
- Need big images to keep the impression positive
- Need absolute minimal text based info
- Make the delivery option less cluttered and utilize lesser space
- Provide cards for each product
- On the right bar, provide shipping, return payment based info in collapsible selection
Checkout Page Observations
Findings
- In checkout, it asks to log in, with no guest checkout option
- There is a step indicator once I log in to check out, but it is not clearly stating the number of steps. Forms are not greatly structured, and there is no help when trying to fill out the information. It cannot even detect addresses. Payment options only through cards are available and there is only one shipping method. Huge custom fee information at the bottom.
Action
- Let the client do guest checkout using any email address.
- In every step provide the on-page simple, short, modern, and effective form with suggestions, auto-detection, auto-correction, spell review, etc. features. Provide all major payment options with more shipping options with estimated time and cost. Mention the Custom fee concern with an estimated amount, but keep the details hidden behind the link.
Guest Checkout Page Observations
Findings
- There is a form and below that is product info, where on right column space is wasted
- Nothing has its dedicated area marked
- There are still promotion
Action
- Keep the form on left, on right clear product list, and cost info column
- Make the form interesting by dividing in meaningful parts so that it does not seem like a lot of work all together
Prototype:
KOHL’s homepage prototype on Figma.