More Sales. More Love.
First-in-class design wins larger market share within the online jewelry space
Key Challenges
James Allen wanted to position their brand as a key player within the online jewelry space. Some problems communicated to us included:
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Abandoned cart rate
-
High time on site
-
High volume of customer support calls
Study existing analytics/data
Before we sat down with stakeholders, we studied website performance & user behaviour. We needed some 'rough' data.
Synthesise research
Map insights & opportunities. Deeply understand problems we can solve.
How We Started
Speak to internal stakeholders
We needed to understand business goals & how much ground James Allen needed to cover in order to be a major player.
Ideate & Test
Brainstorm & share ideas, test them & continue iterating.
Interviews & field research
We held interviews at a neutral venue, mostly with couples, while we also visited shopping malls.
Step back & reflect
Did we answer the customer problem? Did we answer the business goals? What could we have done better?
Talking To Couples
& Store Staff
We invited customers consisting mainly of couples, to attend a neutral venue and spend a few hours with us for some conversation & fun.
We also visited a few local malls & setup a James Allen
kiosk. Our thinking was, "Let them come to us" which worked quite well. We spoke to people who were currently shopping for a ring or had recently purchased a ring.
While at the malls, we also spoke to sales staff to understand the types of customers & the common questions customers would ask.
We also wanted to understand customer behaviour when shopping at a store vs shopping online.
Further Landscape Analysis
Online
Shopping
Retail
Store
Browse
In-store
research
Research
Compare
Search
Review
Social
Media
Decide
=
Consumers are bombarded with information, yet the information they are seeking is not available in one place.
We reviewed competitors but more importantly, looked at other platforms which influence buying decisions. We reviewed user activity on social media platforms, blogs & also looked at search trends.
Key Research Learnings
Obviously we were drowning in research notes & insights. After much conversation & thought, we extracted the following:
•Males had no idea what the difference was between a Pave, Halo & Princess
•Males were using images, research & social media to make a buying decision
•Women lacked trust in men to choose the right stone & setting
•Males believed the more expensive the ring, the better it was
It was clear that James Allen's website needed to provide more educational resources without impacting the user flow. This was also an opportunity for the marketing team to create more targeted campaigns.
HMW allow males to make more informed online buying decisions?
We wanted to empower male customers to complete an online transaction with confidence.
Getting Creative - Design Studios
We ran a series of design studios both internally & also with customers. There were a few ideas we desperately wanted to test with customers, especially males. From these efforts, we learned:
•Males look at images of stones & rings
•Most males added features including images & icons to represent rings/stones
•Feedback from females was positive
Taken from a series of sketched ideas from customers, we tidied up the layout we could test further
As above, a drop down menu example we could test further
Final Concepts
Our design studio efforts eventually validated something we had actually discussed over lunch during our first few days of working together. That an image-driven menu may be well-suited, however at that time, it was quite a hard sell & seen as a risky move.
Needless to say, we were quite happy with the outcomes of our ideation & testing efforts.
Engagement rings category menu
Engagement rings main menu
Diamonds main menu
Account registration
from male customers
Key Outcomes
Sales from male customers
(approx. 63% higher in the first 6 months)
Abandoned cart rate
(approx. 32% less in the first 3 months)
Returns & refunds
(approx. 27% less in the first 3 months)
Team
Myself // 2 x Data Analysts // 2 x Devs // 1 x BA // 3 x UX // 2 x Researchers & more