hemi trenholm

Sale experience

For Debenhams

The Sale experience covers the sale and offers journeys on the Debenhams website.

The aim of this project was to understand customer expectations when shopping reduced items online. Key business metrics included, increase average order value and maximise profitability of stock.

I was responsible for the entire UX, conducting a 'discover' phase. I started by reviewing customer verbatim from previous surveys and call centre logs. This helped me to understand customer perceptions of sale at Debenhams. I then interviewed key stakeholders, researched competitors, and reviewed analytical and SEO data.

One thing that became clear was the importance of terminology - 'sale', 'offer' and 'clearance'. To understand how customers used these terms, I conducted an online card sort. Participants viewed examples of permanently and temporary reduced products from various seasons. Results showed that temporary reduced items classified as an offer. Whilst items that had a reduction of 50% or more fell into the sale category. The exception were products from previous seasons, which participants referred to as clearance.

After this, I conducted 2 days of internal usability lab testing. Sessions started by asking participants about their recent sale shopping. Once we had established a mission, I asked them to show me on a website of their choice. I then asked them to repeat the mission on Debenhams. After each session, I met with observers to discuss key takeaways and refine technique. Two things became clear, the importance of refining by size and the visual look of the sale area.

Armed with this knowledge, I moved onto the design phase. To better address business needs and customer expectations, I redesigned the sale page. I designed several iterations and defined rules to ensure the page would work in all trading situations.

Many of the recommendations from this project filtered into other project streams. But, we delivered the redesigned sale page along with a set of business guidelines. This resulted in a 2% points drop in exit rate and a satisfied trade team now the page had more flexibility.