Redefining plastic resin purchasing experience

Problem statement

The company's e-commerce website, initially designed by a third-party agency with a limited time and budget, suffered from numerous usability issues, particularly in the product browsing and purchasing experiences. This resulted in low sales conversion rate and high bounce rate.

Understanding competitive landscape

Before starting the project, I analyzed the existing website design and conducted a competitive analysis of leading e-commerce platforms to identify their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for innovation. This benchmarking informed our design decisions and helped us create a more competitive user experience.

Key pain points

In the first few weeks, I met regularly with the management team to discuss the website redesign plan. We highlighted key pain points of the existing website based on customer surveys, analytics data, and my own observations.

Key pain points of the existing website:

• Difficult to browse for products as they are all hidden in the navigation menu
• Inefficient and complicated purchasing experience
• High bounce rate on landing page due to slow loading times and many irrelevant content

Defining goals

We also defined project goals based on previously identified key pain points and competitive analysis.

Design opportunity

From the research, data collected, and goals carried out, we identified opportunities in our design using the HMW framework:

How Might We

• Make product discovery easier and more intuitive?
• Provide a seamless and secure checkout experience?
• Optimize the landing page for faster loading times?
• Create a more engaging and visually appealing landing page?

Landing page redesign

We optimized the content by providing various entry points for customers to easily browse plastic resins based on categories, brands, and applications. We also used a prominent full-width banner below the navigation menu to highlight promotions or new product releases. Throughout the redesign, we maintained a consistent visual style aligned with Tokoplas' brand guidelines.

Checkout page redesign

We streamlined the checkout process into a single-page design and reorganized the order summary for better clarity. By dividing content into smaller, card-based sections and improving visual hierarchy, we enhanced the overall browsing and purchasing experience, leading to a smoother checkout process.

Impact

• +2.1% in average conversion rate from 0.5% to 2.6% in the first 3 months after the redesign
• -24% in average bounce rate from 76% to 52% in the first 3 months after the redesign
• 4.2/5 net promoter score (NPS) based on 70+ Hotjar poll in the first 3 months after the redesign
• Won the 2021 SME100 Fast Moving Companies award 6 months following the redesign

Learning

• Effectively communicating with stakeholders across teams and tailoring my approach to their priorities is crucial for a designer handling a project with numerous stakeholders.
• I initially viewed creativity as the most important aspect of digital interface design. However, this project taught me the value of data-driven design. By analyzing website analytics, we identified key areas for improvement, such as the checkout process. Simplifying this process led to a significant increase in cart conversion rates.