Case Study
Website UX
Enhancing the Refurbished Shopping Experience
UX Strategies for Visibility and Consumer Confidence
As part of implementing continuous improvements to the website experience and standing up our CRO Taskforce, this study highlights improvements to an existing site section. Aligning to the business goals/objectives, analyzing user behaviors for the website, and implementing improvements based on this data.
Year
2023
Company
Bose Corporation
Certified Refurbished Listing Page: Visual Designer, Lilia Sanabria | Copywriter, Steven Slaybaugh | Interaction Designer, Jessica Jones (me)
Project Background
There’s a compelling business case to reposition refurbished products on the website. Preliminary research shows:
There is a segment of potential customers whose primary motivation for purchase is product discounts.
In the United States, "refurbished" was the most widely searched term on bose.com. For context, nearly 2,400 searched this term with a 94% click-through rate (February 2022).
Customer feedback was also received on difficulty finding refurbished products on the site.
This led the marketing web experience team to request an evaluation from UX to rethink our current strategy on the website.
My Role
I partnered with the creative and website experience team to redesign our approach to refurbished products.
Complete end-to-end analysis to validate the business case per project brief, and implement a strategy for positioning on the existing website. Under the direction of the UX Lead, project work included competitive analysis, data analytics, review of information architecture including site navigation, collaboration with visual designer and copywriter, defining and planning of A/B test, and delivery of UX strategy to the authoring team.
Post-launch, I also undertook some quick user research to assess if customers were getting the information they needed on Refurbished products and identify if there were additional pain points for customers shopping these products. This was backed up with additional data analytics and working on through CRO Taskforce to improve further.
Project Overview
The marketing web experience team discovered that consumers are frequently looking for more information about what a Refurbished product is, and if the quality is comparable to a first-quality product. Currently, on the Outlet page, we have this content in a collapsable component, but this has a negative impact on our organic search performance and analytics shows it is rarely expanded.
SEO input: there is a strong organic search volume for the term "Bose Outlet" and therefore a strong preference to keep that URL in our site structure for discoverability.
The Ask
The implementation of a sound communication strategy on the website will help Refurbished be easily findable for those looking specifically for it, without interfering with the customer journey to purchase Bose products.
Google Search for Certified Refurbished
Bose certified refurbished google search results on desktop and mobile devices.
Problem Statement
What is the problem we are trying to solve for users?
Looking to provide customers searching for refurbished products a better path from organic search or site navigation and improve their journey. We also want to provide relevant content to instill consumer confidence in the purchase of refurbished products. All while balancing that we are a premium brand.
From additional user research, users indicated they expect outlet and refurbished products to have their own section on the site.
Goals/Hypothesis
How does this tie to the business goal and objective here?
Business Goals
Conversion-focused. Increase refurbished orders and increase refurbished revenue.
Goal aligned with business
To help users search for refurbished products, have a space to gain more confidence in buying a product refurbished, and help to give that category of product some better visibility.
Hypotheses:
If we provide an easy path to certified refurbished products whether from organic search or site search, customers will be able to find the information and products they are looking for easier to make a product purchase.
If we educate customers about refurbished products by Bose, we will increase conversion and instill consumer confidence in these purchases.
Design Process
Through customer insights and an in-depth look at competitive research, it was determined that the site needs to communicate the benefits of refurbished products, make them more findable, and give them their section on the site.
Analysis and Evaluation
Competitive Analysis: How do others introduce Refurbished products to the customer journey?
Analysis of the current site experience including use cases and flows, data analytics of current pages, and review of options and implications to navigation and search.
Review of current and future site capabilities to keep the test in line with current site functionality and keep the experience for the text consistent across the site.
Collaboration with visual designer and copywriter. Including revisions and reviews.
Alignment with the SEO team on URLs and mapping of site structure for this category of products.
Provided two options for site structure.
Solutions balanced the constraints and needs of SEO and the site experience.
Handoff and documentation provided to the content authoring team and marketing web experience team for intended interactions and specs for the site section. Including details of two separate A/B tests to be implemented.
QA of experience before launching with feedback for content authoring.
Evaluation post-launch via user research and data analytics to inform updates for Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).
Some highlights from the artifacts delivered…
Analysis and Evaluation
Miro board summary of UX analysis including competitive research, user flows, data analytics, and research into existing site structure.
Highlights from Competitive Research
Most competitors keep the “Refurbished" section linked on the footer, giving it less prominence in the journey.
Refurbished is the best-understood term for naming the section.
Discount brands or goto sites for deals (Walmart and Best Buy) tend to mention sales first in the nav. Bose brand does not fit this pattern.
Other Research and Analysis Highlights
"Benefits of Buying Refurbished" has little interaction and people do not look for what this means, which may diminish potential buyer confidence.
In the top nav, for both desktop and mobile, Headphones and Speakers dominate clicks. Other categories are low.
The main motivators for purchase are product discount, rigorously tested, and a warranty the top reasons why people buy refurbished.
6 in 10 feel refurbished products should have a special dedicated space on a retailer’s website.
Alignment with the SEO team
Site map of the Outlet hub page with support listing pages structure to align SEO, URLs, and content/purpose of each page.
How did we go about doing this?
Search and site landing listing page structure
Based on our research and analysis of the current site experience and use cases, we have highlighted some main takeaways the recommendations align with the brief to create a landing page for all special offers for organic traffic. The assumption here is even those searching out Refurbished fall into a segment of bargain shoppers. In addition, allow deeper dives into content for those who seek it, but leave the tiles highly visible.
Assumption: Not all consumers need this content front and center as Bose brand may already instill consumer confidence in products whether new or refurbished.
Search: This functionality is being improved on the site…this may also factor into a better experience for those searching refurbished on the site. But this is out-of-scope for this project.
Navigation: Add "Certified Refurbished" in the footer near other discount items. This is a common practice and pattern for other sites. Those accustomed to hunting for this information may look here based on experiences with other sites. A/B Testing options for navigation to help inform learnings from the new site structure/platform.
Consideration: Maybe sales/discounts are something that gets presented at a higher level in the top nav when it is sale season. But not something that is all year round. More research is needed to determine this path.
Proposed Design Solution
Desktop view of the original Outlet listing page (left) and the new Outlet Subcategory page with Refurbished listing page (right).
Results
How we will measure this? The plan.
6-8 weeks out we will start to look at the experience launched, and see if indeed it is helping meet the user and business needs. Iterative testing and improvement plan to be done.
Some initial learnings at launch:
On the web, organic and paid searches are the biggest drivers of traffic to the Factory Renewed product listing page.
Getting users to the content below the fold on desktop and mobile is a challenge as the exposure rates are low.
In the future, this continued work may tie some of the benchmarking and research for the new site platform to some of these insights, as a form of comparison. We may also have the opportunity to perform more qualitative usability tests of the experience.
Tools Used
Miro, Adobe XD, ContentSquare