Herman Miller wanted to address some existing navigation issues and improve their users’ experience before launching a planned expansion of online offerings.
They came to TUG for help with addressing these issues:
Higher than desired bounce rate
Low landing page utilization and limited browse behavior
Smaller than desired total order size
Confusion between the store site and the corporate site
eCommerce site menus prior to TUG engagement circa 2012
TUG Approach: Understanding Precedes Action
To understand the current online environment, TUG performed a heuristic review of Herman Miller’s online store. We had conversations with the eCommerce team to learn about the catalog structure and navigation, shopping cart usage, and background on the technology underlying the site.
From this information, we generated hypotheses to test around these topics:
Cart abandonment and wish list
Category listing pages
Shop by room and designer
Check out
Cross-site usage
Recommendations
Based on these findings, we suggested the following changes:
Clarify “At a Glance” product offerings and remove the seldom used “Shop by Room” global navigation element.
Tie strong design and brand identity to the user experience by including iconic visual images.
Surface bestsellers without overloading users with the exhaustive product catalog.
Allow for targeted merchandising and promotional opportunities.
Herman Miller’s Outcomes
Herman Miller launched their site on time, in October 2012 (with a secondary launch in May 2013).
Metrics showed:
An improved conversion rate and increased sale size, consistently across all mediums (direct, pay per click, referrer, and organic).
The average size of purchase increased by 67% (from 1.25 items to 1.45 items per transaction).
Revenue increased by about 45% year-over-year after the initial launch in October.
After additional changes launched in May, revenue increased nearly 70%.
“TUG people are really down to Earth; they listen and they understand; they apply their knowledge in thoughtful and meaningful ways and it’s not intimidating and it’s not pretentious. I like that.”
Interested in Achieving the Same Results?
The Understanding Group specializes in Digital Strategy, Digital Design, and Research. TUG clients make better decisions, incur less risk, and achieve stakeholder alignment because they invest in better ways to organize and manage complex systems.
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