Party City
Faster Shopping with Live Inventory Status
Overview
Party City is the largest retailer of party goods in the U.S., with 700+ stores across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and an online inventory of over 50,000 products.
Learn more about Party City at www.partycity.com.
Problem
Users were dropping out of the purchase funnel because they couldn't filter products based on availability at their local store. Users would spend a significant amount of time browsing and clicking on search results, only to realize that their desired items weren't available for pickup. This resulted in lengthy shopping sessions, frustration, and cart abandonment.
Goal
To decrease cart abandonment and increase conversion by clearly displaying inventory data, preventing user errors, and removing checkout blockers caused by inventory issues.
Results
My team created a global banner that used auto-geolocation to display a user's nearest pickup store, redesigned product pages to display live inventory data from that store, and created a go-forward path for out-of-stock items by allowing users to (1) change their pickup store to another nearby store or (2) switch from pickup to shipping. Cart abandonment decreased by 6%, while conversion increased by 1% during a 90-day monitoring period. Customer satisfaction also increased by 10%.
Research & Synthesis
Platform
Mobile and desktop site (75% of our users browse our site on a mobile device, and 70% convert on desktop).
Who are our users?
Our primary target audience consists of mothers who want to create celebratory moments with their families. They prioritize finding specific products they know their children will love as well as speed (with 75% of users opting for in-store pickup). We designed our new experience with these users in mind.
Session replays & online feedback revealed frustration at the shopping process.
To understand where users were getting upset, we first reviewed shopping session recordings through Auryc, our session replay software. We also reviewed the lowest ratings on our online feedback tool to see why users were dissatisfied with their experiences.
The Problem
“It said "In-Store Pickup," but I still can't get it?!”
“Why show me items that aren't available at my store?”
“Why isn't there an option to filter items based on store, like Target?”
Ultimately, users were confused because the “In-Store Pickup” label under each product was misleading users into believing that stores always had the item in stock. However, these labels were actually links for customers to pull up the “store availability” modal, check for store inventory, and input a value of at least “1” for the store they wanted to select as their pickup store.
If users failed to click this link and instead clicked the Add to Cart button, the item would be added straight to Cart as a shipping-only item, which was the default setting.
This confusion resulted in a repeated pattern:
Users would see the In-Store Pickup link, assume the item was in stock, and click “Add to Cart.”
The item would be added as a shipping-only item.
Upon reviewing the Cart, the user would notice that their desired item wasn’t scheduled for pickup and would attempt to specify a pickup store, only to realize that the item was out of stock at their preferred pickup store.
Users would then have to find a substitute product, sometimes repeatedly adding more items that weren’t available at their preferred store.
Unable to find a product they could pick up, and disheartened at the length of time spent shopping, users would become frustrated and eventually abandon their carts.
Aligning Business & User Goals
Both the company and our users had an interest in convenience, clear inventory positions, and easy checkout.
After watching the replay videos and gathering feedback, we realized that there were so many misleading labels, hidden steps, and inventory shortages that users felt hopeless about putting together their party. We had to help users quickly determine whether or not they could get their desired products and simultaneously prevent them from making mistakes. Our design solutions would focus on these goals.
The Solution
Hypothesis: If we display inventory positions clearly and offer workarounds for inventory shortages, we can decrease user frustration and cart abandonment.
We wanted to create visual cues that would:
Indicate the location of a user’s nearest store.
Show the inventory of items at that store.
Allow users to filter out products that aren’t available at their nearest store to save time.
Prevent users from adding out-of-stock items to their cart.
Give users another way to receive an item in the event that their store runs out of stock.
The Redesign
Competitive and comparative analysis revealed useful design patterns.
First, we looked at how other large retailers displayed inventory availability across their site.
New Feature: Universal store banner minimized inventory confusion by automatically setting a user's default store based on geolocation.
To start users off right, we created a banner that would display their nearest store using data from their IP address. Thereafter, all product inventory data would be dynamically pulled from that store, which cleared up confusion about whether the item was available at a user's preferred store. We also gave users the ability to change this if they wanted to change their shopping destination, leading to a more flexible experience.
“In-Store” toggle allowed users to filter out items that weren’t carried in their store.
For the product listing page, we wanted users to be able to browse more quickly and focus only on the items that they could get in their store. To speed up the shopping process, we added colored inventory descriptions on the screen and created an “in stock at my store” toggle that allowed users to filter out online-only items. To give our users more options, we also allowed users to change that store if there was no inventory in their preferred store.
“Get it by…” messaging allowed users to quickly choose their receiving method.
When it comes to planning parties, we know that receiving speed is very important for our users. That’s why we decided to add a “get it by…” message on the product details page to help our users determine which receiving message to choose. Colored inventory statuses in the right-hand corner also helped users quickly determine whether an item was available.
The cart redesign displayed all out-of-stock receiving methods granularly so that customers didn’t have to check the inventory status of each item to realize it was unavailable.
During testing, we noticed that users would often add items of varying receiving methods and then try to switch them all to one method in the cart to make their experience more convenient. We noticed that this process was tedious because customers would have to navigate to the product detail page just to check the inventory positioning of the 3 different receiving methods. Our solution: display all out-of-stock receiving methods up-front in Cart so that users could quickly determine the best method for getting as many items as possible. This allowed users to make a quick decision and go straight to checkout.
In the event of an inventory shortage, alert modals offered another way to get a specific product instead of finding a replacement.
In the past, when an in-store item on our site ran out of stock during an open shopping session, the item would be automatically removed from Cart. We wanted to design a new experience that would alert the user of the inventory shortage and prompt them to either change their store or switch to shipping instead. We created a pop-up that would be triggered when the user clicked the “Checkout” button in their cart. On it, we provided users with instructions for adjusting their products and quick-access links for them to change them on the spot. This gave users another way to continue to checkout without having to spend extra energy and time searching for a substitute.
Final Thoughts
After launch, we noticed that cart abandonment had decreased by 6%, and conversion had increased by 1% during a 90-day monitoring period. Reports from our feedback tool also indicated that customer satisfaction had increased by 10%. By the end of the year, conversion had increased by 32%. Our future iterations would focus on shrinking the size of the receiving method content slots and creating icons for a faster read. We also hope to include the inventory positions of swatches (numbers, letters, and sizes) onto the product listing and product detail pages.