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The Challenge
Staples.com determined
that the key to online success and increased market share was to make
its e-commerce site as usable as possible. Staples wanted the site to
be "customer-driven": to support customer needs in an easy-to-use,
intuitive way.
The Approach
HFI and Staples spent hundreds of hours evaluating users' work environments,
decision-support needs, and tendencies when browsing and buying office
products and small business services through the Web. Methods included
data gathering, heuristic evaluations, and usability testing.
The Outcome
The new Staples.com site has increased usability, reduced clicks, time-saving
navigational tools, and personalized time-saving features for quick access.
Specific site improvements include:
- a streamlined, intuitive navigational framework for improved usability,
- intuitive searching capabilities,
- personalized shopping lists for frequently purchased items,
- comparison charts,
- persistently viewable shopping cart for ease in selecting and viewing
items,
- the option to securely store credit cards,
a dramatically shortened registration process,
- an online Rebate Center for e-commerce, catalog and retail shoppers
to print rebate forms and check the status of submitted rebates,
- further improvements to be implemented soon.
"Partnering with HFI we are able to further evaluate our customers'
online shopping experiences and needs, and translate them into significant
site improvements," said Jeanne Lewis, president of Staples.com.
Performance Results
Since the May 2000 relaunch, metrics show:
- 67% more repeat customers The independent research firm
MediaMetrix found that the site had 300,000 repeat customers in the third
quarter, as compared to 180,000 in the second quarter. "This 67%
jump speaks to the increased stickiness of site and the positive experience
of a customer the first time through," said Colin Hynes, Director
of Site Usability at Staples.com, who oversaw the usability effort and
worked closely with the HFI team.
- 31-45% reduced dropoff rates Staples.com's internal
metrics show a 31% decrease in dropoff rate from the home page, and 45%
decreased dropoff for SKU sets (lists of products that Web customers browse
through the site).
- 10% better shopping experience BizRate found that the
Staples relaunch improved ease of placing orders, overall purchasing experience,
and likelihood of purchasing again, each by about 10%.
- 80% increased traffic MediaMetrix found that since the
site relaunch, Staples.com has ranked first in the office-supply industry
in unique daily visitors. And when the Christmas shopping season began
after Thanksgiving, 2000, Staples.com had a 80% increase in unique daily
visitors - twice the average increase for other sites, and the second
best in the world for any category of site.
- Increased revenue It's hard to pinpoint cause and effect
with certainty, but third-quarter 2000 sales were up 491% over the previous
year and also increased over the second quarter.
Metrics aren't the only encouraging signs. The relaunched Staples site
also recently won a prestigious award for best business-to-business site
from MIMC, the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council. Says Hynes, "HFI's
team of usability experts and customer-centric approach were key factors
in Staples.com winning this award. As with any good partnership, they
share the Staples.com vision of creating outstanding customer service
through a great Web experience."
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