OVERVIEW:

About Company: 

Shopify is a global e-commerce platform that allows anyone to set up an online store and sell their products. Merchants can also sell their products in person with Shopify's point-of-sale system.   

MY ROLE:

Carried out competitive analysis, remotely conducted user interviews and concept testing moderations with the target audience, collaborated with a UX Designer & a UX Researcher, analyzed findings, prepared the final report and recommended high-priority design changes.

PROJECT BACKGROUND:

Shopify's internal metrics had shown that more than 80% of people who signed up on its website never made it past its 14-day free trial and 50% of people who signed up never made it to a second session. Through user interviews and concept testing moderations, we were able to tap into users pain points while setting up a store on the Shopify website, the channels they use to test their business ideas, what more they needed from the website to start and scale up their business.

OBJECTIVES:
Behavior Exploration: 

• Gain a better understanding of the current process for testing business ideas from those that did.

• Understand in what channels, if any, they would look to test their ideas and how.

• Understand what data from the Shopify website and other sources they would need to monitor tests and make conclusions about their tests.

Concept Testing: 

• Understand if a “Simplified Version”, geared towards idea validation more so than a full-fledged online store, fits (or not) their process of starting a business.

• Understand how a “Simplified Version”, geared towards idea validation more so than a full-fledged online store, fits (or not) their process of starting a business.

RESEARCH PROCESS:

1 - Secondary Research

• I did a competitive analysis between Shopify and its competitors to gain insights into what Shopify has/has not to offer that is being offered/not offered by its competitors. 

• Shopify provides its services globally, however, our target users were Indian sellers only, so I compared different mobile apps and websites for selling products online in India Vs Shopify.

• I found that competitors provide cheaper plans and better customer support.

2 - User Interviews and Concept Testing 

• Then I moved forward to prepare a discussion guide, recruited participants and conducted 23 remote user interviews and concept testing moderations with Indian e-commerce sellers on UserZoom as I wanted to discover the drivers of the seller’s confidence in their businesses and e-commerce portals. 

• The e-commerce sellers were asked questions about their challenges while setting up their shopping portals, marketing their shopping portals and were shown concepts shared by the team. 

• This approach helped me understand the behavior of the e-commerce sellers beyond their usage of platforms, it also gave me a holistic picture of their goals and motivations for their e-commerce businesses. By showing a concept, I was able to know their first impression and what they wanted more out of it. 

2 - Analysis and Reporting

• I collated all the data in the Excel sheet using the Otter tool (for transcription), collaborated with a UX Designer and a UX Researcher and analyzed the data to identify the behavior patterns of users, major pain points for Indian sellers, what more they needed on the Shopify platform and how they can test their business ideas and scale up their business. 

• On the basis of our analysis, I then moved forward to prepare a final report in which I discussed design recommendations based on user insights and how Shopify can provide a successful user experience to Indian sellers.

KEY INSIGHTS:

• Identified goals, challenges and environment of Indian e-commerce sellers: The study enabled Shopify to understand the goals and challenges of Indian e-commerce sellers related to their businesses. This helped the company understand users perspectives about e-commerce platforms and their expectations from a platform.

• Created user journey map to drive better results: The user journey maps created based on the user touchpoints with the platform gave Shopify much-needed context. These journey maps helped in empathizing with the users and understanding their needs and challenges.

• Discovered drivers of sellers’ confidence: Discovered the drivers of seller’s confidence in their own business and e-commerce platforms. These confidence drivers laid the path when designing for better UX.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Design recommendations for the onboarding and dashboard UX to improve retention of Indian sellers: Delivered design recommendations based on user insights to optimize the user experience at specific touchpoints. The recommendations helped address the user needs and challenges that were affecting retention on the platform.

KEY LEARNINGS FOR ME:

• Planning way ahead for all activities (2 colleagues left in between and I led the complete project) 

• Conducting user interviews and concept testing (My first UX Research with these methods)

• Record and re-visit more than once (Gaining stakeholder buy-in for my insights and validating research findings)

• Identifying behavior patterns (For a better understanding of what influences users decisions)