Enhancing Mobile Revenue: Analyzing and Optimizing the Checkout Process with NorthStar Group

Problem Statement

After launching a new mobile website, a global specialty toy retailer noticed that their mobile revenue for both “Click and Collect” and “Home Delivery” methods had decreased considerably.
This is an issue that requires attention at any time of the year, but it was a critical concern since they were approaching holiday season. Historically, more than 40% of their yearly sales were completed in the fourth quarter, so they needed to act fast.

Challenge

They knew that they were losing out on a significant amount of revenue through their mobile website but did not know what the contributing factors were. One major hurdle was that, like most seasonal retailers, they had a mandatory “code freeze” that goes into effect every November 1st. This meant that they needed a partner to investigate, provide recommendations, and help them implement a solution within a short amount of time.

Solution

They partnered with NorthStar Group Analytics & Marketing in August, with only 2 months to remedy the problem. The first step was to verify that it wasn’t simply an analytics implementation issue, resulting in inaccurate reporting. By comparing Adobe Analytics data with their backend sales data, NorthStar Group was able to determine that the revenue data was accurate.

NorthStar Group then needed to determine if the problem was related to external (marketing) or internal (website challenges) factors. By conducting an audit of their marketing channels, such as organic search, affiliate marketing links, product reviews, social media, and paid search, NorthStar Group determined the problem to be website related.

By completing a funnel analysis, NorthStar Group was able to identify several macro-level issues that led to an increase in abandoned carts such as a 6 step checkout process, and a postal code lookup widget that wasn’t optimized for mobile, making it difficult to use.

NorthStar Group implemented Adobe Analytics error tracking to see what page users were on, and what error message they received. Implementing field tracking as well allowed a more granular look into the exact field where users abandoned the process. Findings included:

The delivery/shipping page was seeing the highest drop off rate during the checkout process.
Users were experiencing 2.2 errors per visit and if they made it far enough into the checkout process, it was closer to 10 errors per visit.
Unnecessary fields such as “Title” were required fields and were causing errors.
Old passwords weren’t migrated over to the new mobile site so every user had to recreate a new password.
When creating a new password, errors would erase all information that a user had entered, essentially making them start all over again.
Users could still click on out of stock items.
Multiple delivery options (“Delivery” and “Click & Collect”) were confusing.

Finally, to combine the quantitative analysis with qualitative, NorthStar Group used UserTesting.com to observe people using the mobile site, further highlighting the checkout process pain points, and filling in any gaps.

Results

By taking a deep dive into their mobile checkout process, NorthStar Group was able to provide them with a list of items to address that would enhance their checkout process and increase conversions, prioritizing any quick wins first.

By completing this analysis and helping them implement these necessary changes, they now have a better checkout experience for their users during the critical holiday shopping season.