SMYTHS TOYS NEEDED A NEW ONLINE ECOMMERCE SITE AND WE HELPED THEM ACHIEVE IT.
OVERVIEW
Company name: Smyths Toys Superstores
Duration of project: 11 months, 2013 - 2014
Services we (Buy4Now Technologies) provided: Product design, UX research, project management, development, testing, training.
The company: Founded in 1986 in Galway, Ireland, Smyths Toys Superstores is an Irish multinational provider of children's toys and entertainment products with over 110 shops throughout Ireland and the UK and which is owned by the Smyth family.
The project: Within the extremely competitive large toy retailer market in the UK, Smyths Toys Superstores wanted to expand their market share. To do this they planned to increase their warehousing capacity and delivery services, and to update the online branch of their business by switching to a responsive, multi-currency website.
We, Buy4Now Technologies, were hired to deliver an end-to-end best in class, multi-currency responsive ecommerce solution for the online channel of their business.
ROLES
My role: Lead product designer.
Other designers who worked on this project: 1 other product designer from Buy4Now Technologies. 3 in-house content designers from Smyths Toys.1 contracted native app designer.
Size of the overall team: The Buy4Now Technologies team consisted of 1 product owner, 1 project manager, 1 business analyst, 2 designers, 3 R&D developers, 10 developers and 4 testers.
GOALS
Business goal: Increase revenue and brand loyalty in the competitive UK market by offering a responsive shopping experience and a competitively priced delivery service.
User goal: Easily shop for a large range of toys from any device. Have them delivered quickly and cheaply, even big box items.
KEY OBJECTIVES
Key design objective: Create a quality shopping experience that’s simple to use on any device while still offering all the product knowledge users require to inform their purchase.
Key technical objective: Develop a fully responsive ecommerce offering that uses the latest technologies and best practice methods.
Key business objective: Deliver the product on time and on budget with all agreed features included. Build relationships with the client for possible future engagement.
CHALLENGES
Problem Statement: This large retailer wanted to grow their revenue. They felt that their existing online service was not robust enough to allow them to expand their market share as they intended.
Scope & Constraints: The new site we were providing had a hard date to be operational and fully stable by early October in advance of their Christmas sales cycle. There would also have to be a seamless transition in the heavy flow of orders from their existing ecommerce site to the new site.
THE COMPETITORS
PRIMARY COMPETITORS
Argos, Amazon, and ToysRUs were Smyths Toys Superstores main competitors. While Amazon is an online only competitor the other two also competed with Smyths in retail parks and shopping centres across the UK. (note: ToysRUs shut all their US and UK stores and their online store in early 2019).
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WHAT THE PRIMARY COMPETITORS DO WELL
Argos
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Argos is one of the UK's best known and widely present retailers. Their catalogue method of shopping is well known and understood. The practice of choosing toys from the Argos Catalogue is a yearly tradition coming up to Christmas in many UK households, making it difficult for new market disrupters to steal a loyal customer base.
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Argos has integrated its online channel with its in-store channel to offer one service.
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Argos offers a store-by-store stock checking service online, and the ability to instantly reserve and collect items online for purchase in-store. This, in the world of online retail, is a powerful asset which requires a powerful stock management tool.
Amazon
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The world's largest, and best known online retailer.
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Centralised warehouses with vast amounts of stock, reducing the likelihood of products not being available, even at heavy traffic periods such as Christmas.
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Because of the diversity of its product offering the chances of customers having accounts, payment methods and shipping address already in existence increases the chance that Amazon will be the first choice for online purchasing of anything, including toys.
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Amazon offers many delivery options and pricing models.
HOW THIS IMPACTED OUR APPROACH
These two heavy-hitting online competitors put their focus on customer choice and diversity of purchasing options. To compete in this market our client would need to offer a wide product range, with guaranteed logistics that would keep their stock supply as constant as possible. They would also need to offer competitive delivery pricing and choice. We hoped that our responsive online product which would also offer users the ability to pay in either € or £ would help support these services.
THE USERS
"Smyths stores are fantastic. Really big. Their website isn't good though. I'd never buy toys from them online, it's too difficult to find what I'm looking for."
Customer: Female, 65-74
"I use the website because I don't often have time to drive out to one of the stores. It can be annoying to use though."
Customer: Female, 35-44
"Their delivery rates are great, I bought a trampoline and it was really cheap to get it delivered."
Customer: Male, 35-44
"I've had problems using the website in the past, but I usually just grit my teeth and I get there in the end!"
Customer: Male, 65-74.
KEY USER DEMOGRAPHICS
User 1: Female. 34-45. Shopping for their children and nieces and nephews. Competitive pricing is important. Fast delivery is important.
User 2: Male. 34-45. Shopping for their children and nieces and nephews. Time poor. Competitive pricing is important. Fast delivery is important.
User 3: Female. 65-74. Retired. Shopping for grandchildren. Wide product range is important. Delivery options are important.
HOW THIS IMPACTED OUR APPROACH
People did not really enjoy the current online shopping experience - The site felt quite dated and difficult to use. Customers could only shop on desktop, not tablet or mobile. The checkout experience was overly complicated. We would need to make sure that we addressed all their current key pain points when designing the new responsive site.
The toy market is very competitive so promotions (e.g. 20% off all weekend) and mulitbuy offers (e.g. Buy 1 get 1 half price), would be key differentiators.
Customers would expect high stock levels and a wide range of delivery options as standard.
TIME TO WIRE
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Us two Buy4Now Technology designers began wireframing key screens.
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We focused on primary features and interactions.
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When we had a simplified end to end user journey complete we reviewed them with the rest of the project team.
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We then walked the client through our proposed user journey.
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These wireframes would be used by our development team and project managers for internal scoping exercises.
Wireframes of the homepage layout, mini basket dropdown, and menu dropdown.
BRANDING THE PRODUCT
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The existing Smyths Toys Superstore branding was very strong and instantly recognisable.
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The Smyths project team wanted to ensure that the branding extended effectively to the online channel. However, as their branding uses a lot of bright colours (red, yellow, blue), which would not look well online when used in very large quantities, we advised that the online colour palette would need to include a secondary colour palette of supporting greys.
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We also advised that primary colours be used often as line colours only in conjunction with white fills.
UI DESIGN
We applied the agreed upon branding to our screen flows, section by section. In the meantime, other members of the Buy4Now Technologies project team had been working with the client's content designers to source and create imagery for the site's content areas. This was a larger task than the content designers had previously been used to as they now had to create content for multiple breakpoints.
Smyths Toys Superstores Homepage
Smyths Toys Superstores product listing
Smyths Toys Superstores product details
Smyths Toys Superstores shopping basket
OUTCOMES
WAS IT A SUCCESS
When the new site went live, after an initial dip for several days, Smyths saw a marked increase in their online sales. A large percentage of these sales came from mobile and tablet users.
They also found the admin panel solution we provided helped them create more powerful content and helped them manage their promotions and order tracking more effectively.
WHAT WE LEARNED
Getting buy-in from key stakeholders at earlier stages of the project would have saved us unnecessary pushback and revisions later on.
WHAT CHANGED
Iterate quickly and often.
Communicate directly, when possible, with key stakeholders.
Reach out to stakeholders for feedback and suggestions during not only the design phase but also the research phase.
Stakeholders have great industry knowledge that can inform product decisions.