MEC: Save for Later 🔖

Role: Sr. Manager, Product & UX
Core Team: Product Manager, UX/UI Designer, Front-end dev

The Problem

MEC Customers were using the shopping cart to save items that they were considering for a future purchase.

However, at the end of their sessions, items not purchased were lost, requiring customers to find them again later or bookmark them another way. 

 

The Hypothesis

If we provide a way for customers to save products for consideration, they will be more likely to purchase those products - increasing conversion rate, and decreasing cart abandon rate

Approach

1. Objectives & Success Metrics

Improve the customer experience through a convenient way to save and purchase saved products.
Measure the percentage of users who eventually purchase items they saved for later.
Success Metric: Percentage increase in conversions from saved items

User Engagement:
Track overall engagement with the save for later feature to see if it enhances user interaction with the platform.
Success Metric: Increase in the number of items saved for later per user.

 
 

2. Initial Research

We researched e-commerce best practices and familiarized ourselves with different approaches taken by other retailers


  • Finding, researching and purchasing products is a non-linear process. People need a way to save items to easily find them later.

  • Over 80% of ecommerce sites have implemented ‘save’ on PDP or PLP

  • The majority of our competitors offer some way for customers to save items whether it be through a fulsome wishlist feature, or a save in cart function.

  • Requiring customers to log in or find a hidden feature will increase friction in the experience.

 

3. Concepting & Iterating

We mapped out the user flows for multiple solution approaches, including a full wishlist experience and a cart-based “save for later” feature.

After reviewing the user flows with the developers and product managers, we decided that the “save for later” approach would be quicker to build, and allow us to understand customer appetite for the feature sooner.

We took a mobile first approach and sketched out concepts - iterating on the designs over two sprints until we felt confident with the feedback we were getting from usability testing sessions.

Key design principles:

  1. Low-effort: Customers must be able to use the save for later feature without logging in

  2. Discoverable: Make the ‘saved’ feature easy to find and access without overwhelming more critical actions (e.g. checkout)

  3. Clearly labeled: Strong information scent - Ensure customers understand the limitations of the feature (e.g. items are only saved on that device)

4. Storymapping & MVP definition

We mapped out the MVP, V1 and V2 features with developers and product managers - focusing on creating a complete and easy experience while keeping the implementation simple.

The final MVP included the following:

  • Saving items from the cart

  • Adding to the cart from your saved items

  • Confirmation messages when items are added / removed

  • Showing out of stock states

  • Products are saved on local device only

Initial Results & Iterations

Our initial launch saw high engagement and conversion rate for customers that used the feature

  • Save for Later users converted at 25% vs site wide cvr of 1.9%

  • Average order value (AOV) increased from $180 to $236

  • Only 1% of customers used the feature, indicating opportunity to increase prominence and develop marketing strategy.

Iterations

We performed a cohort analysis looking at timing of purchase, which helped us develop email reminders and marketing to bring customers back to the site
Email Click-through-rates were 30% higher than normal email campaigns
Conversion rates up 18%

 

Learnings

  1. Limited space in our flyout cart created competition between different elements.
    Product recommendations made customers think it was the end of the cart, impacting their ability to see their saved items

  2. Our decision to limit saved items to local devices only for MVP impacted engagement and usability
    While most customers understood the limitation, it was frustrating and didn’t support their organic shopping behaviour.

  3. Customers who were very excited by the feature wanted to be able to save items while browsing as well (Wishlist)