Registry restocking guidance for couples during Covid-19
The Knot Registry Store had been seeing the impact of Covid-19 related shipping delays and shortages, and needed to quickly make some low lift, high impact changes to address a myriad of issues.
I lent their team a hand while they navigated staffing changes, and quickly got up to speed.
About this project
Timeline
2022 - 2023
Contributors
Adi Rutsgi, VP of E-Commerce
Wes Tyler, Engineering manager
Juliet O’Reilly, Senior UX Writer
Sarah Selph, Senior UX Researcher
Project TLDR
In Q1 2022, The Knot Registry Store was experiencing up to 70% out of stock rates, and couples were abandoning their registries rather than replacing out of stock gifts.
We tailored our interventions to work dynamically for 2 cohorts and saw:
30% increase of removals of OOS (out of stock) items by couples close to their weddings
16% - 20% increase in adds from the replacement carousel
15% increase in the average amount of in stock items in couples’ registries
Analyzing the user journey
In the current system, couples
would go through the entire Registry shopping experience without once
getting an indication that any item is unavailable.
It wouldn’t be until the user went into the “Manage Registry” section of
the site that they finally see ‘out of stock’ labels on their items.
Because so many items in our store were out of stock, we hypothesized that
users were spending time shopping in one session, only to come back in a
next session and discover that many of their items are unavailable. This
bad experience would lead them abandon.
Life cycle of registry shopping
The registry shopping experience is
shaped by two sets of users:
1. The couple, who are adding gifts months in advance of their wedding
2. Guests, who are purchasing gifts from a registry - usually within 3
months of the wedding
We need to ensure that couples can add and maintain available gifts in
their registry, so that guests have options to choose from when they
visit the registry.
Deleting gifts
Couples who choose to delete an out of stock gift may do so by clicking
on it within Manage Registry, which brings up a side panel with gift
details. Although users would have to scroll passed a carousel with
replacement options to remove the item, that carousel had a <1%
conversion rate.
Market research, constraints, collaboration
Competitive research screenshots & notes taken in figma
Big retailers struggling with the same issue had come to a common solution: note out of stock items as “backordered”. This would usually be accompanied by an estimated shipping date. Unfortunately, because of the way TKRS sources items, we could not guarantee that we would get restocked, or provide a restock date.
I worked closely with engineering partners to understand all of our technical constraints around different issues and ideas. I also looped in stakeholders from Merchandising, who could give me a clearer understanding of the real world details surrounding the issue.
I partnered closely with UX Writing and UX Research to run a user test to assess our approach. One question we wanted to answer: should we specify that the shipping delays are a result of Covid-19? Are users already aware of this? Is it a negative association?
Coordinating over figma comments with Juliet, the UX Writer for this team
Solutions
1. Dynamic guidance
Most guests purchase gifts from a registry
within 3 months of the wedding. In order to address the stock issue
effectively, we needed to provide couples with guidance relevant for their
wedding date.
- Couples within 3 months of their wedding could
be encouraged to remove unavailable gifts and add in stock items.
- For couples farther out from their weddings, we advised them
that items are likely to come back in time.
2. Quick removal
We wanted to make it easy for couples closer to their weddings to locate
and remove their OOS items, and then add replacements to ensure their
guests can find available gifts to purchase. In order to address that
first piece, we added logic that brings all OOS items to the top of the
Manage Registry screen for this cohort.
3. Finding available items
We added a filter to the shopping
experience to allow users to quickly and easily find available gifts.
4. Product cards
We updated the tag to say temporarily out of
stock, to indicate that it is likely to come back. We also added a tool
tip hover state to this tag, providing users with dynamic guidance based
on their proximity to their wedding date. For couples closer to wedding,
the tag displays in orange to catch attention.
5. Showcasing replacements
In order to increase conversions
on replacement options, we decided to showcase them after the removal.
Outcomes
Couples in our user testing all felt that the communications and solutions we provided to address the out of stock status of their items were helpful, improve transparency, and reflect positively on The Knot brand.
Our a/b testing was similarly positive:
30% increase in removals of OOS items by couples close to their weddings
16% - 20% increase in adds from the replacement carousel
15% increase in the average amount of in stock items in couples’ registries
