THE CHALLENGE

Best Buy needed to reduce oversell on bestbuy.com during high-traffic shopping periods (e.g., Thanksgiving weekend) and message their online customers when product availability changed during browse and checkout flows.

The discovery phase of this project revealed that inventory was checked only twice during a shopper’s experience. And once a product was added to the cart, no further checks were performed until the item was ready to ship.

MY ROLE

UX architect, UX writer

THE SOLUTION

The back-end solution ensured that inventory checks occurred throughout the browse experience and at every checkout step (delivery/shipping, payment, review/submit, and order confirmation).

I managed the front-end message experience (using the existing messaging UI) and wrote copy that informed online shoppers when changes were made to their cart (product backordered or removed from their cart). To demonstrate all possible scenarios to the project team and product owners, I built a guided Axure prototype.

The wireframe below details changes made to the Review & Submit step to inform the customer of their cart status and options. In this scenario, an item sold out and would no longer be available, so it was removed. Another item sold out and is backordered. The customer can choose to remove the backordered item.

THE RESULTS

Having items become unavailable while browsing or placing an order is not a positive shopping experience.

However, because of these improvements, at least 65,000 people who shopped between Thanksgiving and Christmas were slightly less unhappy when they learned sooner—rather than later—that they needed to rethink their gift options.

Visit the guided Axure prototype to review all scenarios, messaging, and user options.