Multi-Year Wayfair Omnichannel Checkout Experience Vision Yields $2M+ Savings
I directed a multi-year vision that aligned teams and paved the way for innovative cross-org opportunities. The solution was predicted to save the physical retail team a minimum of $2M+ in software licenses and maintenance over four years.
Role & Responsibilities
Senior Experience Design Lead
Directed design discovery
Collaborated with and presented to senior leadership
Conducted competitive audit
Aligned vision and strategy
Fostered relationships across teams
Facilitated idea generation, service design, and decision-making workshops
Prototyped and tested service and experience
Informed vendor design decisions, product requirements
Explored initial product design direction and contextual complexities
Prototyped digital product
Conducted end-user testing
Team
Physical Retail Checkout and Customer Service team cross-functional Pod Leads (Business Strategy, Engineering, Experience Design, and Product Management). I was the Senior Experience Design Lead on this team.
Steering Committee: cross-functional senior leadership involved in the kickoff and defining learning agenda criteria, then bi-weekly to provide updates, gather insights, and align on overall direction.
Working team: a combination of two cross-functional Pods to connect the customer sales floor and checkout experiences.
Remote, distributed
On-site visits about every 6 weeks
Timeline
Three 1-Quarter phases, Activated over 20 months
Q1: Kick-off, Stakeholder interviews, Competitive Audit, Building a Vision and Strategy
Q2: Value, Usability, Feasibility, and Business Viability Risk testing/assessment
Q3: Vendor Evaluation, Making the Case, Product Strategy, Exploration and End-User Feedback
➡️ View Competitive Audit, Process and Lessons Learned, which I presented to the Wayfair Global Experience Design Team
Wayfair was planning to launch its first large-format store in spring 2024.
We expected store employees to support omnichannel experiences, omni-assortments, and multiple types of fulfillment in the same transaction across multiple departments.
We also expected to provide various checkout options so that customers could confidently complete their purchases using the method that best suits their needs.
Inside Wayfair’s first brick-and-mortar store in Wilmette as it opens.
Image credit: Wayfair
But what we didn't know was how this would come to life. What was our path there?
When trying to kick off the initiative, I recognized some challenges —
No direct end users
We didn’t have direct access to Store Employees yet, unrealistic to access customers within the initial research timeframe
Team expectations
Stakeholders and Teammates were distributed and either new to Physical Retail or new to Wayfair (myself included)
Time and commitments
At the same time, we were opening our first of three Specialty Retail Brand Stores
Reframing the challenges as opportunities, I guided my Pod to identify problem statements for our Program, Process and Team.
Program and End-Users
How do we support an omnichannel checkout experience for customers visiting our large format Wayfair stores?
KPIs
Learning from analogous teams, businesses, and experiences
Resourcefulness
Process and Team
How might my team members and stakeholders easily be involved in the process while launching our first SRB?
KPIs
% Participation
Reduced time to respond
Less time in sync meetings, more focused and valuable
Amidst the challenges, I delivered discovery research and Checkout team vision alignment in 6 weeks.
New distributed team? Limited time?
No direct access to end users? No problem.
I proposed a deeper exploration of the checkout experience to formulate an actionable vision. I led a collaborative kickoff meeting with critical stakeholders and conducted focused interviews to tap into their expertise, bring their contributions into the process, and help unlock paths forward.
In order to shape a learning agenda and competitive audit criteria, I conducted stakeholder interviews with senior leadership and fellow teammates.
Strategies I used to support senior leadership and pod participation:
Transparency and access: Always accessible notes, thoughts, images, content, cloud files, supports async review and communication.
Shorten time together: Focused interviews with a pre-interview survey. Provided interview preferences in the survey.
Set clear expectations: Communicate invitations with a clear purpose and convenient links.
Allow time for pre-thought: Share information in-advance to read, digest, and comment on to focus meetings.
In one week, with input from the interviews and teammates, I audited 40 different retailers of varying square footage, verticals, and experiences.
We used the synthesis to inform the point of view and inspire our design principles.
The synthesis helped us identify:
Best-in-class checkout themes
Four primary categories of checkout services offered
Patterns and behaviors associated with each category
Opportunities for our industry and markets
Related experiences and patterns signaling the future of Checkout and Customer Service
➡️ View Competitive Audit, Process, and Lessons Learned I presented to the Wayfair Global Experience Design Team
During the idea generation workshop I facilitated, I proposed a recommendation to initiate reactions from the team and stakeholders and build a shared vision.
Because of the connection to supporting value for the Salesfloor Associate and the Customer via the mobile app, I suggested we proceed with a direction prioritizing self-service mobile options before fixed self-service options.
However, we landed in a different direction after a healthy debate with stakeholders about dependencies, timing, and expected speed to value with our vendor.
➡️ View Checkout Large Format Discovery Competitive Audit & Service Design Recommendations presentation used to share results and drive the technical idea generation workshop.
Knowing what I know now, I would do some things differently.
A key strategy for maximizing resources is to make larger business-benefit connections with other end-user groups that share the same needs and behaviors.
Coordinating and planning can be a massive blocker and contribute to decision-making. For example, coordinating with the mobile app development team was overwhelming and time-consuming. In the future, I’d be more curious about constraints and generate alternate paths forward.
The solution for the Physical Retail Team alone was predicted to save a minimum of $2M+ in software licenses and maintenance over four years, with the opportunity to save $7M+ when scaled across the Physical Retail, Customer Service, and Design Services teams.
We started exploring in-house options until shifting priorities and team dependencies paused our homegrown proof-of-concept.
Based on the results and challenges with the vendor, we saw an opportunity to leverage Wayfair’s rich digital history to launch an omnichannel physical shopping experience.
I identified overlapping business challenges and patterns as I connected with team leads across business units.
What initially began as a project to develop a solution for Physical Retail Checkout evolved into a strategic opportunity for Wayfair.
The strategy I lead the team through poised support similar needs across various business units, showcasing adaptability and a forward-thinking approach.
After aligning our vision and strategy, we combined efforts across teams to prototype experiments to test the service with our first store employees.
Overall, I learned lessons in efficient stakeholder collaboration, team dependency timing, and business value multiplication.
Lesson 1: The value of asynchronous and synchronous efficiency for inclusive involvement: creatively involving my teammates and stakeholders with tools they’re most comfortable with, when and how they want to contribute.
Lesson 2: While competing priorities and dependencies may result in pausing and pivoting, the problem may resurface. Ensure the exploration and decisions are documented for future reference.
Lesson 3: Multiply a product or service's customer and business value by connecting shared challenges across business units.