Finding a relevant accessory for a computer on CDW.com was tedious and uninspiring. I led the research & design to recreate the attach experience for one of the largest B2B IT companies in the US.

CDW wanted to sell more accessories from product pages and looked to our studio to help increase the average order value by promoting compatible accessories from product pages (PDPs). The goal was to Improve usability and findability of accessories to improve attach rate and AOV.

I led the research and design for this test. I designed a categorized module that resulted in a +31% lift in accessories added to cart and a +$27.9M lift in revenue impact.

Problem

It’s hard to find an accessory.

Hundreds of accessories could populate a single carousel. It was difficult to scan and find something of interest. Accessories were organized by highest revenue generated, meaning unrelated and nearly identical products were often prioritized:

The Challenge

Design an organized module to improve usability and discovery of accessories.

Our high-level goals were to…

1. Increase average order value.

2. Increase add to carts for accessories.

3. Improve relevancy for the recommendations logic.

The Method

Research → Design → Test & Learn

After understanding CDW’s goals, I looked to identify the friction points through user research, design mockups, and test them against the control experience.

1. Research (2 months)
   Journey map of attach pathways, competitive analysis, data analysis

2. Design (2 months)
   Wireframes, high-fidelity mockups, prototyping

3. Test & Learn (3 months)
   Usability testing, A/B testing, in-flight monitoring, executive summary

Journey Mapping

There are multiple pathways to add an accessory.

I created a journey map of all the possible pathways to add an accessory to cart. The product page (PDP) of the parent product seemed to be the best place to promote accessories, due to high traffic to those pages.

Competitive Analysis

Most B2B companies struggle with showcasing add-ons.

In a competitive analysis of 7 companies, most CDW’s competitors struggled to display accessories in an organized way. The most common patterns included carousels, accordions, and lists.

Using several metrics, I analyzed similar websites to determine which patterns and styles could be applied to CDW’s accessory module.

Quick Insights:

• Integrate cross-sell into the flow
  Show users several items that makes a perfect set with the added item without redirecting to another product page.

• Educate users about accessories
  Instead of simply showing products that match a certain category, explain why a particular pick is essential or valuable with the product being purchased.

• Minimize options in cross-sell
  Too many options means too much effort to make a sensible decision.

• Up-sell only the most relevant products
  This practice seems like the most difficult to implement, but could have the most impact.

Usability Testing

Users are open to purchase accessories, but only if relevant to their needs.

Usertesting.com was utilized to discover what worked on the site and identify existing pain points in the display and curation of accessories.

Both prospects and customers of CDW completed tasks and questions, and I compiled the feedback into the following takeaways:

Quick Insights:

• ~30% of customers are more likely to buy an accessory for computers and printers.
  The top parent products were laptops, small form factor computers, tablets, printers, and scanners.

• The carousel is unorganized.
  3 of 5 participants thought the layout of products was cluttered.

• Products aren’t relevant to diverse needs.
  More people clicked on the carousel arrows than View Full Product Details or Add to Cart.

• Users want to see differences between similar items.
  It’s overwhelming to determine the right product when similar ones are displayed next to each other.

Solution

A curated module with popular categories and more details

Armed with the knowledge of best practices and user needs, I collaborated with CDW product designers to create multiple iterations and ran usability tests for customer feedback.

I designed the final mockup with a vertical column of category tabs in the left rail, displaying only 4 products by default with an option to display another row.

Impact

Over the course of 57 days, this design was identified as a winner because of statistically significant lifts in the following metrics.

We paused the test in Optimizely and recommended CDW to launch this experience.

+31%

Accessories Added to Cart

+13%

Overall Adds to Cart

+8%

Average Order Value (AOV)

…ultimately resulting in

+$27.9M

Estimated Revenue Impact

Insights

Working with our analyst, the internal team identified several key insights and recommendations for the client.

The results of this experiment was later presented and shared with CDW’s PDP product team, the full e-commerce team, and key stakeholders.

Categories provide relevancy and curation.

The category tabs of the accessories module received the most engagement, with 1.79% of all visits selecting a category.

Quality over quantity.

Users appeared to be satisfied with only four products shown by default. Only 0.87% of visits clicked the “View More Accessories” link.

More context reduces visits to other pages.

Removing other states in control reduced the number of clicks to add to cart or to a PDP. We saw clicks on Accessory Products increase 21%, and Accessory Cart Additions increase 31%.

Six months later…

CDW’s PDP product team added this experience to their roadmap, built it in staging, and launched it on every PDP with accessories on CDW.com.

View it in Production