BWS | Reduce Cart Abandonment

Addressing $13M in annual order loss through usability, testing, and iterative improvements.

The Problem

Add-to-cart and conversion rates have dropped significantly in the BWS funnel, with 85% of order loss occurring on the website—$7.5 million from desktop and $5.7 million from mobile. Cart abandonment was up, with 35% happening during checkout. Payment-related errors were a major contributor, driving 56% of errors on mobile and 48% on desktop.

Role: UX Designer, UX Researcher

Year: 2024-2025

Client: BWS

Platform: Website

The Process

  • Stakeholder kickoff

  • Usability testing of the current website

  • Heuristic evaluation of the current website

  • Competitor/market Research

  • Ideation and wireframing

  • Development & delivery

  • Experimentation & A/B testing

We identified seven problem areas through customer research: shopping mission, out-of-stock items, unclear pricing, form optimisation, payment-related errors, navigation, and accessibility.

Key Focus Area

Payment optimisation in Checkout

BWS payment experience lacks industry-standard forms, leading to negative sentiment expressed by the customers through VOC (Voice of Customer). Data shows that payment errors drive the majority of all errors in the checkout (56% on Mobile and 48% on Desktop), negatively impacting our Cart Abandonment rate on the last step of the checkout process.

Hypothesis

Based on the insight that approximately 52% of checkout errors stem from payment issues, we believe that implementing enhancements such as clear guidance on payment setup, improved payment form fields, and error resolution for BWS customers on the last step of the checkout, will cause a change in Cart Abandonment rate.

The Outcome

The MVP improved the browsing-to-checkout flow, reduced usability friction, and aligned the interface to the latest design system. When I left the project, it was still in the process of being launched, but our prioritisation work projected a strong business impact:

  • Estimated Cart Recovery Potential: $1.84M – $1.85M over six months (95% confidence)

  • Breakdown by Key Areas:

    • Fixing payment issues: ~$600K

    • Minimum spend errors: ~$247K

    • Store reassignment: ~$482K

    • Other improvements (location, substitutes, dead click feedback, address errors): ~$500K

These projections shaped our roadmap, helping the team prioritise the highest-impact fixes first while setting up for future optimisation.