Transformation of the Farfetch marketplace experience
A cross functional project to identify, explore and prioritise new opportunities that will transform the digital luxury shopping experience – driving customer acquisition and retention.
Role
Product Design Manager
Company
Farfetch
Duration
6 months
My role and responsibility
I was specifically responsible for the product design direction and strategy. I managed and coordinated 9 designers to identify, explore and prioritise new opportunities that will transform a digital luxury shopping experience.
A cross-functional piece of work involving various teams in Technology (Engineering, Product Design and Product Management, User Research, Data Analytics and Data Science) and more broadly Commercial, Online Merchandising, Marketing and Brand.
Vision and guiding principles
To execute on this vision we agreed on three guiding principles we could continually revert back to to ensure we maintained focus.
Decluttering: we strip away the excess (this includes elements, features, and information) to let the essence shine.
Simplicity: Championing simplicity by design to reduce cognitive load, draw attention, and increase seamlessness and ease of intuitive behaviours across the experience.
Immersion: Transporting our customers to immersive and interactive digital experiences that trigger their imagination and spark a deeper emotional connection with luxury (products, brands, collections and narratives).
Transformational priorities for 2024
It was also important to focus on the things that were going to transform the experience. We collectively agreed on 3 key themes to prioritise.
Premium Luxury Pathways: Our immersive premium brand experience captivates our discerning audience through immersive discovery and storytelling across the end to end experience.
Immersive Search & AI: We offer a seamless and immersive search experience for new and returning customers alike.
Tailored Dynamic Content: Each experience is personalised and regionally relevant across the products, brands and edits they engage with, every step of the way.
Discovery of the solution
With these foundations in place, I co-designed and facilitated a structured six-week design exploration that bought multiple teams together to align on opportunities. The first 3 weeks focused on user experience and the second 3 weeks focused on the user interface.
Throughout the whole process I held various check in sessions for the designers in the morning and afternoon. This was an opportunity for them to ask questions, share concerns and for me to provide feedback.
I also arranged end of week playbacks and invited various teams from across the business including the exec board to ensure their needs and feedback were being included and to secure buy-in.
Understanding the customer
Farfetch customers either shop with intent – knowing exactly which brands or products they’re looking for – or shop with context, such as an upcoming event where they seek inspiration.
Luxury-first-mindset: The Farfetch customer are typically high-income, fashion-conscious individuals seeking premium and designer products.
Marketplace influence: They respond strongly to exclusivity and an experience that aligns with a luxury in-store experience.
Omnichannel behaviour: Many customers browse across devices, often discovering products on mobile/social and purchasing later via desktop or app.
Identify opportunities
As a first step the Research and Analytics leads brought together existing qualitative and quantitative insights to build a clear view of the core stages within our two key customer journeys.
We then prioritised pain-points, needs and desires based on the number of customers impacted and alignment with our business objectives.
Idea generation
With the problem space clearly understood and a prioritised view of pain-points, needs and desires, we moved into generating ideas to address them. I designed provocation statements to help shift the teams mindset to a visionary state and encourage thinking outside the box.
Idea prioritisation
Once ideas had been generated, we grouped and themed them before evaluating each one using an impact-effort matrix. To guide prioritisation, we asked ourselves three key questions:
Is this truly transformative?
Is it feasible within 2024?
How confident are we that it will address the customer need?
This exercise provided the foundations for a Now-Next-Later roadmap. Ideas that required greater confidence were fed into a targeted testing plan, ensuring we validated assumptions before moving forward.
Design explorations
To help visualise and understand the complexities and nuances of the ideas further the designers worked in pairs to bring the concepts to life. This was supported by a Principal Designer who provided guidance on UI and design system practices. Teams were intentionally formed based on a mix of skill sets, domain knowledge level and experience level– ensuring effective delivery and growth opportunities by working and learning from each other.
Each design pair collaborated closely with a Product Manager and Engineering Lead, while Research and Data Science floated between teams to provide targeted support where needed.
Concept and usability testing
User feedback was integrated throughout the design development process:
All 16 touch points were tested (Search & Nav, AI integration, PLPs, PDPs, Homepage and top customer experience).
We engaged with prospect users (new to FF), returning (across all levels of spend), and our top spending customer).
A total of 80 participants contributed along the design process.
Defining success
Success was anchored on retention metrics for the Farfetch Marketplace. The ultimate goal was focusing on the long term effect on customers and brand of an elevated experience.
The retention based metrics as the main lever for Gross Transactional Value impact included…
Repeat purchase rate
Customer Engagement (Time on site, Content engagement, App engagement etc)
Conversion rate of our top tier customers
Milestones and project timeline
Given the scale of the project, each discipline lead undertook detailed planning. I championed design’s role by ensuring its effort was estimated on par with engineering. Milestones were translated into day-by-day plans, enabling precise execution and transparency across the team.
Outcome and impact
The process reshaped how how we tackled a complex business objective. By taking a design and research led approach, we were able to:
Develop transformational solutions that addressed customer needs and aspirations– not just existing pain points–allowing us to get ahead of our competitors rather than play catch-up.
Align all disciplines around a customer-first mindset, resulting in a more cohesive and impactful approach.
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