E-Z UP
Founded in 1983, E-Z UP provides easy-to-assemble outdoor shelters for consumers and for companies seeking to expand their business and create brand awareness at various outdoor events. In addition to its innovative line of portable instant shelters, the company offers a wide array of accessories, including sidewalls, rail skirts, tables, table covers, flags, banners, and more. E-Z UP has been very successful, attracting hundreds of thousands of customers in over 50 countries, but the pandemic brought a new wave of customers to the brand, as hospitals and municipalities needed shelters for outdoor COVID-19 testing sites and store owners needed to set up outdoor merchandising tents on the sidewalks in front of their shops.
Challenge
With this new wave of demand, E-Z UP’s legacy Ecommerce platform wasn’t able to keep pace. Already planning a replatform, they saw an opportunity to refresh their web presence and signed me on to assist with UX strategy.
After interviewing key personnel from the customer service, sales, and marketing teams, we found an interesting similarity: the site lacked appropriate pricing transparency. There was an overwhelming number of online shoppers who were confused by the pricing schemes of its shelters. Based on the product images, each shelter looked virtually identical, so it caused vast misunderstanding among online shoppers as to why it appeared one product could be dramatically more expensive than the other when they were unclear of the difference.
The confusion resulted in numerous calls to customer service. It all made sense once customers understood the different custom options available to them, but the accumulation of calls and explanations caused higher overhead costs and slowed down sales. To improve the overall process and price transparency for customers, it was important for E-Z UP to create a better customer experience on its online store.
Solution
A highlight of the redesign is the custom product configurator, which allows site visitors to select a shelter, include all the accessories that will make it fully functional to their needs, and receive an accurate price in real-time. Price transparency to customers was made very clear, so that they could see any additional charges on top of the base product and be more informed of the differences between various product options.
We also dramatically increased their units per transaction (UPT) and average order value (AOV) by adding a prominent cross-sell section in the user’s natural eye path on the product detail page. E-Z UP’s shelters can be heavily customized for any purpose by adding accessories and other upgrades previously hidden on the site.
Result
Improvements in site performance, customer experience, and stability were apparent from day one, as E-Z UP received positive feedback and noticed improved site stability the very day the site was launched. The company is particularly pleased with the overall user experience, especially now that calls to the company regarding customers confused about pricing have ceased and the team can now better focus its time on other customer needs. The combination of the product configurator, cross-selling opportunities with accessories that are fully integrated into the product pages, and the lookbook have all contributed to a higher AOV for E-Z UP.
