Decathlon Shipping Abandonment

Project Overview

What is happening to our check out funnel in shipping?

In order for us to understand the user behavior in the checkout funnel and the reasons of the drop-off in each step, we have to understand user pain point, and address user needs that we need to cater. As a result we could come up with the solution to increase the checkout conversion rate as a goal.

Quick Monkey Testing

After reviewing 6 months worth of customer reviews (1000+), we found many delivery issues that need urgent attention. Some problems can't be solved by our digital products alone; we also need to improve our business efforts to enhance customer experience. Having warehouses in China can confuse customers due to varying shipping times. Additionally, since marketplaces are a major part of our business, handling delivery problems has become more difficult.

By using Contentsquare analytics platform, I discovered that shipping causes one of the highest drop-off rates during the checkout process. Many users expressed frustration when trying to add or change addresses, received unclear information on multiple parcels, faced confusion about shipping thresholds, and lacked clarity on pricing until reaching the shipping page. To validate these findings, I plan to conduct a test by selecting a product, adding it to the cart, completing the checkout process, tracking the parcel, and finally receiving the products—essentially evaluating the entire purchasing experience.

Benchmark within Decathlon

Diving deeper on GA4, basket page has the highest abandon rate, at 49%. Whilst the behavior is similar compared to other countries: the average basket abandonment rate from other countries are at 45%. 

• The second drop-off is from the shipping step, at 43%. This behavior has a big gap compared to other countries: the average shipping abandonment rate in other countries are at 17%. 

• Login and Payment has the least drop-off, at 18% and 23% respectively which the behavior is similar to other countries

• The overall checkout funnel completion rate for Hong Kong is 22%

As reference for completion on check out with highest completion countries:

• Germany - 51%

• Poland - 50%

• Spain - 43%

Research

Besides our internal benchmarking, it’s important to see how other businesses are tackling what could be a similar problem. By comparing to other big omni-channel businesses such as Home Depot, Amazon, Kohl’s, Lowe’s, Zalando, Nordstorm, and more, there were some interesting product features they’ve included that could greatly reduce abandonment by having a transparent shipping date instead of days, approximate price on the standard vs. express delivery options, and other information that could give users option to have same day delivery.

Pain Points/Frustration:

• Found out about shipping threshold and the available delivery options only at the delivery section (Decathlon products/MKP products)

• Realize some products require longer lead time (12-18 days), and shipping can’t come together which require split parcels from different warehouses (Some next day, some 12 days later)

• No delivery instructions options for users to provide on how they want the package to be delivered

• Feels like the email/tracking on the package is too confusing/complicated — does not offer tracking status update

Affinity Map

Due to technical restrictions on our checkout page, I couldn't make many changes there. However, I had complete freedom to improve the product listing page. This allowed me to suggest various solutions to address user issues.

Want:

• Explore more pick up points and options, MKP seller ship to store (+$40-$50 on top of product), and Decathlon retail store group the order together for pick up

• Giving optional delivery instructions (Scheduled Delivery) to customize delivery time

• Free delivery threshold per seller (as we tested joint cart threshold with Decathlon products would not work in the long run)

• Business Changes — unify the shipping requirements for marketplace sellers to reduce confusion about fulfilling them amongst each marketplace sellers

Mid Fidelity Prototype

After sketching on pencil and paper with different variation of changes, and making sure the website overall had a good flow, I brought my low-fidelity paper wireframes into Figma to developed a more streamlined and visually appealing mid-fidelity prototype.  

Desktop, Mobile (App with Mobile View)

High Fidelity Prototype

A/B Testing

The shipping information component is only implemented for Decathlon product page. It will also base on the product unit price to display the cost of the delivery fee (when price reaches the free delivery threshold, the delivery fee will be FREE).

In mobile version, the component will be below the fold if we keep the existing structure of the product page, in conclusion, we’ve decided to move the product catchline below to increase the visibility of the shipping info component. 

Experiment type: Test to Learn
Testing period:  3 weeks (31 Jan - 21 Feb)

• Traffic Allocation:  Random split 50% users on product page

• Primary KPI: Shipping abandonment

  • In the first two weeks of the test, we see that there is a positive and consistent trend in improving the shipping abandonment rate. 

    However, starting from 13th Feb, the result is opposite, the shipping abandonment rate of variation group has been higher than the control group.  And this higher shipping drop-off in variation happens to all types of order: Split, non-split, pure-Decathlon, Marketplace. 

    Overall, we do not see a significant results on improving / harming the shipping abandonment. 

• Secondary KPI: Cart-to-detail, buy-to-detail rate

  • Cart-to-detail uplift of 6.05% - significance 100%

  • Buy-to-detail flat test

  • The cart-to-detail rate of variation group is outperforming than the control group and the result is consistent and significant during the testing period.

    There is drawback on the buy-to-detail rate, and has no significant uplift which results into a flat test.

  As the results have significant increase the upper shopping funnel on adding products to cart, the delivery information block on the product page has been launched permanently.

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