Back to Basics… Disrupting the ‘offline’ shopping experience for Tommy Hilfiger.

Client Tommy Hilfiger

Industry Retail

We were hired by Tommy Hilfiger to improve the low engagement rates on their new in-store interactive screens. We conducted a range of research to diagnose the problem, and then began developing experiment concepts to solve it. All in all, we were able to increase the engagement rate on these screen displays by more than 50%, moving Tommy Hilfiger one step closer to their goal of delivering an immersive in-store customer experience.

Opportunity

It is a common misconception that Conversion Rate Optimisation (or CRO) is only important online. When in fact, there are opportunities to improve conversion across all digital experiences and platforms.

As one of the world’s leading designer lifestyle brands, Tommy Hilfiger (T.H.) is always on the front-foot when it comes to delivering innovative in-store experiences.

But after installing impressive interactive screens in order to deliver the ultimate in-store shopping experience, T.H. was disappointed with their low levels of engagement.

Customers weren’t interacting with these cutting-edge displays in the way they had hoped, and there was a very high drop-off rate, with customers failing to successfully checkout using the systems. That’s where Conversion came in.

One UK flagship store, London Regent Street, was chosen for a 4-week pilot to carry out research, testing and experimentation to reach the brand’s conversion goals.

First comes the research…

We had to find out what was causing the low engagement and then identify any quick wins for improvement.

Qualitative interviews with staff identified that the customers’ understanding of the screen’s purpose and functionality was very limited. And, customers said they did not notice the screens and some even mistook them for being advertisements.

We also visited competing retailers to compare their in-store experience. We found that there were very few interactive displays, and those that did have them were generally difficult to locate. This suggested to us that T.H. had a real opportunity to differentiate with interactive displays near the store entrances.

We also found that the most eye-catching visibility boosters we found in other stores were bold and obvious with arrows and large fonts – indicating the ‘simpler’ design was in fact what T.H. should aim to replicate.

Our findings

Our research helped us identify two distinct roles that touchable displays can play:

Utilitarian role – ‘I can get something done using this device’
Hedonic role – ‘I can get some enjoyment out of using this device…it looks fun to use!’

Most competitors with interactive screens were appealing to the functional, utilitarian personality, as were T.H. with their existing screen design.

Taking inspiration from marketing theory, we knew that highly engaging experiences tend to appeal to the hedonic personality.

Therefore, we created two hypotheses:

Creating idle screen designs that appeal more to casual curiosity will increase customer engagement levels
Introducing online visibility boosters focused on attracting attention, providing direction and explaining purpose will increase customer engagement levels on touchable screens.

Testing the hypotheses…

We kicked off a three-week redesign process focused on testing iterations.

Idle screen designs and the module designs were reworked for Basics, Denim, Accessories and Total Looks. All the designs were created as interactive prototypes that could be tested instore, with real users.

To increase conversion from basket to checkout, we streamlined the experience by introducing a ‘pay on your phone’ modal. This appealed to the customer’s desire to keep personal details private and discreet.

We also believed simplicity was key to attracting attention, so we emphasized bold font, minimal copy, arrows and directional cues. Small, non-permanent signage was used on the shop floor to encourage use of the screens.

Result

So, were our hypotheses correct? Well, the results proved that appealing to shoppers’ curiosity with the new screen design was much more impactful than offering a ‘functional’ design:

Changes to the ‘total look’ Idle screen displays, resulted in a 51% increase in interaction rate

Across all of the altered idle screen displays, there was a +67% difference in store traffic

Although this re-design has improved the ease-of-use for self-checkout, we recognise that there will still be customer journeys that are guided by the staff in store. The engagement from the screens is the key result we were looking to achieve here.

Moving forward in the journey to delivering an immersive customer experience, this experimentation process was key to Tommy Hilfiger recognising that testing functionality and in-depth customer research is well worth the time and investment and provides much more significance than a simple UI redesign.