Chroma.pl – CRO&UX audit

Client

Chroma.pl

Chroma.pl is the first and largest online print shop in Poland. It offers a very broad product range, from business cards to roll-up banners. As a market leader and one of Europe’s foremost printing companies, Chroma invests continuously in modern equipment and technology to achieve the best possible print quality. But the company’s development isn’t limited to product innovation.

One of the brand’s main differentiators is its online store, which lets customers print dozens of different promotional materials in thousands of configurations in just a few clicks. Chroma works constantly to develop the store, introduce innovations and optimize UX. That’s why the company’s board decided to use our CRO&UX audit.

The goal

Identifying the problems leaking sales and finding the opportunities to grow conversion

Chroma.pl was looking for specialists in e-commerce purchase path optimization who would analyze the store, identify where and why conversion problems might be occurring, and design solutions to those problems (a cart rebuild, for instance) that grow sales.

What we did

Running a CRO & UX audit of the store’s purchase path

As part of the audit:

1. We ran a business interview with the board and the people running e-commerce, to get a better understanding of the Chroma.pl business and the brand’s customers (who they are, their problems, motivations and pain points).
2. We analyzed Google Analytics, to find out where on the purchase path the problems concentrate and where the biggest growth opportunities sit.
3. We ran an expert review of the purchase path based on our own 7K model, to identify how to improve clarity and credibility, cut friction and distraction, and communicate value better
4. We ran a Cux.io analysis.
5. We produced a report with specific recommendations and hypotheses tailored to the business.
6. We built wireframes showing the recommended changes and hypotheses (including a rebuilt product page, header, cart and checkout).
7. We built a plan of next steps (including a plan for validating hypotheses using A/B tests).

Outcomes

A clear report listing the problems costing the business money, the solutions to them, and full context and explanation. Wireframes visualizing the recommended changes and hypotheses.

Thanks to the audit, the board and the e-commerce team at Chroma.pl learned:

1. Which parts of the site have the most problems
2. Where the biggest growth opportunities are
3. What pushes users to convert and what holds them back
4. What information users are missing while they’re on the site
5. What fears and doubts visitors have before they convert
6. What needs adding to the site to make the design and copy clearer, raise credibility, cut friction and distraction, and communicate value better.

A few interesting findings from the audit:

1. According to Google Analytics, mobile users made up 30% of traffic and just 0.5% of transactions. So it’s plain to see that the mobile experience carries heavy friction. We recommended several solutions that would lift mobile conversion. We also suggested running user testing on mobile, to learn more about why mobile users convert so poorly and design changes that grow sales. 
2. 39.6% of users landing on the homepage (from ads, among other sources) abandoned it immediately on arrival. In paid ads and email it’s worth shortening the purchase path and sending users straight to product pages or category pages. In one store we ran an A/B test sending half the ad traffic to the homepage (the original) and half to a specific product category page (the test variant). Users in the test variant turned out to buy more often. Making that change increased the conversion value of that ad by around 15%.
3. A full 81.5% of traffic was users who spent 10 seconds or less on the site. We suggested a closer analysis of the marketing campaigns, to find the source of the problem. Offering users a benefit on their first visit could also be a good idea — a discount for newsletter signup, for instance. That way you capture the user into your database and can try to engage them later. 
4. In the Cux.io analysis we spotted a problem with one form field that was causing heavy friction. We designed a solution.
5. A very high share of store users were returning customers. A “Saved addresses” feature had been built for them at checkout. But it displayed somewhere barely visible, so users could easily miss it. We suggested changing the checkout layout for returning customers.
6. At the registration step (creating an account) we observed a lot of unnecessary copy and other distractors that could cause friction, and with it lower conversion.
7. One key element of the purchase path is uploading graphics (a logo, say) that then get printed on the products (branded t-shirts, for instance). During the expert review we observed that the instructions for uploading graphics and the information about where the logo would be placed were unclear and could leave users uncertain. We designed a rebuild of the content and messaging at that stage of the purchase path, to cut friction and lift conversion.

That’s only a modest slice of the findings we presented in the report. Beyond these, the audit delivered many more observations, screenshots, reasoning and context, solutions and hypotheses on what to add or change on the site to make the design and copy clearer, raise credibility, cut friction and distraction, and communicate value better.

Building on the audit, we designed wireframes showing the recommended changes and hypotheses (including a rebuilt product page, header, cart and checkout).

Wholeheartedly recommend them. Digispot have a great, flexible approach to the work. They give a lot of themselves. On top of that they’re very responsive and invested. They ran a CRO&UX audit of our store’s purchase path, and we’re basing our further optimization work on it.

Łukasz, Data Analyst at Chroma.pl

What comes after a CRO & UX audit?

A CRO/UX audit is an excellent starting point for conversion optimization work and delivers a wealth of valuable findings. But recommendations — even from the very best conversion optimization experts — should be A/B tested to verify how they actually affect user behavior and sales, and to raise your confidence that shipping them is the right call. Where that’s possible and worthwhile, of course.

1. If your store’s current design looks amateurish, and/or we identify a great many conversion problems, and/or you don’t have enough data to validate ideas reliably, then shipping the recommendations immediately is the best route. The recommended changes will very probably grow sales.
2. But for stores that “work well” (or very well, as with Chroma.pl), are decently optimized for UX, have returning customers and enough data to run A/B tests reliably, we recommend validating the hypotheses raised during the audit — using A/B tests, precisely. A/B tests give you strong evidence about what improves business results and is worth shipping, and what isn’t. Launching an A/B testing program is a game-changer in many online businesses and contributes significantly to better business decisions, and with them, sales growth.