Gifting Program
Gifting Program
Designed @ Drizly
TLDR; Drizly wanted to prioritize gift sending as a top use case for the platform, as a way to move away from 60-minute-or-less delivery, but the existing experience created a lot of friction and did not surprise or delight customers because it was not differentiated from the core on-demand experience. Read the quicker version here.
The Problem
The gifting flow had a lot of friction and created very little delight for senders. As a result, gifting was not growing as much as desired and gift senders were not turning into repeat customers.
The Solution
I led design on the initiative to redesign the entire flow, creating a gifting experience that is intuitive, memorable, & straightforward, laying the foundation for an entirely new gifting program.
Meet the team
As the product designer leading the charge to revamp our gifting experience, I worked with analytics and UX research to define the problem our users were facing, generated potential solutions and evaluated them against the needs of the business by collaborating with product, settled on a recommendation for the designs, and coordinated with engineering to bring it to life.
Business Context
Going into 2022 & following the acquisition by Uber, Drizly decided to shift focus away from purely an on-demand, need-it-now, consumer and instead prioritize "non-core" modes of shopping, of which gifting was the top priority.
Objective: Deliver the Drizly experience consumers deserve.
Key result: Make Drizly a first choice for more shopping occasions - grow "non-core" orders to 1/3 of all gross bookings $.
Historically, gifting represented 20% of orders in December and 10% during the rest of the year. Drizly leadership set a goal of growing that percentage to 30% or higher, making it a key pillar of the business.
Gifting-specific goal: Establish Drizly as the go-to platform for BevAlc gifting by delivering a best-in-class gifting experience for senders + recipients.
- Evolve consumer gifting experience (solve existing friction points + improve end-to-end process)
- Build program enhancements (incl. product features + non-tech initiatives) inspired by consumer + competitive insights
- Unlock sender retention + recipient conversion opportunities
Competitive Landscape
Inspiration
For inspiration I looked at both alcohol and non-alcohol experiences, ranging from traditional e-commerce to on-demand delivery platforms. There was an interesting mix of up-front gift selection and functional checkout inspiration.
This is also what the inside of my brain looks like...
Existing experience
For the purposes of this case study, I will split the experience into discovery, execution, and recipient. Where discovery is about helping gift senders find the perfect item, execution is about allowing them to successfully execute the purchase and get the gift delivered; recipient is the experience of the person the gift is sent to.
Existing discovery experience
In the existing experience, users who landed on drizly.com were greeted with an address capture which led them to a non-gifting-specific home page. This page offered shelf upon shelf of products, which was extremely overwhelming for new shoppers.
From there, if they were motivated, users could click on the "gift" link, which would bring them to simply more products, supposedly labeled for gifting, but not actual useful.
On iOS the gift tab was slightly more accessible, but still did not offer much in the way of curation. The products were separated by category, but this is not very useful unless the shopper already knows what their recipient likes to drink (in which case they're more likely to search for that product directly).
Existing execution experience
The existing checkout flow required users to know both the email and phone number of their recipient and it split the recipient info into confusing sub-steps, leading to a large drop off in the checkout funnel at this step. It also allowed senders to choose between letting the recipient schedule the delivery and a "surpise delivery," which has been known to cause numerous customer service issues when recipients don't end up being home.
The iOS experience suffered from the same issues, albeit in a different order. The sender information was grouped with the gift note for the recipient, which led to senders mistakenly entering their own info in the recipient info.
iOS also had the same issue with surprise gifting, and grouping it with the sender information caused additional confusion. Then, the final review step of checkout caused further issues with confusing hierarchy and layout.
Existing recipient experience
The existing recipient experience was a single page, which didn't provide any explanation of the gifting process, leaving recipients confused and often not home to receive their gifts.
Gift presentation was often inconsistent and in some cases particularly poor.
Email communications were inconsisent and confusing.
Data data data
Digging into the data illuminated some clear issues with the gifting experience. It's particularly interesting to note that a high proportion of gift senders are first time Drizly shoppers, which means they have no familiarity with the site to begin with, making the shopping experience even more confusing when they're looking for a gift and not finding any tailored affordances.
60% / 40%
Split of gift orders placed on web vs apps (vast majority iOS)
14%
Of gift senders enter their own email address as the recipient's.
3x
How much higher the contact rate is on gifts vs non-gifts
35%
Gift orders where it's the users first Drizly order (vs 11% non-gift)
Only 6.7%
First time gift senders who repeat (19.5% for non-gift)
Only 2.7%
Gift recipients who place their own order within 90 days
User research
Various research studies were conducted by the team.
Preliminary Survey on Web
Competitor / Comparator Analysis
Customer Experience (CX) Affinity Mapping
Gift Sender Journey Analysis
Gift Recipient Journey Analysis (Scheduling)
Gift Recipient Journey Analysis (Receiving)
“Jobs to be Done” Research
In-Store Experience Observational Study
Findings
These findings helped influence prioritization of opportunities.
Gift occasions are a key factor
Wrong address is a top customer issue
Surprise gifting is a top customer issue
Address confirmation is confusing
Gift senders need clearer next steps
Pain point analysis
Detailed flow with supporting data.
I mapped out the existing flow for users marking their order as a gift in checkout, showing the pain points where users are directed away from checkout and forced to go backwards to enter recipient information before proceeding. In cases where they have to change the address, they may be forced all the way back to cart. We also found evidence that people may know their friends' or families' phone numbers, but not their email addresses.
Key problems
Based on the data and input from key stakeholders, I identified a handful of key problems.
Sender decision fatigue
Gift senders don’t know what items to select for their recipients because they don’t know what they like.
Impersonal experience
Nothing differentiates the gift experience from regular shopping and the branding doesn’t feel special.
Difficult to enter recipient info
Users are confusing their info with recipient info, and they don't know the recipient's email address (14%).
Unclear expectations
Part of the reason recipients aren’t home is because Drizly does not clearly explain the process and expectations.
Recipient not home
When a gift order is a surprise, the recipient is often not home to receive it (and/or they don't know that they need to show ID).
Poor delivery presentation
When the gift shows up it’s either wrong or not wrapped nicely, which does not encourage repeat shopping.
Brainstorm
I facilitated a virtual brainstorming session that involved stakeholders and subject matter experts from all across Drizly, including members of leadership and CX representatives, in order to paint a complete picture of gifting.
Affinity Diagram
New ideas were thought of and expansions to existing concepts were explored. Stakeholders all felt that they were able to influence the direction of gifting and the solutions generated were used to inspire / guide planning conversations for future states.
Opportunity Areas
Building off the key problems, after the braintorm I identified many areas of opportunity to improve the overall gifting experience.
Transform email communications
Collect gifting intent sooner
Personalized gifting quiz
A huge part of my role in this work was helping to prioritize the different opportunity areas from the user experience perspective. While the discovery part of the experience is delightful, and helping people find the right gifts is definitely useful, ultimately if the user can't successfully checkout and execute their gift purchase, none of the discovery portion matters. Based on that and conversations with the product team, we decided to prioritize the functional pieces of the experience before adding exploratory features.
Designs & results
Purchase execution
Dovetailing off the streamlined checkout work, I first wanted to simplify the gift sending process into easy steps users could easily understand. I organized the info into recipient info, sender info, and order execution.
Problem: It is difficult for gift senders to enter recipient info
Problem: Unclear expectations around next steps (sender)
Problem: Receipients aren't home to get their gifts
Drafts
Initially I thought about separating the gifting info from the checkout step, making it an interstitial space between cart and placing the order. The idea was to avoid confusion between the recipient info and the sender info and make the review step truly just "review," with no actions needed.
Ultimately this version felt convoluted when the user needed to make any edits to their selections, where on iOS it was more natural to go backwards, on web it felt clunky and disjointed. User research also showed that people were frustrated with the number of discrete steps, so I made the choice to integrate all the info into one page, organized by type of information.
Final designs
Add clear hierarchy of information throughout the process
Make recipient email address an optional field in checkout
Eliminate surprise gifting and clearly explain next steps to senders
Bonus: Add digital occasion card selection for gift senders
On web, we created almost a true “single page” for gifting, where recipient info is clearly separated from sender info & order execution so everything can easily be filled out and reviewed in one place.
I also added clear messaging to explain what information was needed and any errors that occured (e.g. when the address is changed).
For iOS, we kept a multi-step approach, largely due to technical constraints around rebuilding the entire checkout page (someday, perhaps).
However, I organized the fields to avoid confusion between receipient and sender information and created a clear flow of steps.
Details
Old experience
New first step
Before, gift sender info was grouped with the recipient gift note, causing users to accidentally enter the recipient info (14% of gift senders entered their own email address!)
Now, the first page of the gift checkout is clearly marked as the recipient information, with copy to reinforce. There is also an indication of the number of steps so the user understands the process to come.
We also made recipient email address an optional field, since many people seemed to only know their recipient's phone number.
Old experience
New second step
New final review step
Before, users had the option to allow recipients to schedule their own delivery time or they could opt to have it dropped off as a surprise. Surprise gifts were a huge headache for recipients and for retailers, because orders were often unable to be completed.
Now, all gifts are recipient scheduled, ensuring they will be home when the delivery arrives. There is also copy clearly indicating to gift senders how the process works, so they know what to expect.
As part of the revamped checkout, we added the ability for shoppers to select a digital card to send to recipients. Although this piece doesn't necessarily make checkout easier, it adds a personal touch to the epxerience and laid the groundwork for the discovery and occasion work.
Results
10%
Reduction in drop off relating to gift details
3.3%
Reduction in drop off across the review step
1%
Reduction in void rate removing surprise gifts
50%
Rate at which a non-default card is chosen
23%
Increase in liklihood that a recipient becomes a shopper within 28 days if they receive a card
Discovery & exploration
After the exeuction piece of the journey had been improved so that shoppers could successfully place a gift order, we began to focus on product discovery features that would help folks find the exact right gift.
Problem: It is difficult to know what alcohol to buy for someone else
Problem: The gifting browse experience doesn't feel special
Drafts
I started at the top by exploring what a gifting home experience might look like. It felt necessary to differentiate the gift shopping experience from that of normal shoppers, especially considering a large prorpotion of gift senders are first time Drizly shoppers.
I included the ability to shop by occasion as well as copy to explain how the gifting process works.
Then, we looked at a guided gifting quiz for shoppers who need the most amount of handholding to find the perfect gift.
Initially, we experimented with a single page "quiz," which was less quiz and more a set of inputs.
However, this gave us a very limited number of questions we could ask, as well minimal space for brand elements.
We landed on a multi-step quiz, which was significantly more flexible, but we still had to narrow on on exactly which pieces of information were important for both our data science team and for the user to feel the quiz was useful to them.
We performed some user testing on this version of the quiz to get a sense of shoppers interest and to undertand what they thought of the results. We found that the quiz was too short for users to trust the recommendations and that it did not feel personalized.
We then built an MVP version of the quiz which asked more specific questions about the recipients sub-category preferences (e.g. white wine vs red) and utilized the recipients name to make the experience feel more tailored.
Final designs
Tailored gifting home and shop by occasion navigation
Direct gift shoppers to the gifting page immediately
Occasion pages to help find specific, relevant products
Guided gifting quiz to provide tailored recommendations
We created a "gifting home" on both iOS and web, which served as the launching point for other discovery experiences.
This allowed gift shoppers to have a tailored experience without the distractions of non-gift shopping. We included the capibility to browse by gift occasion and to take the guided gifting quiz.
Crucially, we made the choice to direct shoppers immediately from the address capture page into the gifting-specific shopping experience, which helped put users on the right path.
Occasion pages allowed us to create fun and exciting brand moments, while directing users to relevant products. These pages provide value for users who may not know exactly what they want to buy for their recipient, but still want to browse on their own.
The products can be tailored to help users find the exact right gift for any particular occasion, based on Drizly's expertise.
For V2 of the gifting quiz we added brand moments and streamlined the interaction of selecting a sub-category.
Results
$4.72
Average spend increase on new gift pages
4%
Increase in conversion on new gift pages
49%
V1 quiz completion rate, V2 in progress
Recipient experience
Sending the gift is only 1 part of the equation - the recipient experience is crucial to the overall success of the gifting program.
Problem: Recipients are not home when their gift arrives
Problem: Next steps are unclear (recipient)
Problem: Gift wrapping is inconsistent
Drafts
I started at the top by exploring what a gifting home experience might look like. It felt necessary to differentiate the gift shopping experience from that of normal shoppers, especially considering a large prorpotion of gift senders are first time Drizly shoppers.
I included the ability to shop by occasion as well as copy to explain how the gifting process works.
Then, we looked at a guided gifting quiz for shoppers who need the most amount of handholding to find the perfect gift.
Initially, we experimented with a single page "quiz," which was less quiz and more a set of inputs.
However, this gave us a very limited number of questions we could ask, as well minimal space for brand elements.
Final designs
Recipient experience sets clear expectations
Transactional emails double down on next steps
Certified gifting stores help ensure high quality delivery
The new gifting experience clearly indicated to recipients that they need to be home to receive their gift. It also highlighted our brand and emphasized the gift note and card from the sender
We revamped our email communications to double down on the expectations, ensuring folks would be home.
While we can't legally select a store for the gift sender, we can mark stores with a badge when they consitently perform well - "gift certified." We also put these stores higher in the sort, which increases the chances a good gifting store will be selected and that the presentation and delivery will be positive.
Learnings
Managed ambiguity: Successfully developed and understanding of the problem space based on high level objectives and conveyed decisions to the team.
Planned & aligned: I level-set expectations with a number of stakeholders across the entire business and got buy-in for large scale changes.
Optimized work processes: Developed channels of communication and feedback to enable clear understanding between product, design, and engineering, which enabled cross-functional collaboration and ultimately created a successful outcome.
Related projects
Digital Occasion Cards
Graphic & Brand Design
Streamlined Checkout
Product Design
Transactional Emails
Communication Design