Mercedes-Benz “Discover” Inventory
Create a new shopping feature for high-funnel, new-to-brand users
Methods:
User interviews, competitive analysis, journey mapping, wireframes, prototyping, usability testing
Impact
High engagement from SEO: bounce rate of 20% and an average of 3.2 event clicks per page visit
The Challenge
During a redesign of the MB inventory experience, we jumped on the opportunity to align to current e-commerce experiences. While working on the inventory page, we also decided these products could use their own landing page, dedicated to shopping and educating high-funnel users new to our brand and getting them one step closer to seeing themselves behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz.
KPIs
Increase traffic to inventory
Low bounce rates
Increase in return-visits
Research
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Competitive Analysis
We began doing a competitive audit both in and out of industry. We looked at other luxury car brands like Audi, BMW, Genesis, Tesla, Carmax, etc, but also included popular e-commerce brands, such as ASOS, Balenciaga, The RealReal, etc. We evaluated shopping patterns and user flows to see what was industry-standard and where we may be able to innovate more.
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Journey Mapping
Utilizing user research discussed below, we crafted a user journey for new car shoppers that could be leveraged within the inventory experience, as well as this new discovery page. We created two personas to guide our approaches and obviously paid particular attention to the very beginning of the overall shopping journey to leverage insights for this landing page.
Myself (left) facilitating remote user interviews (7 interviews total)
User Interviews
In order to create our personas and journey map, we conducted 7 user interviews. In our screening form, we recruited users across age ranges who had purchased a car in the past 8-months or were currently in the process of shopping and close-to-purchase.
Our questions circulated around their progression through the shopping process.
Did they know what they wanted going into the process? Did they use anything for inspiration? How much did they research and shop around? What information was most important to them when selecting a car? Was there anything they found particularly difficult or cumbersome or any fun surprises along the way?
During these interviews, we were also able to ask some follow-ups to gain further insight that we could disperse across our account for ongoing work (ie financing/leasing, dealer experiences, ownership apps, etc).
Design
Concepting
This page was created in simultaneously with the Inventory Redesign. During our brainstorming sessions, we decided we wanted to try to create as much of a product/app experience as possible for our inventory.
We looked to e-commerce sites like ASOS and Amazon and observed that these sites have landing pages that users hit before the shop. These pages inspire users for outfits and products and give them starting points for their shopping journey if they are newer to a brand.
“Discover” became our landing page for more high-funnel shoppers. It mainly functions as a trail head with a plethora of links to either help users research further about our vehicles and services or jump straight into inventory.
Model Lineup
We saw the discover page as a great opportunity to give a high-level overview of our lineups. Mercedes-Benz class and model naming conventions are hard to grasp, and this provides a quick look and orientation to how the lineups are structured.
We used the top of the Discover page to provide quick run downs of model names, important specs, and descriptors to help provide a sense of the “vibe” of the vehicle.
We also provided quick action points that either take users straight to inventory, to a class or model page to research further, or to our compare tool if they wanted to get a deeper dive into specs.
Pre-Filters
Something I noticed many e-commerce sites doing on their landing page was providing broad jumping points for users to engage with to enter product listings. Whether they were brands or price points or “styles,” there were many ways to enter inventory experiences.
We explored having several pre-filters. Price ranges, years (links to Certified Pre-Owned only), and my personal favorite, “Lifestyle” (family-friendly, city driver, outdoorsy, eco-friendly, etc). We hit a challenge with lifestyle, however, in that it was hard to help the brand narrow down their lineup to fit certain categories when, technically, everything applies and they didn’t want to exclude any options. For now, lifestyle will be kept in our back pocket and will hopefully be promoted live in the future.
It went live.
Impact
Page exhibits high engagement as evidenced by low bounce rates (20.8%) and an average of 3.2 event clicks per page visit.
94.0% of page views were entry pages driven by Paid Search.
Discover Inventory visits are +69% more likely to become a lead than those landing on All Vehicles.
Takeaways:
It has proven to be a great connector between social/SEO channels and our website for newer shoppers interested in exploring the brand. It serves as a helpful wayfinding point into the research and shopping experience.