Rent-A-Center Case Study
Project Objective
Rent-A-Center provides a rent-to-own alternative to get the products customers want and need with little to no credit. There were two long-term objectives of the site redesign project. 1. Move the website experience from a "brochureware" site that only provided categories of products one may find in-store - to an inventory eCommerce experience that allowed customer to find the store that had the exact product they were looking for. 2. Create a total digital experience allowing customers to source a product, add it to a cart, complete the entire rental agreement process on the site and manage payment and account features online. Thereby, eliminating the previous business model of only acquiring a product in a brick and mortar location.
Original Design
The prior design simply provide users with the types of product categories that may be available in a RAC location. There was no tie to product inventory, billing process were handle by a different site experience and merchandising was not aligned with current marketing and brand efforts.
Competitive Review
I explored both direct competitive brand experiences as well as top eCommerce brand sites as a way to establish a best-in-class online browsing, searching and shopping experience for an atypical product brand. I evaluated taxonomy and site architecture, merchandising of products, store locator features, product category and detail displays, cross-sell and recommendations along with many other attributes. Included is a list of several brands evaluated.
Wireframe Prototype
I developed progressively advanced wireframes beginning with the establishment of page level features and content to inform a design exploration process and evolving to a full design prototype that was the subject of a usability test. We ran a 12 user, 60 minute test focused on taxonomy, success of browsing to specific products and store locator function to inform improvements to overall usability of the site.
Preference Tests
I ran eight separate preference tests focusing on the entire home page design as well as variations of different modules in the page, including hero, merchandising zones and RAC video promoting the brand benefit. Test ranged from 50-100 participants and all had a 89% or higher statistical significance in establishing a winner.
Memory Tests
Memory tests focused on 50 participants. Each user saw a creative element for 5 seconds and then were asked two name three items they recalled from memory. Eight tests focusing on home page merchandising layouts were presented. A clear winner emerged based on a high percentage of key elements being recalled at a higher rate than all other designs.
First Click Tests
Five first click tests were conducted using 50 users per test with the object of giving users a click in terms of finding a product or product category and where they would first click to browse to that item. This allowed us to provide the best navigation design, store locator placement and merchandising zones on the home page.
Click Flow Tests
I tested 50 users in each test utilizing click flows in order to establish the best desktop and mobile navigation and labeling structure to improve overall navigability of the product catalog.
Final Design + Result
The full scope and timeline of this project spanned 2 1/2 years including the technology effort for mapping product availability databases to the web database, store locator mapping, ideation, design, testing and development.
Final Results
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The final result was a full site redesign with product availability mapped to the store level
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The reduction of store lead form from four pages to a single
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80% increase in active leads generated to stores to complete rental agreements