Optimising iot e-commerce
In short
Vodafone wanted to give people a compelling reason to trust their network to connect all their IoT devices, but they had to communicate benefits, create confidence and get across the different purchasing options all in one customer journey.
E-commerce effectiveness
This brief was focussed around maximising the effectiveness of the V by Vodafone e-commerce site. One the one hand it represented a relatively straightforward e-commerce optimisation, for which there is well established best practice, but there was an additional complexity in that alongside showcasing the products themselves, we needed to also set out clearly what V by Vodafone is as a proposition, and also help customers unfamiliar with IoT to explore the space.
This work, based on an initial research sprint, followed a design sprint methodology, going up with multiple options for the balance between pure e-commerce and a slightly more editorial approach to educate on the options and the proposition. Through multiple rounds of testing we refined our designs and clearly identified the key problems. The first was that customers were struggling to understand what V by Vodafone actually was. The second was that there was additional complexity in the purchase journey, caused by the need to allow multiple ways to purchase, through Vodafone and also through third parties such as amazon.
We arrived at a system of education and signposting that allowed the key proposition messages to be landed at common entry points, while consistent iconography and visuals would reinforce at each stage of consideration and purchase how Vodafone, the V-Sim and the overall ecosystem compatibility related to the product. We also explored several different ways of presenting the various purchase options so as to make it clear why they were there and what the differences were.
Our scope also included the awareness stage of the process, and one of the areas we experimented with was introducing functionality into the ad experience that would draw the user into the consideration journey within their social app of choice. In the case if instagram for example, the ad would instantly load a gamified configuration journey, which would lead to a more curated range of products to avoid the sense of overload when confronted with a wide range of options where understanding of IoT was likely to be low.
Impact
Our work on the V by Vodafone e-commerce journey helped the team at Vodafone to understand and navigate the complexities of creating an effective e-commerce offering in an emerging space, and kicked off a product evolution which continues to develop. We have since collaborated with Vodafone on a range of other projects from smart watched for kids through to developing fintech offerings for insuring digital devices and more.
