Right product, first time

Improving search capability through behaviour change, increasing result relevancy and efficiency

• Leading B2B2C bioscience provider of research products

• Trusted by global researchers via validation data, peer reviews and citations

• ~750,000 researchers / ~110K products / ~130+ countries

Initiative

• End-to-end e-commerce customer experience redesign

• New e-commerce platform and modernised journeys across:
  Search, Engagement, Customer Accounts, E-commerce and Customer Assist

• Increasing result relevancy to customer needs

  Note - This summary highlights the core search-to-conversion journey within the broader transformation initiative

Role

• Created UX strategy and design ops model for end-to-end e-commerce replatform initiative (search to checkout)

• Recruited, scaled, and managed UX team (design, research, insights, IA, copy, design operations)

• Defined strategy hypotheses - Low filter engagement, positive friction, right product - first time

• Delivered research roadmap and insight outcomes supporting all product squads

• Advocated user-centred outcomes aligned to revenue - Prioritising search improvement and accuracy

• Partnered with product management, engineering, data science, delivery, and customer-facing teams

• Mentored team, advocating design discovery; customer journey mapping as a core source of insights, cross-validated with contextual user feedback and testing

• Managed stakeholder design scope and expectations - UDX, brand and research

• Explored AI/ML alternative search capability and tools with Data Science leadership and teams

Search challenge

• Time-poor researchers overwhelmed by results in categories of up to 30,000+ products

• Complex products contributed up to 50+ filters with <~4% engagement

• 99% of top searches were largely target-only entries, reducing search effectiveness and bloating results

• Contextual research revealed time-poor environments resulting in fast product decisions

• Avg. customer viewing 1.2 pages per session (~24 products), leaving relevant products undiscovered

Search objective

• Ensure customers reviewed all relevant products available to their need

• Enable customers to find the right product, first time (single session)

Early outcomes

• Product Description Page (PDP) engagement:

  • Quick view included in new formula representing key product attribute views influencing purchase

  • PDP engagement improved by 30% (1.2 → 1.6 per session, ~2.8M/year) if sustained

• CSAT: Increased from 3.2 → 4.3/5

• Quick View: Reduced irrelevant product visits, surfacing attributes earlier in the customer journey

• Product relevancy: Improvements lowered replacements under guarantee, reducing avoidable costs and strengthening trust

• Bounce rate: Held steady at ~50%, within e-commerce benchmarks, despite added positive friction

Why product views mattered

• Mixed on/offline purchasing = views were the strongest proxy to conversion / revenue increase

• Fewer product replacements when customers exposed to relevant product attributes

Research & discovery

Methods

• Data (sessions, bounce, filter use, PDP views)

• Interviews, usability tests, surveys, sentiment tracking

• ~300 customer engagements, ~10k+ customer feedbacks across initiative (direct & distributor markets) as part of 200k feedback repository for UXR analysis

• CSAT, continuous feedback loops, session analysis, heatmaps

• Internal UAT, BETA testing and leadership reporting

• UX end-to-end prototype research

• Private BETA (x1 market) followed by public BETA (x3 markets)

Key insights

• Bounce ~50%

• Search filter use correlated with higher PDP engagement, but customer filter adoption <4%

• Time poor researchers on average skipped refinements and went direct to product pages

• Researchers required key product attributes upfront

• Discovery confirmed focus: fewer results, higher product relevancy

Design approach & solution exploration

Concepts & prototyping

• Pre-search autosuggest expanded from single-word searches with product attribute prompts for highly relevant results

• Product Quick View surfaced essential attributes, reducing back and forth between result and dense product pages

• Parent category fallback ensured continuity for broad searchers, supporting legacy behaviours at no risk to revenue

Iterations & Trade-offs:

• Positive friction: Customers invested fractionally more time pre-search, saving time later at the higher pressure stage of product selection

• Filter simplification: Complex products contributed to 50+ options which were reduced to essentials only, shifting away from unused filters

• Mid-project rebrand: Increased timescales and UX resource required to collaborate and create a new version of the design system

Implementation

• Hypotheses validated through contextual research, customer surveys, sentiment tracking, usability tests, beta trials and leadership feedback

• UXD & UXR embedded across Product & Engineering squads

• 2 week sprints following product area roadmaps

• Stakeholder collaboration contributed to peer and customer focused improvements

Phased rollout

• Single European market pilot

• Expanded across EMEA

• Similar pilot repeated before full APAC region

• Rolled-out in US after strong results

• UX collaborated with; PMs, engineers, delivery managers, customer support, sales and marketing stakeholders

Results

Quantitative

• PDP sessions:

  • Quick view included in new formula surfacing key product attributes required for or influencing purchase decisions

  • Search to PDP engagement improved by 30% (1.2 → 1.6 per session, +2.8M sessions/year) if sustained

• CSAT: 3.2 → 4.3/5 as a result of improving search, exposing product attributes earlier and reducing search to decision overhead

• Bounce rate: Held steady at ~50% despite added positive friction

• Filter use: Remained low <4%, but offset by stronger product signals via expanded autosuggest (and Quick View PDP-equivalent engagement)

• Search abandonment rate: Zero results improvement 7% as a result of a work stream designated to improving zero search results and direct keyword to product matching

Qualitative

• Customers found products faster with greater confidence

• Quick View reduced irrelevant PDP visits and exposed attributes earlier

• Stakeholders observed fewer product guarantee replacements

• Positive beta testing feedback supported global rollout

Business Impact

• Higher product views correlated with revenue growth

• Reduced replacements lowered avoidable costs and strengthened customer trust

• Reinforced business positioning as a digital-first provider

Learnings & Next Steps

Successes

• Autosuggest & Quick View improved results relevancy

• Increased product views / year and improved customer satisfaction

• Surfacing reviews and validation data earlier in the customer journey saved customers time

Challenges & Learnings

• Mid-project rebrand overhead

• Scope expansions extended initiative timescales

• Distributor journey improvement required where Quick View not required (primarily repurchase of known products)

  • Achievable using identified, signed-in distributor sessions

• Acquisition deprioritised digital focus

Next Steps

• Personalised autosuggest - segmentation, signed-in state and purchase history recommendations

• Explore AI/ML product trend predictions - identify trending products to inform manufacturing and marketing decisions

• Continue to improve fuzzy matching across mixed keyword and autosuggest searches