Overstock’s Loyalty Program
& Initial user research
Overstock has been around for over 20 years, in that time their loyalty program (Club O) has had many owners and permutations. Memberships began to dip during covid (2020 and 2021) hitting a low of around 6% of active Overstock customers, even though Overstock sales had been increasing throughout Covid. The business identified this as a problem and so I was asked to lead design on the current Club O product team to help increase membership.
Below you’ll find an overview of the vision, strategy, and business problems as well as the initial research into the Club O customer dashboard. This is just a portion of a year-long project with many business stakeholders and goals.
Our Vision
A loyalty ecosystem that enables us to strengthen and reward loyalty among all customers throughout their shopping experience
Primary Customer Problem
As a Club O member, I’m trying to manage and understand my rewards balance but I have a hard time understanding how many rewards I have, can use, earn and redeem because my membership info is scattered throughout my experience and lacks consistency which makes me feel frustrated and not valued as an Overstock customer.
Business Problems
How can we increase repeat purchasing and Customer lifetime value (CLV) among more of our target customers?
How can our members get more value from the time they spend engaging with us?
Strategy
Expand the reach of our loyalty program to influence and reward loyalty behaviors of more target customers to increase engagement and repeat purchases.
Introduce a free tier targeted at keeping Savannah (Overstock’s main persona) engaged in shopping
Elevate value and user experience for free-based tier
Surprise and delight members with rewards and personalized experiences
How the Program Will Work
Two membership tiers - basic & premium
New reward points program
Earn points for purchases
Earn points for non-purchases activities
(download app, create a list, share products, etc...)Convert points to reward dollars for future purchases
User Research Outcomes
Through this process multiple prototypes were tested and ultimately we went with Prototype C. Here are the overall outcomes of the research leading us in that direction.
Qualitative
Scrolling + tabs offered a clearer more discoverable path to understanding all the ways a customer can earn points.
Quantitative - Prototype C
88% (86 participants) knew they had 1,850 points and 86% (84) knew that equated to $18.50
73% found the History section “Very Helpful.”
3 of the 4 tasks had a 98% completion rate. And the 4th had 100% completion
The final direction we moved based on the research.
Metrics After Launch
Percent of orders Club O drove. Note this graph also shows the Overstock Store Card.
After several rounds of various tests, we felt we had mitigated as much risk as we could in this initial user testing of the dashboard for Club O customers and the introduction of points. We went ahead and launched the overall new loyalty program experience and points in November of 2021.
In Q4 2021 when the new Club O launched the Order % (red line) begins to trend up as well as our member rate to approximately 705K members in Q1 2021.
Club O also saw the 28-day repeat rate trend upwards sitting at 34.6% in Q3 2022 as well as the % of Active Customers increased each quarter to hit 8% in Q3.
With this in mind, there are many projects on the roadmap into 2025 to continue to increase Club O's active membership rate.
How We Got there
All of the research explained
Qualitative Testing
Test Details
10 participants in 2 different tests saw 2 different prototypes with the same questions.
Hypothesis
We believe that by having customers use a tabbed and long scroll experience we will see an increase in knowledge about other ways to earn, and they will easily be able to manage their accounts.
Analysis
Prototype A (long scroll), hands down, offered a clearer more discoverable path to understanding all the ways a customer can earn points.
8 of the 10 participants scrolled to find information initially
Prototype B - 2 participants tapped the ‘How to use’ tab. Leaving a majority (8) not understanding all the ways a customer can earn points.
Quantitative Testing
Test Details
4 different tests. 100 participants each. 1 control prototype, 3 new iterations.
Hypothesis
We believe that by having an easy-to-use, understand and navigate dashboard we will see an improved Systems Usability Scale (SUS) Score and comprehension over control.
Test Objectives
Benchmark Usability of the new design vs control
Better understand a participant’s ability to navigate and find the information they need in control vs new.
The Tasks
Explore dashboard. Understand rewards and cash to spend.
Navigate to the section that gives you more info on how to earn and redeem points. Explore this section.
Navigate to your Rewards History and explore.
Navigate to where you would update your Credit Card associated with this rewards program.
