Introducing a culture of testing & optimisation Doing more than just getting the shoes on the shelf.

Stuart McMillianSchuh LTD.

Deputy Head of Ecommerce

@mcmillanstu

Who is this guy?!

• Scottish

• Geek

• Favourite board game: Monopoly

@mcmillanstu

What we’ll cover• The schuh context

• Building a testing culture

• The new normal

• Tomorrow’s world

@mcmillanstu

The schuh context

@mcmillanstu

A bit of schuh background• Founded 1981• 99 stores• Multichannel• Customer

service focused• Systems driven

@mcmillanstu

Ecom Challenges – A multi device world

@mcmillanstu

Ecom Challenges – A multi device world

@mcmillanstu

P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 p8 p9 p10 p11 p12 P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P60%

10%

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60%

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80%

90%

Traffic by device since

Feb 2012

DesktopMobileTablet

Ecom Challenges – A multi device world

@mcmillanstu

Results you can’t always measure

Ecom Challenges – A multi device world

@mcmillanstu

Increasingly competitive marketplace

Ecommerce

Mobile Site November 2011

Tablet Site November 2012

Responsive Pilot November 2013

Schuh Responsive August 2014

Trading Online2001

@mcmillanstu

Head of Ecommerce

Deputy Head of Ecommerce

Digital Marketing

Digital Merchandising

Online Development &

Optimisation

Web Editorial Analytics Insight

Ecommerce – Team Structure

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What is a good user experience?

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Building a testing culture

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This is not an anti-agency rant…

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Status Quo Ante

• Conversion focused• Systems driven• Customer-centric• Self Reliant

• ‘Project cycles’• Backlog/Dev resource• Poor instrumentation• Self Reliant

Strengths Weaknesses

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The watershed moment

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Stop, collaborate and listen

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Teamwork

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Ecommerce

Designer (Marketing

dept)Customer

Service

Ecommerce

User

Growing the team, widening the effort

•Identify bottlenecks, resource appropriately • Democratisation of

effort to entire department & beyond

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Tools of the trade

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Training, Development & SupportBroaden Horizons • GA• PRWD• Optimizely • Conferences• The Internet!

Set New Standards1. Mobile first2. User-centric design3. Standards compliant4. Analytics ready5. SEO as standard

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Areas of improvement

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HypothesisCreation

Areas of improvement

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These aren’t the results you’re looking for

Test Analysis

Areas of improvement

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Evangelisefurther

Danger!

Don’t build new walls!

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The New Normal

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Responsive Web Design

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Mobile First

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What does that even mean?!

“It’s not a device, it’s a context!” Another guru“It’s a paradigm shift” Some guru

“It’s just a smaller screen” Yet another guru

Mobile First – A practical approach

@mcmillanstu

Smartphone represents our largest audience segment They have the biggest hardware challenges

Slow connection Small screen

Technically challenging to down-scale an experience to mobile Other devices can “afford” to pick up the overhead of up-

scaling from mobile We treat mobile as our baseline, if something is important to

how we do e-business it starts on mobile (SEO, for example)

Mobile design is bleeding in to desktop design (thankfully).

Mobile First – Challenges

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2013 Eptica Mobile CX study lists the top 3 consumer pet-hates: Sites that lack functionality compared to desktop sites Sites that were slow to load Sites that were difficult to navigate on a small screen

Usability best practice for 2014/2015 must address these!bare minimum

Mobile First – Best Practice

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Where I think we should be aiming: Search-ready. Turn off styles, how does it look? Sites that load in 1-2 seconds via 3G App-like Interaction Design, fully realising touch Seamless user journeys between screens Integrated fully with physical retail Retail infrastructure needs to adapt to mobilised consumer

(e.g. fulfilment options)

Mobile First – Speed Tips

@mcmillanstu

A few things to think about: Perception is everything. It’s not about the numbers, it’s

about how the user perceives the speed of your site.

For mobile, the network layer is still very much the major bottleneck. Optimising for available bandwidth is key. 4G won’t fix this!

Tomorrow’sWorld

@mcmillanstu

@mcmillanstu

High street innovationInnovation of the mundane: Many retailers still working towards a single view of stock

Fulfilment options not yet meeting customer expectations

Integration of offline and online still very basic

Payment technologies could be improved

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Apps

The App is DeadLong Live the App?

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@mcmillanstu

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got

Contact InfoStuart McMillanSchuh LTD.Deputy Head of EcommerceEmail: StuartM@schuh.co.uk

@mcmillanstu

Questions?