When cart items become unavailable, like being Out of Stock (OOS), customers can only remove them or add them to a wishlist. Both options make the items disappear, often leading to confusion and lost high-intent purchases.
This project explored pain points in IKEA’s web and app experiences related to item availability, using user testing to uncover insights and guide solution development.
Objectives
To determine whether customers understand the functionality of ‘save for later’ and if this is any different from making ‘add to wishlist’ visible and accessible from the cart.
Hypothesis
Having a section of saved items within close proximity to the shopping cart makes it easier for the customer to access dropped items from their previous session without leaving the cart.
Customers will understand that by saving for later, we are providing a solution to help them continue on their checkout journey without losing their out of stock items.
What we know
19.7% of wishlist additions originate from the cart. Where the wishlist being a sub group of favourites.
23.0% of all site add to favourites came from the cart2 but CVR from wishlist are low.
Our customers are using ‘add to wishlist’ when they are faced with unavailability of an item in the upper funnel. An increase to add to wishlist was observed from the Search Results Page if a product was unavailable.
Intent to purchase increases as the customer progresses through the upper funnel towards lower funnel. Customers will return to ikea.com shortly after their recent purchase as they have a medium to high intent to purchase.
Some user testing…
Userzoom was the tool to conduct a small scale usability test. A ‘think out loud’ test was conducted with 4 participants recruited from the biggest markets - UK, US and DE. I worked with a researcher to formulate a list of questions which were used to try and understand what the customers perception and expectations of a ‘save for later’ feature in the cart.
The initial test consisted of a very basic prototype without any interactions and animations, so the participants could focus on the feature.
Changing it up bit…
During playback, I noticed a consistent pattern: participants were using the term “save for later” interchangeably with “add to wishlist.” Many were also unsure what happened to these items if they exited checkout.
“I’m not sure if it’s kept somewhere after I’ve completed my purchase.”
This insight led me to test whether changing the label from “save for later” to “add to wishlist” would clarify its purpose and reduce confusion.
Terminology: 'Save for later' vs. 'Add to wishlist'
So, I decided to do a second test replacing ‘save for later’ with ‘add to wishlist’. Using the same questions and UI but swapping out ‘save for later’ with ‘add to wishlist’. By doing this, will the participants feel more assured about where their items would be saved upon their return to the site?
Will they feel more confident in the feature if it used the term ‘wishlist’?
