Nike - Bringing authentic Nike experience to Taobao Tmall
Role & Responsibilities
• Role: Project lead / Duration: 2017 Q1-2018 Q2
• As project lead, I am responsible for giving design direction, overseeing deliverable quality, presentation and fostering communication.
Project Background
Being the top selling brand in the sportswear category on Taobao Tmall (the leading e-commence platform in China), Nike is highly motivated to remain dominant and progressive by bringing premium experiences to Tmall users. In 2012, Nike opened its first official Tmall store. During the time of our collaboration since 2017, two more stores were opened on Tmall; the first standalone online Jordan flagship store and Nike Young Athlete store. Tmall is a highly commercial-driven platform, nevertheless, our goal in shaping the Nike Tmall store is always to strike a balance between branding and profitability. Our major opportunity areas included:
Overall store usability improvement - micro innovate module interaction, leverage platform technology to better support product exploration and keep the store experience fresh.
Campaign page design and design workflow improvement - with lowering design cost in mind, improve work flow efficiency by setting up reusable templates.
Conversion design - gradually integrate Nike’s membership into Tmall, leverage user data to create a personalized store experience for everyone.
Approach & Result
The design process can be divided into 3 key phases: research + design opportunity, concept design and detail design.
Research/Market trend and competitor analysis - Understand market and consumer trend, where Nike places in terms of providing digital services and addressing true user needs compared to other competitors.
Research/User interview, persona and user journey - Understand and provide reports on Tmall store customers, decision pattern and user journey.
Research/Stakeholder mapping - Understand key person and resources related to project, how will the final design affect these personnels in what way.
Synthesis - Provide advise on service integration, experience personalization, overall digital channel strategy and insight on retail innovation.
Design - Based on research, conceptualize key module layout, display logic and information structure.
Design - Based on branding visual styleguide, visual look and feel.
Takeaways
What is the real challenge of building the Nike Tmall store?
To any Chinese consumers living in first tier cities, there are at least 5 ways to purchase Nike product. Among all the purchase channels, Tmall is the most commercial-driven one, people expect to find a bargain here and would use Tmall as baseline price. However, as new generation of consumers become the main source of store revenue, Tmall store owners must acknowledge the fact that their consumers are less price sensitive, and values brand recognition more than ever before. At the same time, the smooth mobile payment process and well-established logistics Tmall provides no longer stands as a prominent advantage. Consumers are expecting to receive better services, their definition of good shopping experience is not limited to the moment of purchase, rather, before and after purchases are included.
Facing the change, Tmall brings in membership and provide brands the tools to personalize their store experience, a big part of this is to utilize user data that Tmall has been cumulating. That being said, Nike will be able to provide Tmall store users a wholesome brand experience, from better product selection, brand content, professional customer service and be more aligned with official events/campaigns. We can see that Nike Tmall store design direction is directly linked to Tmall’s overall strategy as a e-commerce platform. Realistically, to perform a major store experience upgrade, you will need content (such as rich merchandise information, brand stories, blog posts) and system integration (such as membership, offline event sign up portal) to be ready, at the same time, making sure all these changes will not affect revenue is of top priority. We landed on an approach to modify one module at a time and only for a limited duration of time, then, analyze data feedback (such as click rate, conversion rate, increase of traffic) to determine if the change is to be made. A key person from Nike is assigned to oversee the process, monitor data and make long-term plans accordingly.
The real challenge lies in the partnership between Nike and Tmall, to name a few: how long and to what degree can Nike access user data, how to integrate existing systems with Tmall system without effecting Nike’s technical infrastructure, how to keep growing store revenue without directing Nike consumers away from their official channels (Nike app, Nike offline stores etc.). The decision of any problem mentioned above will eventually affect the store design, as a partner agency, we must provide our professional advise to key stakeholders, make sure they are well-informed to move on with an optimal strategy.
Work done @ ARK Innovation Consulting / 2017-2018