It’s always nice when a study is conducted that includes actual brands. A recent customer experience study conducted by UserZoom over tablet websites revealed thought--provoking results related to usability of three major sport-clothing brands.
According to the study, UnderArmour offers the Best-in-Class Tablet Customer Experience and Usability. Columbia Sportswear and The North Face were the other companies that participated in the study.
Tablet spending in the U.S. is expected to reach $24 billion this year, before reaching almost $50 billion in 2015. Mobile spending will increase by 55.7% year-on-year to account for 15% of all retail ecommerce sales. Given these numbers, one would expect retailers to ensure the tablet version of their website is as usable and friendly as possible. After all, great usability is a major contributor to the overall shopping experience and conversion rates.
American sport clothing and accessories companies, UnderArmour, Columbia Sportswear, and The North Face, were recently put to the test in a competitive benchmark study that aimed to evaluate consumers’ online shopping experience while using a tablet device. The benchmark study included responses and behavior from 300 participants, who were invited to participate in a mobile experience testing study. Each user was randomly assigned to one of the three brands’ websites and was asked to complete four purchase related tasks. The study was designed by UserZoom, a leading online research software firm specializing in Customer Experience and Usability for web and mobile apps, under the sponsorship of SSI (Survey Sampling International), global provider of survey sampling solutions.
The purpose of the study was to understand how the tablet experience affects the overall brand perception, and more importantly, how likely it is to influence the consumer's final shopping decision.
Here are the key findings:
UnderArmour is the clear winner: Among the competitors tested, it was discovered that UnderArmour consistently outperformed the others in each of the relevant categories, including:
1. The search and browse experience
2. Checkout and usability
3. Overall attitudes towards online shopping
This study revealed that more than half of UnderArmour’s users would have made a purchase online based on their tablet experience, leading UnderArmour to achieve the highest NPS (Net Promoter Score). UnderArmour finished with a positive NPS score of +4, followed by Columbia Sportswear, who earned an NPS score of -7 and The North Face, who earned an NPS score of -26.
The study also revealed that users felt a sense of both delightfulness and frustration in their experience in evaluating the companies’ tablet versions of the websites. This was mostly expressed when participants were asked to complete tasks such as using color, size and price filters, adding specific items to the cart and checking out an item for purchase. They were also asked to evaluate the ease of use in these activities and report what issues they faced, if any, when completing these tasks. In all these results, UnderArmour performed better than the other two brands tested.
While proceeding to checkout, the study presented that while on UnderArmour’s site, 92% of the users did not face issues, while 8% did. On Columbia Sportswear’s site, 79% of users did not face issues, while 21% did. The North Face’s site visits resulted in 52% of the users not having faced issues, whereas 48% did.