In 2021, REI’s Customer Experience team conducted research to understand how customers felt about membership pricing. When asked to assign a dollar value and rank to potential membership benefits a “member app” consistently came out on top. In higher price point categories, this surprisingly outranked things like “member offers”. While, an interesting data point, the rank choice responses did not explain what problems our members are trying to solve with an app nor the job(s) they expected it to do for them.
I was the sole researcher and designer on this project.
While the Co-op had existing research that helped inform the test plan, I needed to interview REI members to truly understand their behaviors, needs, and goals
Member interviews
Although a lot of valuable insights were unearthed the most prevalent overarching pain point was planning.
Our members struggle with a range of problems within this theme that range from getting park reservations, flexible rental options, arrangements for dogs, and coordinating with friends/family.
Foundational insights
Primary planners didn't mind being in charge (in fact, most prefer it this way) but found themselves overwhelmed and stressed when it came time to figure out logistics (gear lists, reservations, safety preparedness, dogs, etc.).
Planners
People who were not the primary planners have found themselves on trips they were not physically prepared for sufficiently equipped for. These experiences cause a lot of anxiety that either prevents them from spending more time outside or to make haphazard contingency plans.
Joiners
After synthesizing the interviews I led a 2 day design sprint with internal stakeholders. Participants included the head of product, product leaders from the shopping app team, and several people from the Experiences division.
Solution workshop with stakeholders
This market is fragmented and customers are stitching together a suite of unideal solutions (shown below). They need a solution that brings everything together “all in one place”.
• Concept/feature qualitative tests (180 participants)
• Diary Study (6 participants)
• Quantitative survey, (900 participants)
• Landing page tests (10,000 participants)
• Tech design exploration with shopping app team
The concept as presented in the quant survey. The screens were used for qual but I presented them differently.
In the quant study we learned that non-members were most interested in purchasing this app and through running a Van Westendorp we learned that they would prefer for the app annually. The most optimal price point was $29/year, which, is only $1 short of the price of an REI membership. Could this app be a way to acquire new members while retaining old ones?
When the concept had sharper edges we ran a false door test on Instagram, Facebook, and our existing shopping app. Overall we saw an average conversion rate of 3.4% with 334 people signing up with their email to be notified of the app launch (a strong “do” signal).
When only looking at conversion from the existing REI app the conversion rate was 34%. The majority (95%) of the apps users are members which was a great sign.
Callout features:
Permit information and easy registration system.
Collaborative trips— invite friends and easily share information so everyone’s on the same page.
Backcountry food prep calculator so you never bring too much… or too little 😱
A trip plan that includes all important locations throughout the trip with addresses, offline mode, and contextual chat.
A packing list for yourself and your group. See what your friends personal packing lists look like so you can pack right too and collaborative coordinate group gear.
While we got great “say” signal in the Validate phase we know that what people say isn’t actually what they’ll do. We needed to learn if people would pay for the app, use it frequently, and if it would drive high enough attachment rates for it to be a valuable investment for the business.
Even though leadership had asked us to create an app, we became aware that they might not actually be ready to fund an app. Further, we got a new CCO who didn’t believe in having a multi-app ecosystem. To prepare for any pushback in the pilot pitch I worked with the core shopping app team to see if we could fit critical features into their app without impacting conversion.
While it’s hard to price out a pilot like this, while Hayley was crunching the numbers, our engineer Chris actually just went ahead and build the backend. Legend. Before he built it we thought it may take 3 engineers ~3 months which would cost ~$200k, after Chris’ build we estimated we could launch an MVP in 1 month for ~$50k.
The short of it is that we decided to shelve the project in October of 2022.
The “why” behind that decision is complex but can be summarized in one larger problem.
Despite leadership asking us to create a product that engages members, there isn’t alignment on engagement metrics. If we don’t have baseline metrics for engagement and alignment on what “good” looks like we knew this concept wouldn’t be prioritized by the business.
In the year following the shelving decision our teammates continued to uncover the same insights that we uncovered in this work. Other initiatives recognized the value and importance of solving these problems and have been able to use our insights to shape their work.