After reviewing Amazon’s existing Subscribe & Save experience, I defined a more effective subscription management flow to better empower users to make educated decisions about opting in and managing their subscriptions to applicable products which should increase customer loyalty.
Solo Design
Figma
Miro
2 Months
User Research
Secondary Research
Interaction Design
Usability Testing
Amazon Subscribe & Save (S&S) is a feature that allows customers to schedule recurring orders of products they frequently purchase. As an Amazon subscriber, I'm often frustrated with managing my subscriptions which motivated me to improve this part of the product. As a self-initiated redesign effort, I refined the S&S shopping experience and optimized the product listing. The result is a more intuitive and simpler user experience than previous versions.
How might we refine the subscribe & save shopping experience for new and existing users to improve adoption and retention?
Improving the product listing design to provide better price clarity and ability to compare with other products to determine the best value
Enabling the user to opt in to subscribe & save feature through demonstrating its value and intuitive set-up process
Providing the users an accessible way to manage their subscriptions
I turned to junglescout.com, a business analytics platform, to better identify how valued Subscribe & Save is to Amazon's business success. There was a prevalence of using Subscribe & Save related to customer loyalty.
To Amazon Business：
- promote sustainability/retain customers on Amazon e-commerce business
- increase lifetime value
- long-term revenue and increased customer loyalty
- attract Amazon’s High-Value Customers
To Amazon Customers:
- be convenient with less time spent constantly re-ordering products
- save 5%-15% on the sales price with Subscribe & Save
- cancel or edit Subscriptions any time for free
Amazon Prime members have used Subscribe & Save
Consumers who consider themselves “brand loyal” have used Subscribe & Save.
I synthesized hundreds of reviews from the App Store and Google Play Store. Many users have complained that it is difficult to manage and track the subscribed items since the disorganized and hidden navigation.
It took over 10 steps to finally cancel transaction and subscription.
I was a loyal Prime member for years. They constantly change the interface and move features around making it harder to use than it should be.
The app struggles to let me see my orders. It's very frustrating to try and view your orders (or even the status of your order).
They are constantly changing to the moving the subscription menu to the extent I suspect amazon is purposely doing this as an impediment.
Unfortunately now you can't cancel your subscriptions because they removed "manage subscription" button.
To understand more about the process and experience of using Subscribe & Save, I conducted a user survey with 29 participants who use the Amazon app frequently.
I asked the following questions:
- 31% Facilitate repeated purchase
- 75.9% The discount price with Subscribe & Save
- 29.2% The subscription policy of free cancellation anytime
- 29.2% Hard to manage the Subscribed items
- 41.7% Difficulty noticing Subscribe & Save on the product listing page
To better understand customers’ perspectives of the challenges with the Amazon app, I conducted interviews with 6 users. I then took the responses through an affinity map to find common themes amongst the responders.
I usually add items to the cart and go back to see others, and then make a final comparison in the cart and place an order or keep it for later purchase.
When I browse the product listing, I’m confused on the various discounts/deals so I don't know what the price is after the discounts.
There are too many frequency options with week and month, which are very messy for me. I would intuitively choose the Amazon majority recommendation.
But Subscribe & Save is hidden so deep in “your account” now. The navigation confuse me a lot.
To define the problems with the current version, I asked users about their experiences with the Amazon app. The experiences I focused on were the Product Listing, setting up the Subscribe & Save process, and managing subscriptions. Here are their responses.
❌ The information on current product listings is overwhelming, preventing users from catching keywords and transparent prices efficiently.
❌ Visually, the Subscribe & Save feature is not easy to discover in the product card view.
❌ In fact, consumers will make an initial comparison on the product listing and decide which product details page to enter. Users use a favorites list or the shopping cart as an area to compare in the existing Amazon design. The existing comparison on the product detail page only offers default items without configuring the delivery options.
- Enhancing the information discoverability
- Improving price clarity and transparency to help customers make wisely initial decisions
- Providing customers the comparison feature on the product listing page
❌ The appearances of delivery frequency are not consistent between the product page and the edit for subscriptions.
❌ There are too many frequency options mixing week and month, so it’s very messy.
❌ The frequency period cannot be reasonably calculated in the customer’s brain.
❌ The first delivery is an important factor of experience. Visually, the first delivery is often ignored because it is out of operation area.
I even didn't notice the first delivery. The default first delivery is too late, I must change it.”
- Calculation will be done on Amazon's end
- Most Common -> Give more friendly and authentic content
- Streamline delivery frequency options to improve the flexibility
- Keep consistency
- Put together all actions to enable customers an efficient recognition
With the observation of user flows from 3 users, there is an issue with navigation that prevents users from locating important information and exsiting approach.
❌ Time-Consuming Navigation because customers need 4 or more clicks to access “Manage S&S”.
❌ Subscribe & Save is hidden too deep to find it.
❌ Too much text on the profile page takes up the additional cognitive load.
❌ It’s challenging for customers to know the key information of their next delivery.
❌ Customers are frustrated with CTAs managing the subscriptions.
This page is a bit cluttered to me. I like the page to be clean and easy to find what I want to know.
- Refined profile content to intuitive use
- Adding in icons to better present information in bite-sized format
- Showcase cards in order to easily glance through information
- Reorganizing the priority content on deliveries table
Once the low-fidelity version had been created, there were differing opinions based on user testing to ensure that the new experience would achieve the objectives.
As the entry point, the product listing is super important, so I revised the product card with different layouts of information, Prime icon, product title, and transparent prices.
I added a comparison feature on the product listing page so that users would be able to compare proper items, not only on the product detail page.
Users would retain higher loyalty when identifying the value of their adoption. I demonstrated Subscribe & Save’s value at the top of the session in order to help users wisely purchase.
I defined the operation sections with all needed actions to provide an intuitive setup process. A calculated recommendation selection would reduce user frustration, but high-level flexibility.
I optimized the account navigation and added icons in profile content to better present information in a bite-sized format. As a result, it is easy and intuitive to approach subscriptions.
- Quantitative data including # of changed retention, # of subscriptions, and # of clicks.
- Quantitative to demonstrate heat-maps, time on a page.
- Qualitative data to learn that did my concepts resonate more closely with Prime users over others?
- Usability study about task completion rates for the focused flows I had.
Through this project, I learned a lot about Accessibility Color, Figma Plugins: Stark, and balancing user needs and business.
