Bythjul is the leading company in online sales of tires and rims. The company’s strategy was to launch a new responsive site to ensure superior service. Offering customers the smoothest order flow in the industry would become the company’s main weapon in the fight to maintain and increase its market share in a constant stream of new low-cost operators.
To ensure the smoothest user experience possible, no matter where and when users order their tires. Therefore, me and my colleagues at Whiteport were invited to cooperate closely with the internal development team to create a super smooth ordering platform optimized for mobile devices and tablets.
The result was a modern and intuitive e-commerce site for tires and rims. A stripped-down order process that did not require prior knowledge of anything related to tires was designed from the ground up. The user receives product recommendations based on what is important to him/her, and without knowing anything about the type designations and dimensions, the customer can understand what makes each tire unique.
How do we get customers, who would rather do something else than buying tires, feel engaged and satisfied with their online purchase?
The challenge for us was to create an e-commerce site that makes all visitors experts on tires for their particular vehicle, while helping them buy the right products with confidence.
Only one click to the right product
In order to keep the customer in the purchase process, the right products needs to be presented immediately, and each step needs to feel relevant and simple.
In our design, a dynamic order form was on the company homepage. Based on the current season and with the help of the customer’s license number, the right product with the right dimension could be displayed after only on click of a button.
The question “what is important to you?” helps customers filter products after their own values
The customers have several difficulties when buying tires online. Many ask themselves questions such as, “what tires fit my car?”, and, “how do I get the tires from the site to the car?”. The design needs to effectively answer these questions so the customers feel confident in their order.
The most interesting challenge was guiding the customer to look at the slightly more expensive tires, to ensure satisfaction with their purchase. More exclusive tires often provide shorter braking distances, less noise and slower wear than a cheaper option.
Our solution was to introduce a section that asks the question, “what is important to you?”, in the product list. Here, the customer can select aspects such as safety, environment and comfort. When the customer selects one of the aspect, their choice activates a product filter and products can therefore be filtered according to the characteristics the customer desires. When this new feature was presented in usability tests to test subjects, the results showed that it could directly affect customer buying habits.
The main target group wants tire-fashion rather than the garage
As a basis for the digital strategy, we conducted a trigger mapping where we, together with the client, identified the most important customer groups. Of all the customers visiting Bythjul is not primarily aimed at customers who are “price squeeze machines”, who are just looking for a bargain, or“chip trimmers” who know everything about cars. The most interesting customer group are the people who like to shop for fashion online. Bythjul wants a site where it is as easy to buy tires as any another lifestyle product.
Faster, less pressure on customer service and better hitrate in the search engines
The new platform has become faster and has, in addition to its new design, been optimized for Google and other search engines. Sales are strong and customer service staff notice fewer questions coming in from customers.
