Identifying why a high-value personalised product was losing repeat revenue
Role
Company
Timeline
UX Audit & Analytics
Seasonal e-commerce
2025
Scope of work
Analytics · User research · Conversion optimisation · Customer retention · AI-supported synthesis · Growth strategy
CONTEXT
I worked with a Design Manager and UX Researcher to audit an e-commerce platform selling personalised digital products created for children and purchased by parents and other adults.
The product itself had strong emotional value. Customers were willing to complete a difficult configuration and purchase journey because the final outcome, a personalised film or related product created for a specific child, felt unique and worth the effort.
The platform generated significant revenue, but the business had seen a year-on-year decline and wanted to understand what was driving it. The project therefore examined more than checkout conversion. It also considered product understanding, repeat purchase behaviour, seasonal demand, subscription value, customer retention, and opportunities to build a longer-term relationship with families.
My contribution covered qualitative and quantitative analysis, Hotjar and Google Analytics review, heuristic evaluation, customer-journey mapping, evidence synthesis, prioritisation, and strategic recommendations.
CHALLENGE
The experience served two distinct audiences – children were the recipients and emotional beneficiaries of the product, while adults had to understand the offer, configure the content, provide personal information, complete payment, and decide whether to purchase again in the following year.
The strength of the final product compensated for significant friction in the purchase journey. Users continued despite unclear differences between products, complex configuration, weak progress feedback, difficult forms, broken navigation, confusing subscription options, and limited visibility of the final result.
This created a business risk. Strong emotional demand could mask serious usability problems, but it could not guarantee repeat purchases or protect revenue as customer expectations and competing products evolved.
The challenge was to determine:
where users abandoned the journey or lost confidence;
which issues had the greatest impact on conversion;
what prevented customers from returning consistently;
how the experience could support repeat purchases as a child developed;
which problems required immediate fixes and which pointed to a broader product or growth strategy.
DISCOVERY
I combined Google Analytics funnel analysis, Hotjar session recordings, moderated research, heuristic evaluation, customer-journey mapping, and technical-friction analysis.
AI-supported synthesis helped organise a large volume of usability findings, behavioural observations, and strategic recommendations into recurring themes across conversion, retention, personalisation, and seasonal engagement.
The audit covered the full journey:
product discovery and comparison;
film selection;
personalisation and image upload;
subscription and one-time purchase decisions;
cart and upselling;
account access;
checkout and payment;
post-purchase communication;
return journeys in subsequent seasons.
The research showed that users were expected to make too many decisions with limited guidance.
Customers struggled to compare films, understand product variants, evaluate the value of subscriptions, and predict how their choices would affect the final product. During configuration, they lost context across long flows, encountered difficult dropdowns, and received limited feedback about required fields, pricing changes, and progress.
The audit also identified journey-breaking and misleading behaviours, including lost checkout context, ineffective controls, dead-end states after adding products to the cart, unclear calls to action, and forms requesting personal information without explaining its purpose.
☞ The evidence also pointed to a broader business problem.
The platform depended heavily on a short seasonal sales window, while communication with previous customers remained limited outside the Christmas period. Existing data about children and prior purchases was not being used consistently to reduce effort in future purchases or make the next experience more relevant.
This created an opportunity to address both immediate conversion barriers and longer-term customer value through stronger return journeys, better use of existing data, and a more continuous engagement model.
SOLUTION
The recommendations were organised around four strategic areas. AI-supported workflows were used to cluster findings, compare prioritisation scenarios, and develop early hypotheses around retention, subscription value, and year-round engagement.
☞ Reduce friction across purchase and configuration
The first priority was to make the existing journey easier to understand and complete.
Recommendations focused on:
clearer product pages with previews, trailers, and direct comparisons;
more visible differences between one-time purchases and subscriptions;
live or representative previews during personalisation;
fewer required fields and clearer optional-field labels;
simpler selection controls and age-based recommendations;
persistent progress and configuration summaries;
clearer price updates for paid options;
preserved order state across login, password recovery, voucher use, and payment changes;
guest checkout and faster payment methods;
stronger trust signals and more consistent calls to action.
These changes addressed both cognitive load and technical interruptions that prevented users from completing the journey smoothly.
☞ Make product value visible before purchase
The final product created strong emotional value, but the experience communicated that value too late.
I recommended bringing the expected outcome closer to the decision through:
sample scenes and product previews;
clearer examples of personalisation;
explanations of how the child’s data would appear in the final film;
authentic family reviews and reaction content;
clearer comparisons between formats and quality levels;
recommendations based on age, occasion, and intended use;
a stronger explanation of subscription value.
Because adults were buying on behalf of children, they needed confidence in the result before committing to the purchase.
☞ Build a stronger repeat-customer model
The business needed to reduce dependence on one-off seasonal purchases.
The proposed direction used previous customer and purchase data to make future journeys easier and more relevant through:
saved child and configuration data;
personalised recommendations based on age and purchase history;
early access for returning customers;
loyalty and referral incentives;
exclusive subscriber benefits;
bundles combining related products and experiences;
communication using previous purchase context.
The subscription model needed to offer continuity and convenience, not only a lower price. Reusing saved information could reduce repeated configuration effort and strengthen the reason to return.
☞ Extend engagement beyond the sales window
The existing model concentrated communication and revenue within a short seasonal period.
I proposed a broader engagement strategy linked to relevant family moments, including birthdays, school achievements, anniversaries, Advent, Children’s Day, and the start of the festive season.
Additional recommendations included:
abandoned-cart and return-to-purchase campaigns;
early-order and pre-season communication;
reminders linked to key dates;
content for parents around family traditions;
regional campaigns reflecting local customs;
expansion into birthdays and other occasions;
referral and ambassador programmes;
partnerships with parenting creators, schools, and children’s brands.
The objective was to move from a seasonal transaction model towards a longer-term customer relationship.
OUTCOMES
The final delivery included:
an evidence-based UX audit covering discovery, configuration, cart, and checkout;
a prioritised optimisation roadmap;
design-ready recommendations for high-friction purchase flows;
a retention and repeat-purchase strategy;
recommendations for subscription positioning and loyalty;
opportunities for year-round communication and product expansion;
segmentation directions for new and returning customers;
hypotheses and validation criteria for larger product changes.
The work gave the business a clearer explanation for declining revenue. Rather than attributing the problem to a single checkout issue, the evidence connected it to friction across the wider purchase journey, weak repeat-customer mechanisms, and limited engagement outside the seasonal sales period.
REFLECTION
The project showed that a strong emotional outcome can sustain demand even when the purchase experience is difficult.
Parents were willing to work through long forms, unclear choices, and broken interactions because the final product promised a meaningful moment for their child. This did not indicate that the journey was effective. It showed that the perceived value of the outcome was compensating for significant product friction.
The larger opportunity was therefore not limited to removing usability issues. It was to preserve the emotional value that made the product desirable while making the experience easier to understand, personalise, complete, and repeat.
For a children’s product purchased by adults, retention depends on both sides of the experience: the child’s emotional response and the adult’s confidence that returning will be simple, relevant, and worth the cost.
