Direct-To-Consumer Ecommerce UX Audit
What are the top 40 UX improvements for your Direct-To-Consumer website? How does your UX performance compare to other large or niche DTC sites?
Based on the findings from Baymard Institute’s 150,000+ hours of User Experience (UX) research, Baymard will conduct a UX audit of your Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) ecommerce website.
The in-depth DTC UX audit will be based on 400+ weighted UX parameters uncovered during our large-scale UX testing of Direct-To-Consumer websites. The DTC UX audit will provide you with:
- a detailed 120+ page audit report outlining up to 40 prioritized and research-backed user experience improvements for your DTC site,
- provide best practice implementation examples and inspiration from other DTC sites for each of the up to 40 identified UX improvements to your site,
- a detailed, unbiased UX performance analysis across the 400+ UX parameters to document your current state and identify the best areas to improve,
- compare your site’s UX performance directly to the performance of 36 other DTC ecommerce sites, either large or niche DTC brands, and within industries such as apparel, consumer electronics, home decor, B2B, beauty, or luxury goods. (adidas, L.L. Bean, American Eagle, Marks & Spencer, Nike, H&M, GAP, Victoria’s Secret, Ann Taylor, Gucci, Van Cleef & Arpels, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Chanel, TAG Heuer, Apple, Bang & Olufsen, HP, Dell, IKEA, Disney Store, Thermo Fisher, Hitachi, along with Fromourplace.com, Snowehome.com, Backdrophome.com, Awaytravel.com, Everlane.com, Aninebing.com, Fitbit.com, Gopro.com, Harrys.com, Smiletwice.com).
Learn more about our Direct-to-Consumer UX audit analysis, deliverables, and costs in the 5 sections below:
“Intelligent, consumer-focused insights that are clear and actionable. The team in the room really loved the way the Baymard Institute highlighted the optimizations in the various user experience elements (copy, layout, design, calls-to-action…), from the perspective of consumer struggles. Baymard’s Usability research really complements our other existing research tools.”
What’s Included in a DTC UX Audit?
A full UX analysis and assessment of your desktop and mobile websites — conducted by lead UX researchers at Baymard Institute, utilizing Baymard’s more than 150,000+ hours of large-scale UX research.
Detailed UX scorecards with 400+ UX performance scoring parameters, used for direct UX performance comparison against 36 DTC websites. In addition, you will also get a UX comparison to 298 leading US and European ecommerce sites, to benchmark how your site stacks up to general user expectations.
The auditors will write a detailed 120+ page report with 40 suggestions for UX improvement. Each suggestion includes a description of the identified user experience issue along with a proposed solution and 2–4 best practice examples from other DTC sites.
A 2-hour video conference where we go over the audit results with you and your team, to discuss the findings and suggestions for improvements.
3 follow-up calls with your UX auditor after delivering the UX audit findings. For feedback on any redesigns you create, a light review of prototypes, questions, etc.
“First off, thank you. This was the most engrossed I’ve ever been in a 2-hour meeting. This [audit presentation] was incredibly insightful and very helpful. Many, many thanks.”
DTC Audit Focus
The audit will cover the following areas of your online user experience:
Custom DTC Competitors
In addition to auditing your site UX and comparing it to 36 DTC ecommerce sites in our benchmark database (adidas, L.L. Bean, American Eagle, Marks & Spencer, Nike, H&M, GAP, Victoria’s Secret, Ann Taylor, Gucci, Van Cleef & Arpels, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Chanel, TAG Heuer, Apple, Bang & Olufsen, HP, Dell, IKEA, Disney Store, Thermo Fisher, Hitachi, along with Fromourplace.com, Snowehome.com, Backdrophome.com, Awaytravel.com, Everlane.com, Aninebing.com, Fitbit.com, Gopro.com, Harrys.com, Smiletwice.com), we can also expand the project scope to include a custom competitive audit against any local or direct DTC competitor(s) you’d like. This is available for sites in most countries and languages.
“This was indeed very helpful guidance and a very well-documented roadmap for us to fix, validate, organize, collectively understand and continually improve our ecommerce foundation.”
What Are Audits For?
Most commonly, our UX audit services are used by:
- Sites that would like to benchmark their UX performance to see how they stack up against major competitors and “State of the Art” sites, to know where resources are best spent on further UX improvements.
- Sites that would like inspiration and verification of their new redesign. For example, before spending resources on the final production code — auditing prototype designs are cheaper than re-coding.
- Optimized sites that need a pair of external and unbiased eyes to identify the last tweaks and improvements.
- Sites that would like to track their UX performance year-over-year, to measure and document UX progress towards stakeholders and over time.
Return on Investment
Even the smallest improvement in conversion rate for any site with significant sales will lead to a notable return on investment. For example, an improvement from 3.1% to 3.6% in conversion rate for a site with $50,000,000 annual sales will yield $8,060,000 extra sales every year.
“I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for the amazing work on this audit. You should know that this has been very well received internally and there’s a lot of excitement around adopting the ideas you have shared.”
How Will the Audit Be Delivered?
A ‘DTC Full-Site UX audit’ includes:
- A full UX review and analysis by Baymard’s team of UX researchers of both your desktop and mobile websites.
- Detailed UX performance scorecards with 400+ review parameters, and with performance comparison against 36 leading DTC sites, along with a general comparison to 298 leading US, European, and International ecommerce sites.
- A 120+ page audit report with up to 40 prioritized suggestions for UX improvements. Each explain the identified UX issue, the suggested change, and show 2–4 best practice implementation examples from other DTC sites and leading ecommerce sites.
- A 2-hour video conference with you and your team to discuss the audit results.
- 3 follow-up calls with your UX auditor. Useful for follow-up questions or feedback on your redesigns or prototypes.
Reach out below to discuss your needs or request a UX audit of your DTC site. (PS client audits are strictly confidential and will not be included in Baymard’s public UX benchmark database).
Discuss your UX goals and tailor your audit with a Baymard Expert.
Guaranteed positive ROI or your audit is free!
Refund Policy: In the event that we’re unable to provide 30 suggestions for improvements we’ll still complete the audit and leave it up to you if you want a refund.
Lead time: A typical full site audit takes around 17-25 work days - depending on time of year, project scope and auditor availability.
Confidential: All client-specific audits and UX scorecards are strictly confidential; they are not included in Baymard’s public benchmark databases or shared with anyone else (NDA is possible).
Unbiased: As Baymard does not offer any kind of design or development services or sell ecommerce technology, the UX audit will always be a completely unbiased analysis of your site, and not an indirect “sales pitch” for other services. At Baymard our specialization is the UX audit.
What Our Clients Say About the UX Audit
“Intelligent, consumer-focused insights that are clear and actionable. The team in the room really loved the way the Baymard Institute highlighted the optimizations in the various user experience elements (copy, layout, design, calls-to-action…), from the perspective of consumer struggles. Baymard’s Usability research really complements our other existing research tools.”
“I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for the amazing work on this audit. You should know that this has been very well received internally and there’s a lot of excitement around adopting the ideas you have shared.”
“First off, thank you. This was the most engrossed I’ve ever been in a 2-hour meeting. This [audit presentation] was incredibly insightful and very helpful. Many, many thanks.”
“Excellent tool – looking forward to using it with our other sites and prototypes as they’re developed.”
“We found the audits extremely helpful and validated a number of changes we have been wanting to make or are in the process of making, so thank again for all the great insights.”
“This was indeed very helpful guidance and a very well-documented roadmap for us to fix, validate, organize, collectively understand and continually improve our ecommerce foundation.”
“I’m reviewing the report this morning and I am delighted. The recommendations are detailed and our resulting actions are clear. I’m excited to share this with the rest of the team!”
“I was able to bring these designed solutions home with me and kickoff multiple optimization projects that I am confident will affect the site in a positive way, both in usability and conversion.”
“Thanks for everything. The audit was extremely useful, I think we have gained valuable insight.”
“Very thorough and professional UX review of our website, based on an extensive amount of previous UX research insights within the industry, and specifically targeted to our needs. We received both critical and, most importantly, constructive feedback, along with actionable, prioritized suggestions and best-practice examples. This will allow us to address the areas of improvement and significantly help ameliorate the experience users have on our website, which in turn is expected to drive conversion rates and reduce the number of customer service requests. We can highly recommend Baymard's UX audit.”
“Thanks for this audit and your good work. This was exactly what I was aiming for. Also thanks for the very, very professional presentation, and answering all our countless questions. Very good work.”
“A big thanks to you and the Baymard team for such an informative and valuable session. The Ace Hardware team truly appreciated the Baymard teams feedback, diligence and the overall presentation. We are looking forward to using the excellent information provided to improve the acehardware.com user journey.”
“Let me say that it was exceptionally well done, and we are super excited to implement every one of the recommendations there. Everything you said has usually been a case of discussion in the past, but having them recommended in a deck like this will allow us to move forward.”
“I found the UX audit a very comprehensive evaluation, with clear reports and actionable recommendations. Baymard's commitment to excellence in user experience shines through its thorough approach!”