Testimonials
“Having Baymard is like having access to a magical UX super power. I can't believe how helpful and easy to use it is, given the vast array of tools and information they provide!”
Direct-to-Consumer (D2C)
Direct-to-Consumer UX Research
Explore how shoppers evaluate products and build confidence in a brand’s own store. Baymard’s D2C research covers brand information, product discovery, product pages and checkout, with guidelines and examples for both established brands and smaller specialist catalogs.
Research for the brand-owned shopping experience
A shopper arriving at a brand’s own site may need to understand both the product and the company behind it. The research examines how brand stories, product details and browsing paths work together, helping teams support those decisions across small catalogs and larger direct-to-consumer ranges.
Key UX challenges for D2C
Brand and product stories
Help shoppers assess the materials, manufacturing and values behind your products through useful information that connects the brand story to their purchase decision.
Browsing smaller catalogs
Understand when an extra category page adds friction, and how direct routes to product listings can help shoppers explore a smaller D2C range.
Reviews and credibility
Explore why shoppers may question reviews on a brand’s own site, and how other product and company information supports their assessment of trust.
D2C research, in numbers
These figures describe the D2C research coverage, UX performance scores and example library.
400+
D2C UX guidelines
17,000+
D2C UX performance scores
10,200+
D2C best-practice examples
Direct-to-Consumer (DTC)
The findings from Baymard’s large-scale testing of Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) brand website provide you with 400+ UX guidelines, along with 17,000+ UX performance scores and 10,200+ best practice examples from DTC sites.
The UX research covers the entire DTC website experience, including:
- All aspects of where and how DTC ecommerce differs from traditional retail ecommerce - incl. navigation, listings, search, user reviews, etc.
- UIs and pages needed to establish enough brand trust to facilitate a purchase, incl. Brand origin, brand values, materials, manufacturing etc.
- Larger DTC brands, such as adidas, American Apparel, Apple, H&M, IKEA, Levi’s, Urban Outfitters, Under Armour, Bose, JBL, KitchenAid, Fitbit, GoPro, Cole Haan, Herschel, L’Occitane, Lego, Disney Store, and Patagonia.
- Smaller niche DTC brands, such as AllBirds, Away, Anine Bing, Backdrop, Caraway, Daniel Wellington, Everlane, Equal Parts, Our Place, Farer, Great Jones, Greats, Maya Chia, Mahalo, Kana, Harry’s, Twice, lululemon, MVMT, Monastery, Snowe, Tempo, Tonal, Royal Canin, Stella & Chewy’s, Greenies, and Thousand Fell.
7 × Themes
How the D2C research was conducted
Baymard’s D2C research combines observations of shopping behavior with manual assessments of brand-owned ecommerce experiences. The source research spans larger brands such as adidas and Apple as well as smaller specialist stores such as Our Place and Away. Coverage includes brand trust, product information, navigation, listings and checkout.
Researchers identify difficulties during shopping tasks and translate recurring findings into UX guidelines. Benchmarking applies those guidelines to real implementations, producing scores and examples teams can explore. Findings also draw on wider ecommerce research. The guidance helps teams connect the information shoppers need about a brand with the everyday experience of finding and buying its products.
Explore D2C UX benchmarks
Explore how D2C brands present their products, explain their story and support purchase decisions. The benchmark provides examples to compare across brand-owned stores. In a demo, we can show how the findings, guidelines and examples connect.
How teams use Baymard’s research
Testimonials
“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.”
Testimonials
“My team loves Baymard Premium and it has become a valuable tool for us. We consult with a number of large brands and manage their eComm (both DTC and eRetail) and your data is amazing, it gives us all the testing data without having to run the tests ourselves. Our clients appreciate us having the depth of knowledge Baymard provides, we’ve used Baymard data multiple times to defend our recommendations and to inform our designs.”
Looking for an expert review of your site?
Baymard’s D2C UX Audit applies the research to your site through an expert review with prioritized recommendations.
See the D2C research in action
Book a demo to explore the guidelines, examples and benchmarks relevant to your D2C customer experience.