Checkout Experience Optimization

ROle

Simplify and optimize the eCommerce checkout experience across multiple brands—reducing friction, improving conversion, and providing consumer confidence through journey mapping and funnel analysis.

Carson Monroe | Senior UX Designer
David Bricker | Digital Business Analyst

TEAM

Principal UX Designer,
VF Corporation

Objective

Insights

→ Reduced cart abandonment by simplifying the purchase path and consolidating steps.
→ Strengthened buyer confidence through brand storytelling, user-generated content, and transparent policies.
→ Fostered tighter alignment across product, analytics, engineering, and marketing through weekly metrics and design syncs.

Checkout isn’t just the final step—it’s where revenue is won or lost.

At VF Corporation, I led a cross-functional initiative to diagnose and optimize the checkout experience across two active outdoor lifestyle brands. Despite strong visitor traffic, our data showed significant user drop-off during the final steps of purchase. I brought together design, analytics, product, and engineering partners to identify pain points, streamline the experience, and rapidly test improvements. The result: a simplified, high-converting checkout flow that delivered confidence-boosting elements to the consumer.

THE CHALLENGE

Despite strong traffic and high cart add rates, drop-off between cart and checkout was alarmingly high—costing the business millions in unrealized revenue. Through research, we uncovered a key insight: shoppers often lacked confidence to complete purchases with lesser-known brands, especially when the checkout experience felt clunky or inconsistent.

Adding complexity, the existing platform was outdated and inflexible, limiting our ability to implement several UX improvements uncovered in discovery. We had to stay nimble—working within system constraints while still delivering a best-in-class experience that built trust and drove conversion.

Our task was to:

• Diagnose drop-offs across the full checkout journey

• Align with brand, product, engineering, and analytics stakeholders

• Prototype and test flows that could be implemented within technical limitations

• Validate all changes through experimentation and funnel performance metrics

• Maintain brand equity and performance across multiple DTC storefronts

data-driven discovery

We started by auditing funnel analytics across mobile and desktop platforms, layering in qualitative inputs like session recordings, heatmaps, and voice-of-customer feedback. This allowed us to pinpoint moments of hesitation, abandonment, and confusion—particularly during the transition from cart to checkout.

Image of Smartwool and Altra Checkout funnel

Checkout timeline—UX focused

The UX, Product and Brand teams kicked off the project at the end of January. We discussed pain points & goals. As the principal UX designer and team lead, I created a timeline that ensured milestones were met and expectations were set with leadership, brands and our cross-functional squads.

Journey Mapping & Role Clarity

We mapped the full end-to-end checkout experience across brands to identify not just UX issues, but operational and technical blockers. By creating a shared visual of the customer journey, we were able to build alignment and prioritize changes that could be realistically implemented within platform constraints.

image of a Baymard study showcasing abandonment reasons in the checkout funnel

image of new checkout flow and wireframe explorations on a mobile device

Existing Cart & Checkout Screens

The starting point for this project. You can easily see the need for a better UI and page hierarchy. Our desired UX outcomes included increasing the conversion rates and reducing the cart abandonment by reducing the time to complete a purchase, decreasing the bounce rate, optimizing the mobile experience, and improving overall checkout performance.

image of existing cart and checkout screens, along with top priorities in the re-design

Designing Within Limitations

While many of our ideal solutions weren’t technically feasible due to an outdated commerce platform, we embraced constraints as a creative challenge. We designed flexible UI enhancements—like clearer visual hierarchy, simplified steps, and stronger trust signals—that could be implemented with minimal engineering lift, yet still create meaningful impact for users.

image of improvements on the cart page for both smartwool and altra

UX/UI Improvements

Notable improvements include:

Introduced a sticky cart on mobile to keep items visible and editable throughout the experience
Added a Save for Later feature to align with expected cart behaviors (validated by Baymard research)
Implemented single-click upsells for last-minute product additions
Introduced confidence boosters within the cart, including:
Integrated Google Address Autocomplete API to reduce friction during shipping entry
Moved the shipping address summary to the top of the page to reassure users before payment
Reorganized the payment section for clarity and flow

image of improvements on the shipping page for both smartwool and altra

image of improvements on the payment page for both smartwool and altra

Why it mattered

This project is a strong example of leading through constraints—finding creative, low-lift solutions that still create significant value for users. By focusing on what we could control and aligning improvements with user needs, we were able to meaningfully elevate the checkout experience and demonstrate the power of UX even within technical limitations.