Shop app case study
From parcel tracking to a shopping app
A new onboarding that turned package tracking into a reason to shop.
As Design Manager, I led design across Shop’s Growth department, and the Activation team through the onboarding work.
People came to track, not browse
installs, but low monthly active usage
Every merchant checkout linked to Shop, so the app had a huge funnel. But people came to track an order, and didn’t stay long enough to find the shopping features. New entry points kept being added, and the old flows no longer did their job.
Ask at the moment it means something
Old
New
People who opted into push notifications engaged and stayed for longer. For someone tracking a package, an update is the value they came for. We made the prompt contextual instead of generic wherever we could, and opt‑in rose 30%.
Every step tied to what you came for
- Simplified onboarding for a frictionless entry
- Tied each step to value the user could get
- Unified shopping and tracking in one home feed
- Familiar merchant imagery to build trust
Six stages, shared with the whole team
- 1Understand
- Our data, to see where we were performing or not
- 2Discover
- Design discovery, feedback and iteration
- 3Define
- Our metrics, including a new one: setup rate
- 4Converge
- Aligned on onboarding tied to user intent
- 5Refine
- Further rounds, and testing for quality control
- 6Ship
- Then measure the results
Each stage was a checkpoint for feedback and iteration, across every role, not only design. Stakeholders could see progress towards the vision, and leadership could track performance.
What it added up to
Push notification opt-in
Setup rate, a new metric we defined
Monthly active users
What I learned along the way
Growth design at scale is about shaping moments of value discovery.
- Tell stories
- Be contextual
- Promote strengths through collaboration
- Video is a powerful async tool
Next project
Ember
Designed, built and shipped solo, and #1 for “sauna guide” in multiple storefronts
View case study →