Buying a car is one of the most expensive purchases that people ever make. Historically, the car buying process has been an incredibly complex process involving annoying dealership visits, complex negotiations and significant time investments.

Other retail categories have embraced e-commerce, offering customers the convenience, accessibility and efficiency of online shopping. Despite this, the automotive industry has been slower to adapt.

The Simplified Shopping project was brought to FordLabs with the goal of upgrading the e-commerce experience for Ford customers. Beyond enhancing the customer journey, the project also aimed to achieve three key business objectives.

• Increase lead conversion rate 

• Increase lead revenue value 

• Increase accessory take rates

To achieve these goals, we followed an iterative process of research, narrowing scope and running experiments. Over time, we launched a test site that carved out traffic from ford.com and put customers through a differentiated online shopping experience.

Our test site centered on optimizing critical touchpoints that directly impact customer conversion rates. Most notably, we focused on the redesigning the digital car configurator where visitors can build their ideal vehicle online.

Additionally, we experimented with new features and flows to enhance the shopping experience. Some of these included:

• Recommendation quiz to help customers identify the right vehicle trim for them 

• Feature nudges to help inform add-on options 

• Optimized feature catalogs

• Feature filters

• …and more!

The test site enabled us to measure the impact of these changes with real customer data. Some of the results included:

• 38% increase in lead conversion rates 

• 5% increase in accessory take rates

• 22% increase in lead revenue value

• > 50% of users opted for additional features with nudges

• 52% increase in selection rates for vehicle options with changed defaults 

These outcomes established the Simplified Shopping test site as a valuable asset to Ford's marketing and sales organization. While it did not replace the main Ford.com experience, it became a testing ground for exploring hypotheses, gaining insights and shaping Ford's digital product roadmap.