Party City

Simplifying Balloon Purchasing

Summary

Overview

Party City is the largest retailer of party goods in the U.S. The highest performing product category is balloons, with 80% of users including at least one balloon in their order.

Problem

The balloon purchasing process was lengthy and convoluted, involving high click-effort and repetitive steps to add helium inflation for each balloon to Cart. Additionally, customers didn’t know how many balloons could fit in a vehicle, how long they could float, or how to keep them from popping. This resulted in long shopping sessions, frustration at point-of-pickup, and customer complaints in our product reviews and across social media.

Goal

To educate customers about balloon care at key touchpoints, decrease the total number of clicks to add a balloon to cart, and improve balloon product ratings.

Impact

The redesign decreased shopping time by automatically setting a user’s pickup store and helium inflation as the default option. We also added balloon education at each customer decision point and eliminated redundancy by moving balloon scheduling options to the end of the flow.

Results: 78% click reduction to add a balloon to cart and a 20% improvement in balloon ratings.

THE PROCESS - STEP 1

Discovery

Platform & Users

Mobile and desktop site (75% of our users browse our site on a mobile device, and 70% convert on desktop). Our primary balloon target audience consisted of millenials (aged 17-23) and young mothers (aged 24-38).

Store associates often cited frustration at point-of-pickup.

To understand where users were getting upset regarding balloons, we first talked to our store associates and customer service teams about common complaints. They listed point-of-pickup as a problem area because customers consistently struggled to transport balloons.

Reviews showed confusion about float times and balloon care.

After reviewing our site feedback, product reviews, and social media posts, we noticed that a lot of negative feedback came from a misunderstanding of how long balloons could float (1 day for latex balloons) and how to keep them from popping (keep them out of direct heat).

Site feedback revealed opportunities for balloon UX improvements

“Your site is so slow and you make me do the same steps over and over.”

“If I had known [they would be deflated], I wouldn’t have ordered them the day before the party.”

“I had to make two trips to pick up all of my balloons. You should have called to tell me they were huge.”

The Problem

Long and repetitive balloon shopping process
Incorrect assumptions regarding pickup times, balloon transportation, and general balloon care.
1. Users assumed they could pick up all of their balloons in one trip, but the average sedan could only fit 24 latex balloons (with no passengers).
2. Balloons would frequently pop or shrivel due to improper storage. Hot temperatures (ex: those in a parked car) could cause balloons to burst, while cold temperatures (ex: those on a frigid morning) could cause balloons to shrivel. However, shriveled balloons could be revived if brought back to room temperature (65-70° F).
Customers didn’t know that helium inflation was only offered for In-Store Pickup and Same Day/Scheduled Delivery orders. For standard shipping orders, balloons shipped flat in a box.

Old In-Store Pickup Experience (Highlights Added)

THE PROCESS - STEP 2

The Solution

Goal: display inventory positions clearly and offer workarounds for inventory shortages

We wanted to create visual cues that would:

Prominently display the name of a user’s nearest store (based on distance).
Show the live inventory of available units at that store.
Allow users to filter out products that are sold out at their nearest store.
Give users another way to get a desired item if their nearest store runs out of inventory.
Allow users to shop faster by scanning product listing pages more quickly.

Global store banner minimized inventory confusion by automatically setting a user's default store based on geolocation.

We started by creating a banner that automatically set a user’s nearest pickup store using geolocation data from their IP address. From then on, all inventory data would be dynamically pulled from that specific store, so users would be clear on which items were in stock or sold out. If the user’s desired items were sold out at their nearest store, we allowed them to switch to another store or change their shopping preference to standard shipping (which displayed inventory data from our main warehouse).

Redesigning the PLP with a 2-column grid, inventory status labels, and an in-stock checkbox allowed users to shop faster

For the product listing page, we wanted users to be able to browse more quickly and focus only on the items in their store. To improve scannability, we redesigned the product listing page to be a 2-column grid, added colored inventory status labels, and included a “show in-stock items only” checkbox that allowed users to filter out the clutter of items they couldn’t get.

Redesigning the product detail page with shopping preference swatches and stock quantity eliminated an extra step

We redesigned each item’s product detail page with the same shopping preference swatches featured in the universal store banner. This allowed users to quickly view inventory positions and add items to their cart without interacting with a modal.

Redesigning the cart with granular inventory statuses removed another barrier from checkout

During testing, we noticed that users often added items to their cart with a combination of pickup, delivery, or shipping preferences. After reaching their cart, they would then try to find one preference where all their desired items were in stock, often navigating back and forth to the product pages to check inventory.

To help our users determine the best shopping preference for getting as many items as possible, we decided to display all inventory statuses granularly in the cart. This allowed users to see which items were in-stock or out-of-stock at a glance and removed yet another blocker from checkout.

Final Thoughts & Next Steps

After launch, analytics showed that cart abandonment had decreased by 6%. Conversion had also increased by 1% during a 90-day monitoring period (and 32% after our busy season). Reports from our feedback tool also indicated that customer satisfaction had increased by 10%. Our future iterations would focus on creating icons for a faster read. We also hoped to include the inventory positions of swatches (numbers, letters, and sizes) onto the product listing and product detail pages.

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