Incentivizing verification and shopping with Shop Cash

I spearheaded research and developed the UX for a custom onboarding flow that incentivized new users to verify with Shop Pay and engage in their first shopping session in the Shop app. My work resulted in a 47% increase in Pay verification, a 25% increase in orders, and about $188,000 in Shop Cash claimed.

A Figma file showing one of the “earn island” flows we rolled out to new users.

The problem

As a member of the Shop app’s Activation team, one of my primary goals was to encourage both prospective and existing users who had downloaded the Shop app to engage in a single shopping session. We found that because of the app’s order tracking value proposition, we had been successful in encouraging app downloads. But actual shopping sessions were harder to come by as many new users utilized the app solely to track their orders while perceiving shopping content as advertisements.

The proposal

Our team had plenty of tools at our disposal to encourage shopping activation. But thanks to previous experiments, we realized one of the most potent was Shop Cash, a rewards program in which customers earn cash after making a purchase that they can then apply towards products in the app. A previous experiment showed that offering users Shop Cash after they tracked an order resulted in a 36% increase in gross merchandising value for our merchants. But in order for users to properly claim and use Shop Cash, they needed to first verify with Shop Pay. We decided we’d use Shop Cash to incentivize users to verify with Shop Pay, so they could use Shop Cash and engage in their first shopping session. That’s where my work really started.

Phase 1: Prototyping and researching

This is the low-fi content prototype I sent users through as part of an unmoderated test.

Because I knew we’d be asking users to accomplish two big jobs (verify with Shop Pay and claim Shop Cash), I wanted to ensure they understood the concepts we’d be introducing. I created a content prototype and conducted a series of unmoderated user tests to gauge mobile shoppers’ comprehension of a consolidated verification and claiming flow that included ideas like Shop Cash, Shop Pay, and the Shop app all coexisting in the same experience. Some key insights included:

Once the unmoderated tests were done, I analyzed the data with affinity mapping before distilling my insights into a deck I shared widely.

• Shoppers understood that setting up an account and verifying with Shop Pay was necessary to get Shop Cash, but they were still unsure of what the Shop app is.

• Many shoppers conflated Shop Cash with their familiarity with other discount and loyalty program instead of interpreting it as a distinct rewards program.

• Shop Pay was mostly an enigma — at least when stacked against Shop Cash and the Shop app in the same flow.

• People were OK giving us their email, but they expected benefits in return, primarily more information about Shop Cash, deals, and promotions.

I distilled my research into a presentation that I socialized with several teams involved with Shop Cash to some extent. Instead of using this research just to inform my work, I realized these insights would be useful in perpetuity, and today they continue to inform direction for product teams at Shop looking to leverage Shop Cash as a shopping incentive. As helpful as the research was, I still needed to parlay those learnings into a useful UX.

Phase 2: Designing and shipping

I took the reins in distilling insights into how users interpreted Shop Cash and verification and designed several permutations of a flow that adapted to multiple use cases. I designed the content for each of the in-app screens, which I also prototyped and designed, leveraging assets my product design partner created for previous projects. That included creating a piece of UX I dubbed “earn island” - a dynamic island upselling $5.00 Shop Cash that populated on new users’ Home feeds and led them to the consolidated verification and Cash claiming flow. We shipped this version as part of an experiment, which garnered measurable success. Users claimed about $188,000 in Shop Cash and redeemed about $8,000 on in-app purchases, generating $47,000 in GMV for our merchants. Once the flow was fully rolled out to users, the results we collected were just as impressive: a 47.26% increase in Pay verification; a 25.31% increase in orders; a 1.44% increase in shopping sessions; and a 7.34% increase in products visited.