Post Purchase Evolution
Redesigning the post purchase experience, to better match our customers mental modal when tracking deliveries and engaging with past purchases, increasing customer satisfaction.
Lead UX Designer · Responsive Web · 2022
The Problem
The legacy post purchase experience comprised of two pages: the purchase history page (signed in users only) and order details page. These pages provided signed-in users a way to browse their purchase history, and both singed-in and guest users a way of engaging with this past orders, whether that be to check on a delivery, start a return, write a review, buy an item again, etc.
The Purchases and returns page, only available to signed in users, listed the users entire purchase history associated with their account. This page allowed users to browse and engage with their past purchases. Orders where collapsed under an accordion which made it difficult for the user to identify an order and find what they where looking for if they did not know the order number or the date it was made.
The order details page provided a place for signed-in and guest users to view and engage with their order. Entering from the purchases & returns page or via email, users could see detailed information about their order such as shipment status, items in the order, and pricing information. They could also engage with the order with ability to view tracking information, write a review for an item, or start a return for an item(s) in the order.
From Claude:
Post-purchase is one of the highest-stakes moments in a retail experience. It's when customers look for reassurance their package is on the way, resolve issues, and decide whether to trust the brand with their next purchase. At Macy's, the legacy 1.0 experience wasn't set up to support that well.
The architecture had two core issues:
Discoverability. The Purchases & Returns page collapsed every order into an accordion, with no preview imagery or visual hierarchy. Users who didn't remember their order number or purchase date had to hunt through a list of dates to find the item they cared about.
Overloaded pages. Order Details served as the primary interaction hub for everything — tracking, returns, reviews, pickups, pricing — creating a dense page where high-priority actions competed for attention with reference information.
The downstream impact was real: returns and tracking, the two most common reasons users entered the post-purchase experience, were also the hardest to find. And for a retailer operating at Macy's scale, friction at those moments translates directly to support volume, abandoned returns, and eroded repeat-purchase trust.
The opportunity wasn't to refresh the visuals. It was to recognize that post-purchase had become several distinct use cases trapped inside a two-page structure that served none of them well.
The Approach
The legacy post purchase experience comprised of two pages: the purchase history page (signed in users only) and order details page. These pages provided signed-in users a way to browse their purchase history, and both singed-in and guest users a way of engaging with this past orders, whether that be to check on a delivery, start a return, write a review, buy an item again, etc.
The Purchases and returns page, only available to signed in users, listed the users entire purchase history associated with their account. This page allowed users to browse and engage with their past purchases. Orders where collapsed under an accordion which made it difficult for the user to identify an order and find what they where looking for if they did not know the order number or the date it was made.
The order details page provided a place for signed-in and guest users to view and engage with their order. Entering from the purchases & returns page or via email, users could see detailed information about their order such as shipment status, items in the order, and pricing information. They could also engage with the order with ability to view tracking information, write a review for an item, or start a return for an item(s) in the order.
The Approach
The legacy post purchase experience comprised of two pages: the purchase history page (signed in users only) and order details page. These pages provided signed-in users a way to browse their purchase history, and both singed-in and guest users a way of engaging with this past orders, whether that be to check on a delivery, start a return, write a review, buy an item again, etc.
The Purchases and returns page, only available to signed in users, listed the users entire purchase history associated with their account. This page allowed users to browse and engage with their past purchases. Orders where collapsed under an accordion which made it difficult for the user to identify an order and find what they where looking for if they did not know the order number or the date it was made.
The order details page provided a place for signed-in and guest users to view and engage with their order. Entering from the purchases & returns page or via email, users could see detailed information about their order such as shipment status, items in the order, and pricing information. They could also engage with the order with ability to view tracking information, write a review for an item, or start a return for an item(s) in the order.