Douglas was founded initially as a soap manufacturer in Hamburg in 1821, but over the years, it has grown to become one of Europe's largest beauty and lifestyle products sellers, with international headquarters in Düsseldorf.
Today, it operates stores in various European countries such as Poland, Austria, Netherlands, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal, offering a wide range of beauty and personal care products.
Douglas has expanded its presence in e-commerce, making it easy for customers to shop online and have their products delivered right to their doorsteps.
Being the leading premium beauty platform in Europe, Douglas offers over 100,000 beauty and lifestyle products in its online shops, the beauty marketplace, and 2,400 stores. These offerings include perfumery, cosmetics, skin and hair care, nutritional supplements, accessories, and advice/inspiration.
With its wide range of products and its commitment to providing top-notch customer service, Douglas has become a go-to destination for beauty enthusiasts looking for the latest trends and developments in the industry.
Let us share the outcomes of our 10-month mission.
We joined the company to fill the Product Owner role for the following products:
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The team consisted of:
After a successful onboarding run by a previous Product Owner, we jumped quickly to take over the business initiatives. We immediately started taking active steps by checking the available data and meeting our main stakeholders to understand the expectations from both products. At the same time, we interviewed team members to get an overview of the strengths and challenges related to planning and delivery processes.
We generated revenue through Retail Media
The main goal of Retail Media is to increase revenue through new ad spots that improve the visibility of the products displayed by top brands.
What we did:
Results:
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We discovered a reviews boost solution and monetized it
While interviewing representatives of e-stores on local markets, we discovered a significant problem: the number of product reviews is low compared to the number of reviews in Germany, which affects the willingness to pay for products with no reviews. Example of the number of product reviews: Germany 620k, Poland 45k reviews.
What we did:
Out of 5 different options, we decided on the cheapest and low-hanging fruit solution: sharing reviews from Douglas.de with other stores and providing an automated translation to the local language of the store.
What we did:
Results:
Additional!
We improved shoppers’ experience related to access to product reviews
While designing the user journey for reading and submitting reviews, we identified that shoppers were not informed about the lack of possibility of seeing the product reviews if consent was not given. At the same time, we discovered many complaints on the app store on this issue shared by shoppers. The users considered it as an obstacle before making a purchase decision.
What we did:
Results:
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We shortened the customer journey of submitting reviews
We also identified that the conversion rate of submitting reviews after receiving a post-purchase e-mail was low:
The users were giving up on further submission when they found out they had to log in to their account after clicking the CTA button in the e-mail.
What we did:
Results:
We delivered an easy and secure solution that can increase the conversion rate by 5%.
We established a transparent collaboration with stakeholders and built an outcome-based roadmap
We wanted to ensure that all the stakeholders were aligned on the product strategy and that the priority of feature development in 2023 is based on tangible outcomes. The business owners responsible for the retail media rollout expected significant revenue growth from ads in 2023, which had to be considered while planning.
Therefore, as the first step, we facilitated a series of collaborative workshops that included business owners, the UX team, and a tech lead. The main objective was to identify and confirm:
Results:
Based on all the inputs from the stakeholders, we prioritized the features and created a roadmap that included discovery and delivery activities. The roadmap enabled the development team to focus only on features that generate revenue and/or improve the user experience.
On top of that, the management of the stakeholders’ expectations was improved by establishing regular meetings and async updates to discuss new topics, solve blockers, and analyze the data.
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We improved the Planning and Delivery Processes by Introducing the SCRUM Framework.
When we joined, the team was working on the Kanban framework. This approach has limitations in terms of the measurement of the velocity and efficiency of the team.
What we did:
Results:
💡 We rolled out new Retail Media placements on the e-commerce platform, generating significant annual revenue.
💡 We implemented a new solution that increases the number of product reviews across all local markets. We also build a business model that enables the monetization of the service.
💡 Based on customers’ feedback, we improved the display of reviews. After the implementation, Douglas has not received ANY negative feedback in the app stores about product reviews.
💡 Internally: We established a transparent collaboration with stakeholders and built an outcome-based roadmap based on the expected business outcomes, value for the shoppers, and effort.
💡 Internally: We improved the planning and delivery processes by introducing the SCRUM framework and then adjusted it to the development team’s needs.
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