PAYPAL PAYMENTS:
Implementation of PayPal as a primary payment method across Web and App platforms
Client
Total Wine & More
Date
September 2021 - March 2022
My Role
I was the Lead Product Designer for Total Wine & More’s implementation of PayPal on mobile web, desktop, and mobile app. My responsibilities included user research, concept ideation, aligning key stakeholders on product goals, designing user flows, visual design, prototyping, user testing, incorporating user feedback into design iterations, developer collaboration, and quality assurance.
Project Overview
When our team was presented with the opportunity to implement PayPal as a primary payment method across all of our platforms, we knew we should take advantage of the growing presence of these types of payment methods in e-commerce.
Today’s e-commerce customers are extremely familiar with PayPal, and we felt we had a chance to meet them with that familiarity while also improving sales and cart conversion rates. PayPal also gave us the opportunity to dramatically improve the guest experience on our website and app, by allowing guests to checkout with the speed simply not present in a regular checkout experience.
The implementation of PayPal across web and app platforms resulted in over $4 million in sales in its first 6 months - a number that continues to grow. Guest and regular conversion rates improved drastically, all while perfectly illustrating the success that can come from design that marries the intersection of user needs and business needs.
The implementation of PayPal across Web and App platforms resulted in over $4 million in sales in its first 6 months - a number that continues to grow.
The Challenge
While launching PayPal might initially seem like a straightforward case of standard feature development, the project proved to be anything but. With a checkout system developed over a number of years specifically tailored to a complex flow, this new component could potentially require an entirely new checkout experience. By selling alcohol, Total Wine & More has the unique circumstance of requiring all users to be over 21 to checkout, including an acknowledgement of that age requirement. There is also a required step for users to select their fulfilment method before the checkout process, changing the flow of checkout based on that decision.
What information can we retain from PayPal for guests in order for them to bypass tedious checkout forms?
How might we allow users to select PayPay as a payment method should they decide to utilize it during the checkout process and not from their cart?
Will we be able to provide value to our existing/signed in customer base, particularly those with pre-saved payment methods and an already-streamlined checkout process?
PayPal User Flows
Complex user flows were necessary before beginning the design process. Both Guest Users and Signed-In Users now have multiple chances to utilize the new PayPal feature: from cart, or from edit payments. Those scenarios change based on when during checkout that user decides to pay with PayPal.
Checkout Changes
On the web side, this redesign required a new payment selection interface, given that selecting PayPal would require the appearance of the PayPal launch button, an experience which could not take place from a dropdown menu.
Test and re-test
The designs were sent through multiple rounds of user testing, eventually leading to experiences ready to launch across our Web and App platforms.
Checkout made simple.
PayPal implementation in action.
Results
The implementation of PayPal continues to bring in millions of dollars across both web and app platforms, while improving the speed at which both guests and signed-in customers alike can make purchases from Total Wine & More. The experience has been live since mid-2022 on both the Total Wine & More website and in our mobile application.