NET-A-PORTER
Embedded Files
Localization of the world-leading luxury eCommerce platform in China
Background
In 2019, NET-A-PORTER successfully launched its flagship store on Taobao, marking its entry into the Chinese market. Since then, we have amassed a vast and loyal customer base of over one million individuals, solidifying our position as a leading fashion destination.
Despite our success, we recognize that our association with Taobao presents certain limitations that hinder our ability to cultivate strong customer relationships and execute targeted marketing strategies.
To address these challenges, we have embarked on a mission to develop our own website, mobile app, and customer data platform. This platform will enable us to better serve our customers by leveraging detailed data tracking and empowering our operational team to strengthen customer relationships.
NET-A-PORTER Taobao Store
My Role
I work as a design lead to outline the end-to-end user journey, coordinate the collaboration with the design team in the UK and outsourced design agency in China, as well as participating in the research, ideation, design, and final production phases.
The overall project duration is about a year.
Business Objectives
As the first step in the discovery phase, we identified the business goals to illustrate a clear vision and desired outcomes of the project.
Tailor to local users for better user experience and engagement
Empower product teams with greater operational flexibility
We then translated our goals into quantitative success metrics. We measure the success by an increase in:
App daily active user
The page view and CTR of product list pages
The conversion rate
The average order value
The percentage of repeat customers
UX Audit of the Global Apps
Rather than developing the app from scratch, we leveraged the existing NET-A-PORTER app created by the UK team.
A key challenge in this project was integrating two distinct apps, NET-A-PORTER and MR. PORTER, which cater specifically to women and men. To ensure a high-quality user experience while maintaining a consistent brand identity, we conducted a thorough UX audit of both apps. This helped us identify effective design patterns to retain and features that needed optimization to better suit the preferences of Chinese customers.
Below are our considerations for combining both brands within a single app:
Preserve both brands’ visual identities
Make it clear which brand you are shopping
Allow brands to operate separate product taxonomies and navigation
Create opportunities for cross-linking
Information Architecture
Shared Features and Pages
Navigation, PLP, PDP, Shopping Bag, Checkout, Customer Service, User Account
Brand-specific Features and Pages
Home, Categories, Designers, Editorial, Search, Brand Theme
Cross Brand Opportunities (for future phase)
Home, PLP, PDP, Search
Competitive Analysis
The purpose of the competitive analysis is to give us a holistic view of some well-known eCommerce/luxury apps in China with functional comparison and market research. It will serve as a reference for us to build a product that fits local users' needs and provide strong evidence when negotiating with the global design team.
KEY FINDING
Mobile number & third-party sign-on
While mobile phone registration and login are used by default, most of the apps in China will also provide a 3rd-party sign-on to help users get on board immediately. WeChat and Alibaba accounts are the most common approaches.
KEY FINDING
Sidebar navigation for categories
Sidebar navigation is frequently used in China, but rarely seen in western culture. We believe this difference in interaction design is due to the fact that Chinese vocabulary is usually shorter than English and therefore can be accommodated in the space of the sidebar.
The advantage is that it can present two different levels of information at the same time, making users more efficient when looking for product categories.
KEY FINDING
Comprehensive customer loyalty program
As it becomes more difficult and costly for companies to acquire new users, how to increase the retention rate to extend the life cycle of users began to be the most critical strategy in China. Loyalty programs become a universal solution for enhancing customer relationship management.
Ideation & Design Review
During the discovery phase, we realized that simply translating the app into Chinese was insufficient to meet the needs of our customers. Familiarity and user behavior are shaped by the products people interact with daily, making it essential to customize features and design patterns to better resonate with our target users. This approach ensures the app feels more intuitive, empathetic, and accessible.
At the same time, we maintained open communication and conducted regular design reviews with the UK design team to foster mutual trust and gather valuable feedback. Our goal was to deliver product designs that align with the brand identity while effectively addressing localization requirements.
Design review with the UK design team
Ideation with product managers
Design mockups & feedback
Explore Loading Animations
Image loading
Whole page loading
Pull to refresh
Visualize the Sense of Luxury
Mood board of the textures
The information architecture of membership card
Membership card design tryouts
Final Design
After a year of intensive collaboration, we reorganized the content structure, introduced localized interaction design patterns, and created a sophisticated design system.
The new app not only integrates two independent brands, NET-A-PORTER and MR PORTER but also reflects the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures. Here are a few highlights that I would like to describe further.
Handy brand switcher in all places
More efficient category navigation
Evolving the customer loyalty program
A solid localized design system
01
Handy Brand Switcher in all Places
Design tryouts of the brand switcher
The brand switcher allows users to switch between 2 brands, NET-A-PORTER and MR PORTER, according to their intent. Meanwhile, the visual appearance of the navigation bar will also change to clearly inform users which brand they are browsing.
Although I personally prefer the design of option 3 which provides a hint that the new app incorporates 2 brands as well as a switcher function at the same time, some stakeholders have concerns about the recognition of the icons. So we took a more direct approach, using text descriptions and an icon, which represents converting, to guide users to switch between different brands by clicking the button.
Brand switcher demo
02
More Efficient Category Navigation
Before
After
We adopt the sidebar navigation that is familiar to Chinese users to shorten the path for users to find their desired products by flattening the information structure.
The sidebar navigation also improves the discoverability of new product launches and the operability of performance marketing to run campaigns.
03
Evolving the Customer Loyalty Program
Before
After
We learned from the successful experience of Tmall stores and integrated the mature loyalty program into the app synchronously. Users can enjoy a seamless experience of consumption to accumulate points, giveaway redemption, and spend points on lucky draws across platforms.
At the same time, we optimized the aesthetic of the member center for clarity and on-brand. We redesigned the membership cards to enhance the sense of premier and illustrated new icons that map the equity of different member tiers to better communicate the benefits offered by each one.
Membership cards line up by tiers
Membership privilege icon set
04
A Solid Localized Design System
We choose NET-A-PORTER as a dominant guideline and optimized it based on localization and co-branding needs. We carefully picked the design elements that stand for the DNA of the brands, the desired outcome is to create a user experience that is familiar to Chinese consumers while keeping the brand tonality.
By walking through major user journeys, we set up a solid foundation of the design patterns and UI components, which enabled us to deliver consistent design outcomes, across the in-house design team and design agency.
Outcomes
We proudly launched the app in October 2021, and the results after a few months of data tracking have been truly encouraging.
Although the app’s user base is smaller compared to platforms like Taobao, the traffic is significantly more valuable. The data shows higher per-customer transactions within the app and a greater percentage of repeat customers. User engagement metrics, such as page views and click-through rates (CTR), have also seen notable improvements compared to the performance of the global app in China.
We’re thrilled with these achievements, which confirm that our decision to localize the app was a step in the right direction. Moving forward, we’re committed to expanding our user base and strengthening our position as a leader in China’s luxury goods market.
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