StockIt Mobile App
A location + replenishment app that I designed end to end, improving product location accuracy by 30% across 800+ DSG (Dick’s Sporting Goods) stores within 2 months of launch. It is now used daily by 15,000+ DSG associates across 6 chains of stores, including Golf Galaxy, Field & Stream, Public Lands, and more.
Problem:
Product location accuracy at DSG stores was poor, leading to increased fulfillment times, losses in brick + mortar sales, subpar salesfloor replenishment, and a poor Athlete shopping experience.
Timeline:
6 months (discovery -> build)
2 months (roll out to all ~800 stores)
My Role + Team:
1 UX Designer (me!)
1 Product Manager
1 Engineering Manager
5 Engineers
Stakeholders:
Store Operations Team
Fulfillment Team (Omnichannel)
Inventory Team
Footwear Team
Tech Innovation Team
Users:
Team Leads (Team Sports, Freight Flow, Apparel, Footwear)
Store Managers
Other Hourly Associates
Research
16 Remote Interviews, Including:
Store Operations Team
Visual Merchants Team
Space Planning Team
Store associates
48 Hours of In Store Research:
To get a broad perspective, I performed Contextual Inquiries, Fly-On-The-Wall Observations, and Walk A Mile Immersions at:
10 Dick’s Sporting Goods stores (3 in Pittsburgh, 5 in FL)
1 Going Going Gone store (Pittsburgh)
1 Field & Stream + DSG Combo store (NY)
1 Golf Galaxy Store (Fairfax)
Legacy App Research:
I reviewed past research, and analyzed the legacy location app, defining users’ key jobs to be done. At this stage, we also decided to build a new app, as the cost of building in the old one was prohibitive (according to our engineers’ tech analysis).
I was shocked to find that the legacy app was used across ~ 62% of stores, despite a baseline of 50-70% location accuracy.
Competitive Analysis:
I analyzed location and replenishment systems at a DSG Distribution Center, and retailers like Target, looking to improve product way-finding at DSG.
My key takeaway was that signage + an intuitive hierarchy of location names was crucial to location accuracy. This competitive research helped me convince my product manager and stakeholders that we needed to redesign DSG’s existing system.
Problem Prioritization
Affinity Mapping The Research
This step helped me hone in on key problem areas to tackle: replenishment, stockroom location management, and adding locations on the sales-floor.
Survey Results Across 500 Stores
I sent a survey to 800+ Dick’s stores across the country, resulting in 500 unique responses from different stores. The top problem associates wanted us to focus on was better product location management.
Importance v. Feasibility Diagramming
Lastly, I led alignment sessions between my team and stakeholders to agree on the top problem we were going to tackle first.
The Top Problem Was Stockroom Location Management:
Legacy app limitations led to inaccuracies, including:
Inability to multi-locate product
Inability to remove product from locations
Existing location numbering system + signage was limiting:
Location #s did not indicate what floor, stockroom, or section they belonged to.
Instead, associates were forced to rely on memorization and workarounds. Some stores would create locations for stockroom 1 at starting at 1, stockroom 2 at 2,000, etc.
According to the legacy app analytics, stores had an average of 20,000 locations (only 1.6% of those actually used).
Location signage was limited and hard to read. Though some stores, following the initiative of good managers or leads would create big location signage, most only used small 2” location barcodes located at the shelf level.
Operational factors we had little influence over:
Our Operations team rarely enforced strict policies such as stockroom access, resulting in lax location management.
Lower tier stores and stores farther from headquarters were under less corporate scrutiny.
High employee turnover led to less care and worse knowledge of locations.
Framing + Ideation
I facilitated sessions including How Might We and Design Studios to get us to final designs. Our stakeholders and my team contributed diverse design ideas, with several of them having prior experience as DSG store associates.
Design Studio focusing on JTBD
Ideation on location schema
My final designs incorporated aspects of what store associates were familiar with (numbering locations starting from the bottom of the vertical, etc). We also introduced floor #, stockroom #, and vertical # into the schema to improve find-ability, after having tested this information architecture at 2 stores .
Initial ideas
Visual iterations
Final Designs + Testing
Before finalizing designs, I conducted in-store usability tests, further iterating on the designs, and holding design critiques.
Release + Testing Strategy
Initially, we followed a less disruptive approach, releasing StockIt to 2 pilot stores, excluding the new location schema.
Then, following positive feedback, we launched to 5 more stores, including the new location schema (we also tested the schema ourselves at 3 stores).
Lastly, we rolled out to all ~800 stores (2 months)
Design System + Challenges
We used Material Design React library as the basis for our design system, with a DSG theme.
Designing for MC40, and TC52 devices presented challenges such as:
Small screen resolutions (4.25” for MC40s)
Elements like shadows were not supported on MC40s
Low color contrast (MC40s were discontinued in 2019)
Branding & Tone
Onboarding (video demo)
Location Management
Assigning Products To A Location
Unlike the legacy app, StockIt showed product pictures and didn’t require re-scanning a location to multi-assign products.
Find, Assign, or Un-assign 1 Product
Un-assign 1 or More Products:
Parent Location Scan
This feature replaced a previously manual keying of locations. It was less error prone, saving seconds, which overtime really added up. Testing revealed that this feature was not easily discoverable. To rectify this, we promoted the feature upon app log-in, which was a success.
Then, tap on a location # to view or assign
Scan a “parent” barcode
Validation + Feedback
Within 8 months of starting discovery, we rolled out StockIt to all 800+ stores across 6 chains, improving product location accuracy by 30%.
Quantitative Feedback
Location Accuracy By Category (%)
StockIt Feature Usage (# of Stores)
Qualitative Feedback
Stores excited that StockIt will “improve [store] processes” and “the Athlete experience”!
Overwhelming majority (90%) of associates find core features extremely or somewhat valuable (500 store responses via quarterly survey)!
In-app feedback from users (auto generated Miro stickies), helping prioritize our future roadmap
Iteration
Post MVP Release
Our main feedback from stakeholders and associates has been: needing more granularity when assigning product to locations. I.e instead of assigning all of the Patagonia T-shirt style below to the same location, assign a specific color, size, and/or quantity. We intentionally delayed incorporating this until after the MVP because:
It involved a significant change in store operations processes.
Initially, there weren’t enough devices at stores to support the process.
It gave us time to partner with tech teams to support auto removal of product from locations (in certain instances).
MVP Release
Release 2.0
Future Focus Areas: Location Audits, Sales-floor Locations, and Replenishment
RFID Replenishment Feature: In most DSG stores, footwear was the leading product category for in-store sale revenue. Not having every style and color of footwear represented thus led to lost sales. Using this feature, associates will be able to RFID (radio frequency identification) scan the whole footwear display (~30 seconds), and get back a list of all styles and colors in the stockroom.