Project Details
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Zenit is an end-to-end e-commerce redesign built around one core insight — most people don't abandon checkouts because they changed their minds. They abandon because something made them hesitate.
The client was a growing direct-to-consumer brand with strong products, healthy traffic, and a checkout flow that was quietly destroying their revenue. A 68% cart abandonment rate. A 14-field payment form. No guest checkout. No trust signals at the moment they mattered most.
First-time buyers — the brand's primary growth audience — were hitting friction at every critical step and leaving without a second thought.
The project scope covered the complete shopping journey — product discovery, filtering, product detail pages, cart, checkout, and post-purchase confirmation.
The goal was not a visual refresh. It was a fundamental rethinking of how the experience earns trust, removes doubt, and gets out of the user's way.
challenges
The numbers were hard to ignore. 68% of users who added items to their cart never completed the purchase. At first glance, the checkout looked functional — it had all the right fields, all the right steps. But sitting with real users and watching them attempt to buy revealed a very different story.
The flow spanned four separate pages. Every page transition felt like a commitment — and with no persistent order summary in view, users kept second-guessing whether they were buying the right thing. By the time they reached the payment page, trust had already eroded. There were no security badges. No clear return policy. Just a dense 14-field form asking for everything at once.
For mobile users — who made up 64% of the traffic — it was even worse. Small tap targets, no autofill support, and a layout that hadn't been designed for thumbs made every step feel like an obstacle. The checkout wasn't just inconvenient. It was actively working against the sale.
solutions
The insight that drove everything — users weren't abandoning because the checkout was too long. They were abandoning because nothing made them feel safe enough to continue.
The four-page flow was collapsed into one scrollable page with a persistent order summary always in view. Trust signals were added directly at the payment step.
The form went from 14 fields to 7. Guest checkout moved from an afterthought to the primary option.Every decision started with trust. The design followed from there.
impact
Testing told the story clearly — but the words users chose told it better.
Across 12 usability sessions, task completion rate improved significantly from the baseline. Drop-off at the payment step — the single biggest problem going into the project — was virtually eliminated in testing. Users moved through the new flow with a confidence that had been completely absent in sessions with the original design.
When asked to describe the experience in their own words, three kept coming up unprompted — "fast," "clear," and "trustworthy." Not coincidentally, those were the exact three things the original checkout had failed to be.
68%
Original Cart Abandonment Rate
7
Task Completion Rate in Testing
83%
User Interviews Conducted
8
Form Fields Reduced
