Allison Walker | Student Athletics e-Commerce Redesign

Problem

After strategy research, the core challenge was clear: increase average order value (AOV) for My Team Shop. My Team Shop is a custom e-commerce platform targeting school athletics. Stores are only open for a short window each season. Solutions had to be deployable before the start of the next school year.

Approach

I led UX across 4 epics: product discovery, cross-selling, purchase funnel improvements, and fit-and-finish. I conducted competitive research, developed current and future state sitemaps and user flows, and created wireframes within the visual design system established by the VD Lead. I also diagrammed 20+ checkout flows to document the current state.

Outcome

The project was completed on time, was successful with the client, and was financially successful internally at Huge. The engagement led to a follow-up project. Two years later, private equity firm KKR acquired Varsity Brands for a reported $4.75 billion.

The optimization framework: 4 epics to increase basket size

Our goal was to deliver a best-in-class user experience by focusing on four key areas. Each epic addressed a different part of the shopping journey.

Epic 1: Product Discovery — increasing basket size

Competitive research: How do competitors drive product discovery?

Explorations: I researched competitors and shared options for product discovery including filters, bundles/recommendations, or categories.

For instance, Nike uses bundle/recommendations to encourage shoppers to buy multiple products.

Nike

I also explored personalized, and minimum order promotions and quantity discounts, as well as scarcity/trending triggers to encourage users to quickly complete their shopping journey.

For example, Amazon uses scarcity triggers to encourage shoppers to buy quickly.

Amazon

Scarcity triggers

Minimum order promotions

Quantity discounts

Epic 2: Cross-selling throughout the shopping journey

Team stores are only open for a short window, so getting customers to add more to their cart during that window was key to our strategy.

I developed a proposed sitemap indicating potential cross-sell locations, then created wireframes and numeroususer flows to document the journey. The final visual design shows cross-sell recommendations implemented on the cart page to maximize every opportunity.

Sitemap of proposed cross-sell locations & site recommendations

Cross-sell wireframes

Final visual design (Add to cart)

Epic 3: Removing friction from the purchase funnel

This epic focused on the shopping experience, specifically PDP and cart, including updating the PDP templates, improving filters, a smooth cart/checkout experience.

A key strategic decision was to start the checkout process earlier by tightening the link between bag and checkout — strong product discovery, cross-selling, and personalized recommentations can be no match for a clunky checkout flow.

Our recommendations included a unified "Added to Bag" modal behavior across the site, standard bag elements (edit cart, order summary, payment types, trust signals), and a streamlined checkout flow with progress indicators, player info, and order confirmation.

PDP & Cart wireframes

Epic 4: Fit & Finish — Clean up, explorations, and other UX/UI improvements

Small inconsistencies in copy, filters, and UI patterns violate UX heuristics by eroding trust and slowing users down.

Our final epic included copy optimization, incorporating best practices, filter updates, etc. It also gave us an opportunity to return to ideas we didn't have time to fully document in previous sprints, or explore ideas the client discussed in previous sprints.

My Role and the Team

I worked with a creative director, visual design lead, and senior visual designer across a fully remote team spanning the US east coast, west coast, and Colombia. I created wireframe templates for our explorations using the design system introduced by our VD Lead, and was responsible for the UX direction across all four epics.

Final Designs

Sitemap and a few examples of the final delivery (as created by the Sr Visual Designer).

Sitemap

Sitemap of updated structure, page recommendations and improvements, and proposed cross-sell locations.

Product category filters

Cart (My Bag) with scarcity indicator

Cart (My Bag) with cross-sell recommendations

Feedback Received

Testimonial

Hi Allison, this email is one of the reasons I LOVE working with you. Anyone who requests such feedback is a model for the rest of us. From your first day on the project you have gone above and beyond in understanding a complicated client's complex current state. This is something you did extremely well. It's difficult to understand…business models, operational constraints, and all of the nuances that come up. But you managed to become an expert in a very short time. What I also observed is that you are a great person to collaborate with. I have experienced this personally but it was something the content strategist also mentioned especially in regards to the beaconing he led. I was especially a fan of your attention to detail (including that time you diagrammed 20+ checkout flows). Finally, the last thing I want to mention is how you didn't let the current state constrain you. It's easy to do that…but you found ways to push the boundaries of what's possible and to diplomatically push back when needed. Kudos to you for strong leadership throughout.

— VP, Strategy, Huge -- 2022

Outcome

We completed our work on time. The project was successful with our client and financially successful at Huge. A follow-up engagement followed shortly after. Two years later, private equity firm KKR acquired Varsity Brands from Bain Capital for a reported $4.75 billion — a signal of the business value the brand represented.