Academy Sports + Outdoors DoorDash Experience in Cart and Checkout

Background

Academy Sports + Outdoors is a leading full-line sporting goods and outdoor recreation retailer in the United States. Originally founded in 1938 as a small mom-and-pop business in Texas, Academy now has 298 stores across 19 states, providing "Fun for All." To continue expanding access to Academy, the business wanted to offer same day delivery to its customer base, extending the service to be available directly on their website and app.

Problem

Although accessibility to Academy Sports + Outdoors is not limited in most cases, to remain competitive with retailers like Amazon that offer same-day and next-day delivery, Academy Sports + Outdoors joined the DoorDash marketplace to enable faster product delivery. However, with the DoorDash marketplace crowded with other retailers and Academy's website perceived as cluttered, many customers remain unaware of this new service. Continuous user feedback about the cluttered interface (especially in the cart fly-out), combined with the design constraints of using a fly-out and card-style buttons for fulfillment method selection, posed additional challenges. Adding to this complexity, the project needed to be completed within one quarter, requiring a balance between speed, design quality, and adherence to the project's budget. How might we effectively inform customers about the new same-day delivery option without overwhelming their experience, while adhering to design constraints, delivery timelines, and budget requirements?

Research

To better understand the current market and the expectations of potential users, we employed two research methods: competitive analysis and surveys conducted via UserZoom.
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Research Goals

1. Discover design patterns that potential users are currently accustomed to on other sites.
2. Identify pain points and unmet needs in the same-day delivery bottom-of-funnel flow.
3. Understand the value of and preferences for same-day delivery among potential users.
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Competitive Analysis Summary

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I analyzed both direct and indirect competitors offering same-day delivery, focusing on how they communicated this feature in the cart. Additionally, I noted features that, while out of scope for this project, could be considered for future scalability:

• Cart Display: The majority of retailers offering multiple fulfillment options—such as buy online, pick up in-store, ship to home, and same-day delivery—displayed their cart on a dedicated page rather than a fly-out. While Academy's users are primarily mobile-first, this finding could inform future updates to our design system.
• Fulfillment Buttons: Home Depot (excluded in the analysis above) utilized card-style fulfillment buttons, while other retailers used radio buttons in the cart.

UserZoom Surveys

I collaborated with the user research team to develop a test plan addressing key unanswered questions. We conducted three surveys targeting participants who live in Academy’s serviced states and frequently shop online for relevant products.

• Survey 1: Assessed the perceived value of same-day delivery (run twice).
• Survey 2: Evaluated usability on two indirect competitor mobile websites: Lowe's and Petco.
• Survey 3: Explored preferences in verbiage, tipping, and layout.

Across all surveys, we gathered insights from 204 mobile participants. These findings provided critical context for refining our approach to the new same-day delivery feature.

Some key insights we observed were:

• Participants expressed moderate interest in same-day delivery; they valued the option but would not use it frequently.
• Same-day delivery is seen as a positive differentiator—offering it is better than not offering it.
• Participants would use same-day delivery when shopping online, but not frequently.
• Participants found Petco’s cart experience more intuitive than Lowe's when changing items to same-day delivery.
• Clear, straightforward verbiage about delivery times was strongly preferred.
• Participants preferred having control over tipping amounts.

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Keeping It Simple

Insights from my competitive analysis highlighted that competitors prioritized simplicity when presenting multiple fulfillment methods. Retailers displayed only the essential information needed for users to review and confirm their carts before proceeding to checkout. During the exploration and ideation phase, I relied heavily on references from Lowe's, Petco, and Home Depot: Lowe's and Petco were key due to their similarities to other retailers and their inclusion in our surveys, while Home Depot provided valuable insights with its comparable cart stylization.

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Exploration Process

Given the project’s technical and budgetary constraints, I aimed to work within the existing bottom-of-funnel flow to ensure a quick turnaround.

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Cart

The most feasible path in cart was to add a third card-style fulfillment button to the current design. While it was technically possible to replicate Home Depot's nested approach—combining "Shipping" and "Same-Day Delivery" under a single "Delivery" button—it required additional back-end development that was out of scope.

During ideation meetings with project managers and stakeholders, I encountered resistance to adding a third button to the already busy cart. In response, I prepared several design options: variations that adhered to the current design system as well as a "blue sky" concept—my ideal design without any constraints.

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Checkout and Order Confirmation

At the project’s initiation, the scope for the checkout and order confirmation stages was clearly defined. The primary goal was to ensure customers were properly informed of key details for placing a same-day delivery order, including shipping fees, estimated delivery times, and the delivery service being used. Additionally, we aimed to provide an option for adding delivery instructions. Based on these requirements, I identified a state within our existing checkout flow that could be replicated to minimize development efforts while still meeting user expectations. This approach allowed us to balance technical efficiency with a focus on user experience.

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Feedback and Iterations

With the project’s expedited timeline, feedback from directors, project managers, and stakeholders was extensive and multifaceted. While I went through several rounds of review and critique, the key takeaways that informed my final designs included:

• Radio Buttons and Future Opportunities:
  While my "blue sky" concept received positive feedback, the proposed changes, including radio buttons and a shift to a cart page, were deemed out of scope for this phase of the same-day delivery project. However, presenting this concept sparked valuable discussions about implementing a cart page with radio buttons in the future as part of the new design system plan.
• Alignment with the Product Description Page (PDP):
  During feedback sessions, some project managers and directors explored the idea of aligning the cart's fulfillment method selectors with PDP's. After testing the concept, we concluded that this approach was unnecessary, as my competitive analysis showed that most competitors use card-style buttons on PDPs but default to radio buttons in carts.
• Zip Code Dependency for "Shipping" and "Same-Day Delivery":
  Early ideation revealed potential user confusion regarding zip code changes. For example, if a user updated their zip code for a same-day delivery item, they might not anticipate the change affecting shipping items in their cart. To address this, we decided that the cart summary design from Option 3 was the most intuitive and feasible solution for this phase.

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Final Design

Click here to see the hifi prototype for Academy's DoorDash bottom-of-funnel happy path....or make a Same-Day Delivery purchase at academy.com to see it in action and get your item same or next day! 😉

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Closing Thoughts & Lessons Learned

When I was first assigned this task, I thought it would be relatively straightforward—just add a third button to the cart, duh! While I anticipated some additional considerations along the way, I believed this approach would allow us to meet the tight deadline while leaving room to explore more comprehensive cart changes in future phases. However, I quickly discovered that introducing a third button elicited strong opinions from project managers, directors, and stakeholders. This experience taught me the importance of taking extra time to present concepts in a way that feels digestible and adaptable, ensuring alignment with the goals and expectations of all parties involved. Despite the challenges of working within technical and design limitations on a compressed timeline, this project provided valuable takeaways and reinforced that being a good designer means finding the balance between compromise and confidently backing your decisions.

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