Åhléns invests in their e-commerce - with help from Cloud Nine.

Cloud Nine’s UX designer, Petter Sellerstrand, has for the last couple of months been on a consulting assignment at Åhléns. The department store is one of the most enriched retail stores in Sweden, and it was with pride and joy that we took on the assignment. Below, Petter describes in his own words how the assignment took shape and developed.

About the assignment

When I came to Åhléns, they were in the middle of a technology shift. Åhléns had grown out of the monolith in which their e-commerce was built, and wanted to upgrade to another level with new technology packaged in a headless solution.

Åhléns has established a line of fashion & gift department store in many Swedish cities. To raise their presence online, there was a lot of data and ideas. To find the right direction, ideas needed to visualize, and concepts discussed and tested with customers.

When the team was implementing the technical updates to the site, I saw the opportunity to modernize the user experience. A project was started and ran parallel with the development of the live site. The project culminated in a prototype and was pitched to management.

The prototype was based on data collection by analysts, a/b testing of CRO along with customer interviews. Coordinated by me, together with the Growth Manager at Åhléns.

Everything was packaged in a Figma prototype and presented to the E-commerce manager who took it on to management - 'Åhléns 2.0' was born.

Åhléns 2.0

After the project was approved, Åhléns contacted an external Brand Agency to help with branding while the team in-house focused on the user journey and experience on the site.

To mention a few more projects I was involved in and lead forward was also - Masterdata organization, Click'n'collect, Personal Shopping and Giftfinder.

While writing this, the concept development is ongoing and the user tests are the next step in the design process. Internal workshops are completed and iterations are carefully evaluated and implemented.

A huge thanks

I want to start by thanking Åhléns for the opportunity to help them on their CX-journey. It has been inspiring and challenging to work with so many talented people from different departments.

Most of all, I want to thank my CXO team, Nina Aschan and Gunilla Mattsson as Growth Managers and all the analysts, SEO and CRO experts. Last but not least, the Sales Director, Jenny Zeng!

Thank you Åhléns!

/ Petter Sellerstrand

Gunilla Mattsson, Growth Manager, Petter Sellerstand, UX Designer and Jenny Zeng, Sales Director Online Sales