Business
Away Successfully launches Softside Luggage, with the help of AI
Aug 20, 2024
By
Aaron Cannon
Outset enabled Away to conduct 78 in-depth interviews within a week, leading to exceptional performance on the launch page with a 20% add-to-cart rate, surpassing the performance of other Away product pages that had been optimized over years.
In preparation for the launch of Away’s new Softside luggage, the company recognized the need to deeply understand customer preferences when choosing between different luggage materials. These insights would be crucial to their decision-making process, helping to guide their web design, visuals, product information, and comparison pages.
Softside represented a significant milestone for the company as their largest launch to date since they originally disrupted the hardside luggage market in 2016. With the launch of Softside, the company once again aimed to revolutionize a traditionally uninspired luggage category with a long awaited fresh take on soft luggage. To mark the launch of this disruptive new line, Away planned to bring to life a 360 degree marketing campaign, centered around an incredible, and unexpected group of actors, writers, chefs, athletes and more who were all inherently Softside people.
The Challenge
To ensure the success of this historic launch, Away knew that market research was critical in bringing a product line to market that would connect with today’s consumer. A significant share of the luggage market is made up of softside customers yet the category remained relatively untouched by innovation despite the surge of competitors and imitators in the hardside luggage market. The team recognized the need to start from an exploratory lens, combining both qualitative and quantitative research insights.
However, as the team prepared to start this research, they encountered challenges with traditional methodologies. While surveys can gather a broad set of data, they often lack the depth and nuance required for a comprehensive understanding, and while in-depth interviews, though insightful, are time-consuming and typically tap a small number of consumers.
The Process
Away discovered Outset, a cutting-edge research tool that enables the collection of qualitative feedback with the scale and speed typically associated with quantitative methods.
Outset is an AI-moderated research platform designed to help Fortune 500 companies obtain deep, qualitative insights quickly. It leverages AI to conduct and synthesize video interviews, empowering businesses to make strategic business decisions on robust data.
The platform’s ability to collect in-depth feedback from a large number of participants within a short time frame was one of the main drivers for Away to test out and adopt the tool. With Outset, Away conducted 78 in-depth interviews in just one week by allowing AI to conduct the conversations directly with participants.
The Learnings
The research conducted through Outset provided Away with valuable insights into the product education, comparison and material quality that Softside customers prioritize during their purchase decisions. This research revealed several key points that Away incorporated into its presentation of Softside to customers:
Durability: While both hardside and softside shoppers prioritize durability, Softside customers have distinct material concerns that need to be addressed through visuals, notably the material’s resistance to weather, stains, and tears, as well as comprehensive cleaning and maintenance instructions.
Flexibility: Softside luggage is uniquely appealing due to its flexibility and often its expandability. As a result, including packing guidance or video tutorials can be very beneficial to speak to its unique packing mechanism and thoughtfully designed features, like both interior and exterior pockets.
The Impact
While previous campaign and landing page research provided rich qualitative insights, as a one-person research team, Jennifer Lien, Senior UX Researcher of Away, valued how Outset enabled her to scale Away’s research insights and better prioritize the results and actions.
“In-depth consumer research is the cornerstone to any successful product launch,” said Lien. “Gathering detailed qualitative research, however, is a time-consuming process, requiring one-on-one interviews. With Outset’s AI-moderated research platform, we’ve been able to achieve both scale and speed in our consumer research. Thanks to Outset, we quickly obtained valuable feedback on our Softside luggage, which allowed us to create content that truly resonated with our customers. This led to a remarkable ‘add-to-cart’ conversion rate on our materials page—a key metric of success for ecommerce product pages.”
Outset was particularly valuable for a few key reasons
High sample size = scale: The larger scale and increased sample size of the research enabled Away to better prioritize key features to be included in the shortlist when circulating the research results to the rest of the company.This broader data set also instilled greater confidence in the prioritization process across the team.
Key video shots included: Based on the research findings indicating customer concerns about material durability, Away prioritized including video footage demonstrating the Softside material's resistance to water and moisture, along with detailed cleaning instructions. In the second round of usability testing, these visuals were found to be particularly helpful.
Bottom Line
Away discovered that within just a few weeks since implementing Outset to gather in-depth feedback to launch its material education page, they had achieved an impressive 20% add-to-cart rate. This figure is 25% higher than that of its broader, simpler product guides. Considering that the material education page targets a more niche audience of high-intent shoppers, Outset has proven to be an essential tool in helping Away prioritize getting the right information in front of likely shoppers that may have otherwise been driven to competitors.
