Introduction
Team: Shay Duan, Khadijah Ingawa, Tess Matthews, Amy Lee
Nordstrom Rack's "Buy Online, Pick Up in Store" feature is one of their biggest competitive advantages — faster than shipping, drives in-store visits, saves customers money. We ran a usability study to find out where the experience was actually breaking down.
Our research questions going in:
- Can shoppers actually find and buy same-day pickup items without getting lost?
- Do they understand the difference between "pickup" and "ship to store"?
- What happens when they shop across multiple store locations?
- Where does the whole experience fall apart?
What we did
8 participants recruited through social networks — screened for real Nordstrom Rack shoppers who lived near a store, shopped online regularly, and had no UX research background. Moderated sessions via Zoom using Think Aloud Protocol, with pre-test interviews to understand shopping habits, three real-world scenarios, and a post-test questionnaire. Everything was prioritized using Nordstrom's own severity rating scale and presented to the Nordstrom UX team, mentored by Angela Sharer and Annelise Schuler.
What we found — and what changed
The filter that lied → now it's "Ready Today"
7 out of 8 participants applied the "Available Today" filter expecting it to show only items available for same-day pickup in their size. It didn't. Products appeared in results as long as at least one size or color was available — even if the participant's size wasn't. 2 out of 8 participants never found the filter at all. One said:
"I did filter by 'available today' and the size, but the filters did not work."
We recommended making the filter more prominent, visually distinct, and impossible to miss. It's now called "Ready Today" — highlighted in blue and pinned as the first filter shoppers see.
The silent switch → pickup availability now lives at the size level
Shoppers had to manually click through an average of 10.6 size and color combinations just to find one pair of shoes available for same-day pickup. And when they did select a size, items were silently switching from "Free Pickup" to "Free Ship to Store" without any visual distinction. 4 out of 8 participants didn't notice and added the wrong item to their bag.
"It says 'free pick up', but as soon as I select a size, it changes to 'free ship to store'. That's a little annoying."
We recommended surfacing availability directly at the size level and making pickup and shipping visually distinct. Sizes now show "Pick up today" right next to them in the size selector — sizes that aren't available show nothing, replacing the old "Pick up tomorrow" label that was causing the confusion. The 10.6 clicks problem is gone.
The store location trap → clearer cart behavior
When shoppers added items from Store A, then switched to Store B, the entire cart silently reassigned to Store B at checkout — sometimes making previously available same-day items no longer available. 5 out of 8 participants expected to check out from multiple stores in a single transaction. None of them could.
"Oh no! The bag cannot be picked up by tomorrow anymore. I didn't notice that!"
We recommended adding a clear warning the moment a shopper switches stores, taking a page from Target's separate in-store pickup flow. The cart behavior is now more transparent at checkout.
The information nobody could find → now front and center
6 out of 8 participants' first instinct was to look for hold time and pickup logistics on the checkout page. It wasn't there. It took an average of 7 clicks to find — one person gave up and Googled it.
"I can't find the hold policy anywhere. I'll just Google it."
We recommended surfacing pickup logistics directly where shoppers were already looking. It's now clearly stated: your order is held for 5 days, here's where to go in the store, here's what to bring.
The feature is now on the homepage
Nordstrom Rack is now actively promoting "Buy Online & Pick Up in Store" on their homepage — something that wasn't there before.