Design-centered. Business aware.
Digitizing a retail promotion mechanic
In 2024, I worked to transform a successful in-store promotion into a digital experience. The promotion offered progressive discounts based on product volume and variety.
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01
The challenge
The main challenge was adapting this mechanic to a self-service digital platform. Unlike in stores — where salespeople explained the promotion — users online had to understand:
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Which products were included
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How discounts increased with more items
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What was needed to unlock the next discount tier
The goal: create a clear, motivating, and scalable experience that worked from the first click.
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02
How it works: an example
To make the mechanic easier to understand, imagine a progressive discount promotion on McDonald’s ice cream:
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Buying 3 to 5 ice creams gives the customer a 2% discount
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Buying 6 to 8 ice creams increases the discount to 4%
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Buying more than 9 ice creams raises the discount to 6%
Customers can mix different types of ice cream — cones, sundaes, McFlurries, or top sundaes — to add up the total quantity and automatically unlock the discount.
This example clearly shows the goal: encourage users to add more variety and volume of Ice creams while providing clear communication about their discount progress.
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03
User journey and blueprint
While mapping the user journey and creating the experience blueprint, I found technical limitations that directly affected how users perceived the promotion’s value:
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Out-of-stock products were not recognized by the system, preventing discounts from applying and frustrating users who built their carts correctly but didn’t know some items were unavailable.
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The same SKU could be part of multiple campaigns, requiring priority rules to avoid conflicting messages.
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Users with multiple active campaigns lacked clarity about which benefit they were receiving.
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Orders with different payment conditions were split internally, breaking the discount progression mechanic and invalidating discounts.
These findings were essential to guide design and communication decisions — from how the promotion was displayed to what messages appeared at each step of the user journey.
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04
Usability testing
I tested the main promotion flows with 5 users to validate visibility, comprehension, and ease of use. You can observe the results in the image on the side.
Key learnings:
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Promotion visibility needed stronger visual emphasis, especially on the homepage and product pages.
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The progressive discount mechanic required clearer guidance and predictability.
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Separating campaigns by tabs worked well, but the communication about how the promotion worked still caused some doubts.
These insights guided our design improvements, helping us create a clearer and more confident user experience.
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05
Iterations and improvements
Based on usability testing and blueprint findings, I made adjustments focused on clarity, guidance, and encouraging user action:
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Clear discount rules: I displayed quantity ranges and discount percentages directly on the progress bar, using a simple and clean layout.
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Discount timing: We added messages to make it clear that the discount would be applied in the cart.
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Tabs for multiple campaigns: Users who were eligible for more than one promotion could now see the campaigns separated by tabs — making comparison and understanding easier.
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Product list link at the right moment: We placed the link right below the “Get your progressive discount” call-to-action, reducing friction.
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More direct incentive messages: We replaced generic phrases with messages that showed exactly how many items were needed to unlock the next discount level.
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Less focus on quantity selector per SKU: This helped promote product variety (cross-sell), not just the number of units.
These changes made the promotion mechanic more intuitive, reliable, and conversion-focused — with fewer doubts, more clarity, and a smoother user journey.
06
Results
Turning this retail promotion into a digital experience led to a clearer, more guided, and more efficient journey — both for end users and business partners.
Today, this promotion mechanic:
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Is used by several partners as a key part of their promotion strategy
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Increases product variety per order, encouraging cross-sell
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Helps boost engagement and sales during structured campaigns
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Proved to be scalable and sustainable, even with multiple active campaigns, complex business rules, and technical limitations
More than just adapting a retail logic, this project showed how design can connect business rules with a simple, intuitive experience that delivers real value.
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