Monthly payment shopping tools @Vroom
My team set out to understand how subprime car shoppers budget and finance for their car purchase on vroom.com. We launched a monthly payment calculator tool to help shoppers find the car that fits their monthly budget and increase their chances of qualifying for a good deal.
Time: 2 months (Apr 2022)
Role: Solely responsible for research, interaction & visual design; collaborated with another designer on discovery and wireframing
Platform: Web (Desktop, Tablet & Mobile)
Metrics: Conversion to financing pre-qualification, conversion to start purchase
Prototype demo
Vroom shoppers didn’t have enough transparency or flexibility in the financing process and were therefore less likely to complete their purchase
From previous research, we had identified a key frustration:
Online car shoppers need control and flexibility over their terms and monthly payment, before having their credit checked and committing to a loan. They were rightfully anxious with what was likely the biggest purchase they would ever make online. This had been a significant confidence blocker, causing Vroom to lose customers to traditional financial institutions and dealerships.
“(When applying for credit in the checkout process) I’m still left with entirely too many questions for my liking. Like, I don’t know if Vroom is going to let me rock with a $300 down. …Maybe I fall head over heels with this car but I still don’t know… what am I going to be looking at as far as monthly payment.”
Subprime shoppers often had more limited loan options and were rejected for deals that weren’t a good fit for their budget. With Vroom’s acquisition of United Auto Credit Corporation, an auto loan provider specializing in subprime loans, we had the opportunity to better attract and serve these customers.
Therefore, the ultimate goal was to:
Help subprime shoppers obtain loans that fit both their budget and their car needs.
Subprime customers are much less likely to get approved for or accept a loan than prime customers
Brainstorming for unknowns and opportunities
The solution seemed obvious—a loan calculator. This was actually a deprecated feature, because it was inaccurate and created even more distrust and inconsistencies. Auto loan calculators were widely available just about anywhere on the internet. How might we provide value specific to Vroom’s shoppers and processes? I needed to start with the discovery and research phase to explore how customers approach financing and budgeting in general.
In the initial kickoff with the whole team, I reviewed previous research findings and led a discussion on what we still needed to understand about user motivation and behavior and what data needed to be collected.
Team sketching time
Under time pressure, we had to get a headstart with the ideation stage while planning for the research simultaneously. This means that the research would change from a broader discovery approach to incorporate some concept testing (more on that later).
Another designer and I co-facilitated a sketching session for the team with 3 HMW statements based on the brainstorm synthesis:
HMW respond to user actions on cars outside of their selection criteria?
HMW recommend cars that fit a shopper’s budget, qualifying details and lifestyle?
HMW balance what a shopper wants and needs within budget?
Looking at all the ideas, I realized that introducing monthly payment earlier in the customer journey was the prerequisite to more proactive features and the most low-cost to build. This might mean making something very similar to the deprecated feature; however, we were now better capable of providing more accurate data and keeping moving customers toward a good deal.
Considering technical feasibility and complexity, this feature would be first placed on the Product Detail Page (PDP). This would also provide the most immediate value to shoppers by allowing them to structure their loans for each car. As we gather data on how shoppers interact with these solutions, we would leverage data science to improve our recommendation algorithm.
Developing a “monthly payment calculator” concept
There were several key considerations with the design execution:
Convention. The interaction pattern and input fields should be similar to other common loan calculators.
Clarity. There’s a lot of numbers to crunch here, so the visual hierarchy must facilitate easy understanding of the purposes of the fees.
Scalability. The components and patterns would ideally be reusable for the next projects in the roadmap.
Iteration #1
A widget with inputs and a monthly price breakdown visualization. The visualization in percentage wasn’t quite valuable and we’d run out of colors quickly.
Iteration #2
Still a widget but with a receipt-style price breakdown. Much clearer illustration of ‘what am I paying for?’ but the widget could get lost in all other important car info on the page and add to the cognitive load.
Iteration #3
A side drawer experience on desktop/tablet. Had the potential to eventually evolve into a “cart” feature with stronger budgeting capabilities, where shoppers could calculate not only auto loan payments but also protection products, insurance, gas, and so on.
Iteration 4/synthesized test concept
Interview, card sort and concept test
Research questions
How do shoppers make all the decisions in the car shopping process?
How do they determine their budget and know if a car would be within it?
How do shoppers rate the desirability, viability, and usability of the concept?
Research format
60-min, 1-on-1, remote, moderated sessions
Each session consisted of interview questions (15mins), card sort (25mins), and concept test (20mins)
5 self-reported subprime participants planning to buy a car in 3-6 months
A highlight in the research method, suggested by our research director, I added a card sort exercise to understand how shoppers make decisions about their purchase. Buying a car was already complex; the added anxiety of making all the decision without actually seeing or test driving the car made it even more challenging (“like playing on the slot machine”). I asked participants to rank decision factors by the sequence of importance. As a follow up, I asked which factors they had flexibility on and which factors would change, and how, if they were on a tighter budget.
Research insight: Monthly payment is one of the most important decisions for subprime shoppers
Shoppers shop with both a monthly and a total budget in mind. Individual and family financial situation and goals determine their budgets.
Subprime shoppers were well aware of their limitations. But limitations didn’t prevent them from buying a car or getting qualified. They were just more motivated to consider tradeoffs—for example, they might choose a less expensive car and shorter term length to pay off the loan more quickly with a higher monthly payment.
Calculators should be standard on any car listing site. Shoppers value the transparency and flexibility it provided when making such a big financial decision completely online.
We validated our assumptions and design decisions — all the information needed was present, the side drawer interaction was intuitive, and the need for monthly payment filters to narrow down the search was strong.
Final design
After synthesizing and discussing the insights, I paired up with product, engineering, QA and stakeholders to refine the execution and address some requirements and edge cases.
Impact: A/B testing
The feature had been developed and tested, and we planed to release it as an A/B test soon. We hypothesized that by gauging if a car’s monthly payment fit their budget and desired terms, shoppers would be more likely to convert to pre-qualification to get personalized financing results and eventually start purchase. A few other UX metrics I’d like to track were:
Engagement: Are shoppers using this feature? How much time do they spend on it?
Adoption: Are shoppers returning to this feature over multiple sessions?
NPS: Are customers saying this feature is helpful/enjoyable?
Click map: Which elements are shoppers interacting with the most? Any rage or dead clicks?
Next steps: Filtering by monthly payment
In the next phase, we would enable shoppers to filter search results by monthly payment. Reusing the same design would actually not be an ideal experience as the filters already lived in the left side bar oh the Catalog page. Although it would require a heavier lift, it would be a more seamless experience to build the calculator functionality into the filter feature. I’m in the process of doing a competitive analysis (left) and building out some mockups (right).
Competitive examples from carvana and carmax
Concept explorationsCould’ve been better if
Test on mobile. Unfortunately, we hadn’t been able to invest in a remote mobile testing solution. A redesign of the mobile Product Detail Page was being explored to clean up the visual hierarchy of headings, prices and entry point to the calculator tool. It would be a good opportunity to test new motion patterns that were more intuitive for mobile experiences, make better use of sticky bottom bar real estate and incorporate into the design system.