Thrive Market’s Digital Experience Crowned by TIME100 and Progressive Grocer

Thrive Market, an online grocery disruptor and YML client, continues to gather industry momentum and accolades, recently named TIME100’s Most Influential Companies List in 2022 and crowned ‘Top-Performing Brand in 2022 Retail Personalization Index’ by Progressive Grocer.

Thrive Market “spies an opportunity to become the new go-to destination for well-curated healthy foods,” said the TIME100 statement.

YML built Thrive Market’s web and mobile experiences along with an auto-ship strategy that resulted in a 10% increase in sign-ups and 16% increase in first-time purchases.

“We redesigned and relaunched their digital ecosystem with a focus on sign-up conversion, and there’s been substantial impact,” said August Kreowski, Creative Director at YML who led the Thrive Market project.

The YML approach was simple: websites are not brochures, they are products. By taking a product-first approach and using the design system we created, the website went through multiple iterations within weeks of launching, exceeding key business and brand growth metrics.

Within 6 months after launch, Thrive Market increased not only membership sign-ups and first time orders, but 24% faster speed to checkout, 33% more customers completed orders and 64% more added products from personalized recommendations.

And over the past 18 months, our redesign of Thrive Market’s digital ecosystem has won three Webbys, two Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards (Retail Innovation and User Experience) and one Modern Retail Award for Best Personalization Strategy.

At its core, the work focused on customer needs that mattered most and built lasting impact on onboarding, sign up and build-a-box. Through relentless streamlining we increased user velocity and task completion on all the key metrics.

Try Everything, Pivot Quickly

To more efficiently make an impact on Thrive’s business in this shifting landscape, YML evolved your typical client / agency relationship into a more transparent partnership. Gone are the days of waiting two weeks for your agency to put together a dog and pony show deck for the bosses waiting in Conference Room B.

To keep up with the rapidly changing nature of product development, our client teams collaborated in the same working files (shout out to Figma and Miro — our necessities), to take notes, suggest edits, and build out new user flows in real time. Our rule here is simple: no idea is bad. Build it and test it. But if the idea doesn’t work — move on. The only true expert in product development is the user, which will come to light in user testing. Even the most brilliant design system is out the window if our core user isn’t able to navigate it easily.

This method proved critical for Thrive Market.

Customization is Key

Navigating an online marketplace with over 7,000 sku’s is overwhelming. But unlike brick and mortar stores, we positioned Thrive Market’s digital product with the opportunity to learn and grow. With robust data collection and analytics, the ability to create customized experiences results in efficiency and stickiness; for example, when Thrive users search for an organic, dairy product, they have always been served a variety of recommendations based on those specifications.

Simple enough.

But now, when we also find out that this user is a mother of two who is married to someone with a peanut allergy, Thrive Market offers meal suggestions, puts together thoughtful shopping lists, and introduces recipes that inspire further discovery in the kitchen.

Users have come to expect these principles as table stakes from online stores. And every leading retailer has already conquered them; Target, Houzz and, of course, the all powerful Amazon know that users become loyal when they find delight in knowing that their online experience causes zero frustration, knows what they like, has fun searching around, and, most importantly, saves them the hassle of roaming crowded, picked-over store aisles for an hour on Saturday mornings.

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