Problem Solved: How Fortnum & Mason Helped Shoppers to Find the Perfect Hamper for Their Loved Ones

Above: Desktop and mobile screens showing the online hamper finder tool on the Fortnum & Mason website alongside photos of the iconic wicker hampers with food and drink inside them

Digital Innovation agency Bernadette’s head of UX, Steph Marques and creative director, Will Aslett talk us through how their team helped Fortnum & Mason to match shoppers with their perfect hamper

Steph Marques, head of UX at Bernadette

Steph has over 10 years experience of finding ways to bring business, customer and technology together into products and services that deliver and delight.

She has worked with clients such as O2 on their digital transformation and innovation, Fortnum & Mason on their ecommerce platform and Saga on their website ecosystem redesign. 

Steph is passionate about Diversity & Inclusion, and leads the Accessibility Collective at Bernadette - evangelising and training the team in accessible design and development.

Will Aslett, creative director at Bernadette

Will is a well seasoned creative director with a 15-year track record in crafting digital experiences that resonate with audiences. Inspired by a fusion of pop culture and Japanese aesthetics, Will has become a trailblazer of creativity for brands such as easyJet, Cadbury and most recently Fortnum & Mason.

His innovative approach seamlessly blends contemporary trends with cultural nuances, delivering immersive campaigns that not only meet strategic objectives but also leave a lasting impact on consumers. Staying on top of the ever-evolving digital landscape and on the pulse of contemporary society, Will stands at the forefront of the intersection between creativity and technology, shaping the future of digital advertising.

F&M wicker hampers are one of the world’s most famous and sought-after items - seen in living rooms and kitchens around the globe. Customers visiting an F&M store are guided through their hamper purchase by expert staff with intricate knowledge of the products and delivery options. However, this wasn’t the case online. So we set out to help F&M online shoppers to find the perfect hamper to gift their friend, colleague or loved one. 

What You Made

We created a concierge-style experience that walked customers through a series of questions that would narrow in on a recommendation for hampers that would suit their needs. Starting with the occasion being celebrated, then where in the world it would be delivered, what the lucky recipient likes to eat and drink, the shopper’s budget and then finally a shortlist of results.

The idea for the ‘Hamper Finder’ was one of 12 ideas we came up with off the back of a thorough discovery phase, that looked at the entire customer experience right from hearing about the brand in the first place, to consideration of F&M, browsing and purchase, through to delivery, enjoyment of the contents and reusing the hamper at the end. The shortlisted ideas were all assessed from a viability and feasibility point of view, and this idea was the chosen one as it was the most promising.

This methodical approach hasn’t disappointed, as the results are rolling in and are incredibly positive - a true testament to our prioritisation exercise to find this gem of an idea amongst many other brilliant opportunities.

The Problem

The iconic department store and brand, Fortnum & Mason approached us with an open brief. They challenged us to uncover new opportunities for their increasingly popular website — counting on our methodical, proven approach to creative delivery. Being approached by such a revered brand, we were more than happy to start coming up with ideas to elevate their site. 

F&M’s store experience is famous for being visually spectacular, extravagant and accompanied by incredible service from their knowledgeable staff who will go above and beyond for any customer. However, their website was acting purely as a self-service platform, lacking the customer service and problem solving support that the store experience is known for. We needed to help them to bring the spirit of the F&M ‘red coat’ staff service to the web. 

When presented with an open brief like this, we always take a methodical approach, starting by thinking broadly first then narrowing in later. So we started by researching the landscape of hamper buying, and then narrowed in on specific ideas - finishing up by prioritising the ideas that showed the best value to customers and biggest potential to the business. 

Ideation

We began by speaking to 12 of their existing customers to find out what they think about F&M, and what goes through their minds when deciding to buy a hamper. We had a few hypotheses going into the interviews, but needed to validate them before using them as solid insights that we could design from. 

Alongside customer interviews we also conducted lots of other research: competition analysis, comparator inspiration, stakeholder interviews, store visits, online journey mapping and a web analytics review to name a few. 

To bring all of this insight together, we produced a Customer Experience Map that covered the online journey at its core, and also mapped the store, phone and concierge journeys too. We iterated the detail through working sessions with stakeholders and subject matter experts, eventually arriving at an incredibly rich bird's eye view of the journey: from background influences through to purchase and re-use.

Above: Two team members standing by the Hamper Purchase Journey Map, discussing the insights on the map

This map became the backbone to several ideation workshops. We brought together a mix of client stakeholders across the business, plus designers, strategists and technologists from Bernadette to come up with ways to improve the online hamper purchase journey. 

Together we generated dozens of ideas! A brilliant situation to be in, but it wouldn't be manageable to take everything forwards. So, we ran a "DFV" prioritisation session with core stakeholders, to look at which ideas would be most Desirable to customers, Feasible to build, and Viable for the business to operate and profit from. Finally, we decided to pursue the idea of creating a Hamper Gift Finder tool. 

This idea was highly rated because although customers love to create custom hampers, from a business point of view this takes a lot more work to fulfil. By encouraging customers to find the perfect 'pre-packed' hamper, we could both help shoppers to buy a wonderful hamper to gift, and help the business to sell their more profitable items - win win!

Prototype and Design

When moving into the UX phase, some of the challenges we faced were: What are the most important questions to ask people - beyond price and occasion? Which order of questions makes the most sense and is enjoyable to follow? When displaying hamper results, how can we make it really easy to compare the detail of the hampers? 

We worked on these challenges, among many others, in low-fidelity designs and created a clickable prototype. In an earlier part of our work with F&M we helped them to craft a set of four Customer Experience Principles with an accompanying scorecard. At this point we used the scorecard to assess how well our design work was living up to the CX Principles (they we previously created with F&M), and sparked some new ideas to make it better. 

Above: Customer experience scorecard worksheet that has been filled out, showing ticks against each criteria and a sketch of a new page layout idea

F&M have an incredibly iconic style, they're known for being pioneers in design (with a strong heritage in interior and homeware design in particular) and have a beautiful signature blue-green colour called 'Eau de Nil'. It was vital that we continued their style into the UI design, so the team explored ways to both stay in tune with existing design movements and bring a modern edge to the look and feel. We took advantage of their unique illustration style to give it a distinct F&M feel. 

Above: Mobile screens showing the online hamper finder tool journey, from choosing the occasion, to budget, delivery and items to fill the hamper

Live

We took the prototype into moderated testing with customers. Between customer insight and technical feasibility assessments we learnt loads. One learning in particular was that one of our questions around dietary requirements wasn't working, so we brought in a new question about 'Which items would you like within your hamper?' instead, which shoppers have responded really well to.

F&M have fantastic build capabilities so we worked with their team to make our designs a reality, and now we're incredibly proud to see the work out in the wild, beginning to deliver some amazing results. 

You can see the Hamper Finder tool in action here.