Identifying checkout friction in Reynolds Advanced Materials’ e-commerce experience and improving offer visibility to increase net revenue by 20%.
Reynolds Advanced Materials was facing growing e-commerce pressure from competitors and third-party Amazon sellers offering lower perceived total costs, especially through reduced or “free” shipping.
Identify the root cause of declining competitiveness, collaborate with Accounting and executive leadership on a financially responsible pricing and shipping model, then ensure the offer was clearly communicated at key decision points in the customer journey.
After free-shipping eligibility was made more visible through targeted UX improvements, Reynolds Advanced Materials saw a 20% year-over-year increase in net revenue in the month following implementation, along with month-over-month growth during a period that typically declined.
Reynolds Advanced Materials is the retail distribution arm of Smooth-On, offering direct-to-consumer sales of mold making, casting, and related specialty materials through its e-commerce website.
For customers, the purchase decision was often based on more than product price alone. Many products were heavy, liquid, or hazardous to ship, which meant shipping and handling costs could materially affect the total cart value. As competitors began offering reduced shipping rates, and third-party Amazon sellers introduced “free” Prime shipping on similar or overlapping products, Reynolds increasingly faced a total-cost disadvantage.
This created a strategic problem. The company could still offer strong product expertise, trusted materials, and a direct purchasing relationship, but customers comparing checkout totals could perceive competing options as less expensive or more convenient.
The issue was not simply whether prices were too high. It was whether the full e-commerce experience made the value of buying directly clear enough to overcome checkout friction.
The existing pricing and shipping model was creating friction at a critical point in the customer journey.
High shipping and handling costs increased the total cost of purchase, especially on smaller orders. At the same time, Amazon resellers and competing suppliers were conditioning customers to expect lower shipping costs or “free” delivery, even when those costs were effectively built into the product price.
Several issues were overlapping:
At first, the problem appeared to be primarily a pricing issue. But the deeper issue was a combination of pricing, perception, and conversion signaling. Customers needed to see the value of the offer clearly before it could influence their purchase behavior.
In practical terms, the question became:
The strategic insight was that shipping cost was not just an operational expense. It was a conversion factor.
Customers were not evaluating product price, shipping cost, and delivery convenience separately. They were evaluating the total perceived value of the purchase. If the final checkout experience felt less competitive than Amazon or another supplier, customers had a clear reason to abandon the cart or buy elsewhere.
That meant the solution needed to address both economics and communication.
A pricing and shipping adjustment could improve the offer, but the offer would only matter if customers recognized it at the right moment. The strategy needed to connect financial modeling, customer perception, and user experience.
The goal was to:
I identified shipping and handling costs as a likely driver of e-commerce underperformance and cart abandonment.
The issue was visible in the broader competitive environment: customers could increasingly find similar or overlapping products through Amazon or competing suppliers with lower perceived delivery costs. For Reynolds, this meant that even when product pricing was reasonable, the final cart total could make the direct purchase feel less attractive.
This diagnosis reframed the problem. Instead of treating declining sales as only a traffic, product, or campaign issue, I focused attention on the checkout experience and the customer’s perception of total cost.
After identifying the issue, I initiated discussions with senior leadership and Accounting to explore lower-risk ways to improve the customer offer.
My initial recommendation centered on a tiered, flat-rate shipping model based on cart value. The goal was to make shipping costs more predictable for customers while maintaining financial control for the business.
Through cross-functional discussion, the approach evolved. Accounting and executive leadership ultimately aligned on a different model:
The final structure was different from my original recommendation, but the strategic objective remained the same: reduce friction at checkout while protecting the business from unnecessary financial exposure.
That collaboration was important. The best solution was not simply the most aggressive customer offer. It was the offer that balanced competitiveness, margin protection, operational reality, and customer behavior.
The revised pricing and shipping model was implemented across select SKUs.
This included updated pricing on qualifying products and the introduction of free shipping where the business could support it. The initial rollout helped increase order volume, which suggested that the offer had appeal.
However, the early results showed a gap. Order volume improved, but net revenue did not increase meaningfully enough.
That indicated the model itself was not the full solution. The offer existed, but it was not yet doing enough work inside the shopping experience.
After the initial rollout, I identified a critical user experience issue: customers were not clearly aware of which products qualified for free shipping.
The business had improved the offer, but the website was not communicating that value clearly enough at the point of decision. A customer could browse or compare products without immediately understanding that some items now carried a stronger shipping value proposition.
To address this, I designed and implemented a “Free Shipping” visual icon across the site.
The icon was applied consistently to qualifying product listings and positioned to make the offer visible during product evaluation, not just late in checkout. This helped customers recognize the value earlier in the journey and gave the pricing strategy a stronger chance to influence behavior before abandonment occurred.
This was the point where the strategy began to work more effectively. The underlying pricing and shipping model had created the value. The UX improvement made that value visible.
The UX improvement unlocked the effectiveness of the broader pricing and shipping strategy.
Results included:
The most important lesson was that the issue was not purely pricing. It was a conversion and communication problem. Customers needed to understand the offer before it could change their behavior.
By making free-shipping eligibility visible earlier in the shopping journey, Reynolds was able to improve the impact of a pricing strategy that had already been approved and implemented. The business did not need a larger discount, a full site redesign, or a more aggressive promotional campaign. It needed clearer communication at the right point in the customer journey.
This case showed how digital marketing strategy can connect business operations, customer perception, and user experience.
The work helped Reynolds:
For an e-commerce business, the offer itself is only part of the strategy. Customers also need to see it, understand it, and believe it changes the value of the purchase.
This case demonstrated that relatively focused UX changes can have meaningful revenue impact when they are tied to the right business problem.
This case demonstrates my ability to diagnose friction in an e-commerce system, connect customer behavior to pricing and UX strategy, collaborate with finance and executive stakeholders, and improve revenue performance through targeted digital execution.
It also reflects a broader pattern in my work: identifying where a business initiative is losing effectiveness, then improving the connection between strategy, customer perception, and the digital experience.