Bringing in-store purchases into the digital account
About a year after the order history redesign launched, the store purchase history initiative was back on the roadmap. This time the work was less about design and more about systems, strategy, and figuring out what was actually possible to show.
Picking up where the redesign left off
The order history redesign had been intentionally built to support store purchases. About a year later, that investment paid off. The store purchase history initiative was reactivated, and the foundation was already there.
My role as UX Strategist was less about designing new screens and more about understanding a complex system: what transaction types existed in store, what data was consistently available, and how to represent edge cases without misleading customers.
I partnered with the order transformation and stores teams to map every transaction type, assess data reliability, and define what could be supported accurately in Phase 1 and what needed to wait for a later phase.
My contributions
Strategic context
Problem & Solution
Extending what existed rather than starting over
The strategic challenge was about scope decisions, not design decisions. How much of the in-store transaction landscape could we accurately represent? What do we show when data is incomplete? Where do we draw the line for Phase 1?
No digital visibility into in-store purchases
Customers had no way to view in-store purchases in their account. Returns required paper receipts. Exchanges involved store associates manually looking up transactions. No consistent digital record existed.
Unified order history with store details and a scannable barcode
Extended the existing order history framework to include store purchases with store location, receipt number, and payment method. Order detail view added product images, price paid, and a barcode matching the physical receipt for in-store scanning.
Key tradeoffs I made
Research
Not all store transactions are created equal
I analyzed how other retailers surface store purchase history, focusing on information hierarchy, differences between online and in-store order details, and how navigation between order types was handled.
I also partnered directly with the stores team to map every transaction type that happened in store: straight purchases, returns, exchanges, and store-to-door orders. That discovery work was the most important research in this project.
Mirror pattern
Competitor approach
Most retailers mirror the online order layout for in-store purchases, adding store-specific fields like location and receipt ID
Toggle access
Navigation pattern
Store purchases typically accessed via a toggle or link from existing order history, not a separate section
Data varies
The real constraint
Transaction data consistency varied significantly across store systems, making some purchase types straightforward and others requiring phased support
"Rather than forcing parity across all scenarios, we prioritized accuracy and transparency, showing only what could be reliably supported."
Without the store-level discovery work, the experience would have made promises the data couldn't keep. Getting that right before design started was the most important thing we did on this project.
