One of the largest US apparel specialty retail groups. Online represented roughly a quarter of revenue. The platform struggled during peak traffic, offered no Apple Pay or BNPL, and had checkout friction contributing to above-average cart abandonment. Then COVID created the largest surge in e-commerce demand in retail history. Growth was coming either way. The platform would either capture it or leak it to competitors who had already modernized payments and performance.
The challenge
- Low digital penetration. Online revenue share around 25% pre-pandemic.
- Peak traffic fragility. Platform struggled during Black Friday and holiday surges.
- No modern payments. No Apple Pay, no BNPL. Competitors were adopting both.
- Cart abandonment. Industry average ~67%, with the client's checkout friction contributing to above-average rates.
- Corporate restructuring. Already reorganizing when COVID hit.
The solution
Platform modernization targeting performance, checkout, and payment flexibility at the same time.
My role
Business Analyst bridging into product thinking. The work covered requirements written as user stories with acceptance criteria, stakeholder workshop facilitation, deliverable tracking, and coordination between PM, tech lead, and development. This was the role where the shift from BA to PM took shape, judged on user outcomes and business impact rather than requirements documentation alone.
Strategy and approach
Three simultaneous layers.
- Platform performance. 40%+ more peak traffic capacity, capturing Black Friday revenue.
- Checkout optimization. Apple Pay and BNPL integration.
- User experience. Design improvements reducing cart abandonment.
Planning
Coordinated with project manager and tech lead on deliverable tracking and deadlines. Requirements documented as user stories, stakeholder meetings facilitated, demos presented.
Cross-functional alignment
- Project manager and tech lead. Weekly deliverable tracking.
- Development teams. User stories with acceptance criteria.
- Stakeholders. Workshops and demos.
- User research. Interviews analysing pain points for conversion funnel optimization.
Stakeholder trust
This was a high-stakes engagement during the client's restructuring. Trust came from consistent deliverable quality and clear requirements documentation that kept development aligned with business goals during organizational turbulence.
Before and after
| Dimension | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Online revenue share | ~25% | ~45% |
| Online sales growth | Baseline | +50%+ year over year |
| E-commerce revenue | Baseline | +20%+ |
| Peak traffic capacity | Struggled during surges | +40%+ |
| Payment options | Credit and debit only | Apple Pay plus BNPL |
| Cart additions | Baseline | +15%+ |
| Sales from payments | Baseline | +10%+ from flexibility |
Tooling and reporting
- Requirements. User stories with acceptance criteria.
- Agile. Daily standups, sprint planning, retrospectives.
- Tracking. Deliverable tracking with PM and tech lead.
- Research. User interviews, conversion funnel analysis.
Results
- 50%+ online sales increase verified against public filings.
- 20%+ e-commerce revenue growth.
- 40%+ platform scalability improvement.
- Apple Pay and BNPL integrated at scale.
- 10%+ sales lift from payment flexibility.
- 15%+ cart additions increase.
- Cart abandonment improved against the ~67% industry benchmark.
Industry context
US e-commerce grew ~40% in 2020. The client's growth outpaced the market by double-digit points, suggesting genuine platform improvements beyond pandemic tailwinds. The digital shift proved permanent: years later, online still represented a meaningfully larger share of revenue than pre-transformation baseline.
Why this worked
The timing did half the work. Corporate restructuring plus a pandemic meant lower institutional resistance to digital investment, and higher stakes: the improvements had to ship before Black Friday or the window closed. The team attacked all three constraints at once (performance, checkout, payments) because fixing any one alone would still leak revenue through the other two.
Outpacing a market that grew ~40% is what separates real platform improvement from pandemic tailwinds.
Platform constraints tax revenue whether or not anyone measures the leak. The 2020 surge made the bill impossible to ignore.