Reviving Outlet sales through content design
Some people had a bone to pick with Tekton Hand Tools’ Outlet.
The company was planning to run the same Outlet promotions for the 2025 holiday season as the year prior. Some of my coworkers were skeptical. They thought users had balked the year prior and that the promotion would be unsuccessful.
But what were users saying? I conducted voice-of-customer research to better understand user concerns. I turned to social media like Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and other forums.
Warranty confusion
An excellent warranty policy and process is one of the core strengths of Tekton’s brand. But when it came to Outlet, customers weren’t certain that the same rules would apply.
Product misconceptions
“Outlet” is a loaded word. Some people seemed to picture a pile of trash. Others thought maybe the whole site was an outlet.
Following the breadcrumbs
How did users land on some of these misconceptions? Was it possible the company was leading them there without realizing it?
I revisited the current designs under a new lens.
Not including product photo disclaimers, the blemished product pages dropped some version of the word “blemished” four times in the top section alone.
With all this decorative flamin’ hot red on the page, the Add to Cart button was starting to feel lost in a sea of emphasis.
The category and product pages didn’t do much to explain Outlet. An explainer page already existed, but it was buried under a tooltip. And the nested link wasn’t keyboard-accessible
While the copy in this section made sense, “Shop Other” didn’t exactly feel like encouraging language that supported discovery.
How might design change user perception?
I updated the UI and crafted more content to see if providing better information would curb users' negative views of Outlet.
Before: Disclaimers and warning red seemed like they could be warning off users from making a purchase.
After: Red is reserved for only the most important action and information on the page. To tone down the textual shouting and resolve the accessibility issue, we nixed the disclaimer above the product name.
After: I blended the user concerns and business requirements for Outlet into a new informational section. This section should give users a rough idea of what Outlet is and why it might be beneficial without needing to hunt for the information.
Before: Language like “Shop Other” seemed uninspiring.
After: I tweaked some styling for consistency and wording to encourage user’s sense of discovery.
Impact
These content design updates significantly shifted engagement with Outlet compared to the year prior under the same promotion strategy.
By addressing user concerns with clear communication and thoughtful design, we transformed Outlet from a misunderstood bargain bin to a reliable destination for functional, discounted tools.
60%
increase in Outlet sales compared to the prior December
53%
increase in Outlet orders compared to the prior December
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