UX Case Study for Pet Supplies E-commerce
Balancing user needs with client priorities
This case study will review a redesign of the desktop website for Kriser’s Natural Pet, a 20-year-old Chicago-founded pet supplies store that has expanded to 47 brick-and-mortar locations in 5 states. The goal of this 2-week sprint redesign was to produce a mid-fidelity prototype that enhances the e-commerce experience, while staying faithful to their mission and values.
The method included research (in-store interviews, brand analysis, online survey, market analysis, and usability tests of the current website), using insights from the research to define the main problems, derive design principles that address these problems, create a mid-fidelity mid-functionality prototype, usability testing, and implementing improvements to the design.
Research
When I visited the Kriser’s location in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood, I was greeted by a friendly and knowledgeable employee. The store was empty (it was Tuesday early afternoon), and there was a dog being groomed in a side room. During an interview, the employee told me that the store’s local community centers around Kriser’s grooming services, which brings dogs and their humans into the store where they supplement their grooming visit with in-store purchases. Most of these clients, according to the employee, are owners of high-end designer breeds.
When Brad Kriser created the brand in 2006, he saw a market gap in between big box stores and mom-and-pop shops. He wanted to infuse the shopping experience with the expertise and quality products that you’d expect in a small shop, while retaining a wide selection of products that you’d have in a big box store. In an article that originally appeared on Bolstr.com ¹, Kriser specified 3 principles upon which his business is built: aesthetically pleasing in-store environment, stocking brands consumers can trust, and providing high levels of service and education. Interestingly, there’s no mention of convenience, which is a typical proponent of e-commerce.
I wanted to know the general shopping activity of a local population of designer-breed dog owners, so the next step in my research was a simple survey that I posted in the Chicago Doodles Facebook group. I chose this group to sample because it contained 3600 designer breed dog owners enthusiastic about sharing their experiences over social media. This survey posed questions on how and where people shop for and groom their dogs, what they buy, and their overall experience. Of the 47 replies, 85% shop online (mostly on Chewy and Amazon), and 63% in-store. 8.5% go to Kriser’s to buy pet supplies, and a different 10% go there for grooming. Nobody mentioned shopping online with Kriser’s, which brings up the next point. What is Kriser’s relationship to e-commerce?
Market research indicates that the pet supplies e-commerce market is booming and will continue to grow, and that this market is dominated by Amazon and Chewy. Specialist pet big-box retailers such as PetSmart and PetCo are popular, but still are far behind the frontrunners ² ³ ⁴. Kriser’s entrance into the e-commerce ecosystem came in Q2 of 2017 when they announced their partnership with Instacart, a startup that operates as a same-day grocery delivery service. Nobody in my survey mentioned using this service, and it was hard to find references to this partnership on Kriser’s website. Who, then, are Kriser’s users?
Data gathered from my survey, in-store interviews, and press releases indicate that Kriser’s users:
- Are local designer-breed pet owners who bring their pets in for specialty grooming services and buy supplies while in the store
- Understand the value of quality products and expertise
- Like supporting local brick-and-mortar business when it’s convenient for them
- Supplement in-store purchases with online purchases from companies such as Amazon or Chewy
Thus, it seems that if Kriser’s hasn’t dived fully into the e-commerce market by now, they must have a decent reason for it. Referencing my research, it seems that Kriser’s is more devoted to investing in their in-store experience than a more faceless Amazon-like experience. Though setting up an e-commerce section of a website is relatively simple, its implications are expensive, and perhaps this is not Kriser’s priority at the moment. If this is the case, what’s the intended function of Kriser’s website? A quick visit to krisers.com shows that the company is highly devoted to education of caring for pet and expertise of pet supplies products. Their homepage is dominated by a carousel that links to blog posts about upcoming events and product specials, and a bit of text about Kriser’s mission statement.
To learn about how users navigate the current Kriser’s site, I asked 3 pet-owners who regularly shop online to do 3 tasks on the Kriser’s website: 1) find and purchase dog food, 2) explore the Kriser’s blog for a particular topic, and 3) schedule a grooming appointment. In general, they expressed frustration with purchasing food — Kriser’s product pages don’t list prices or a way to checkout through Instacart. Regarding accessing Kriser’s knowledge base, they found the Kriser’s blog database disorganized and confusing. Finally, users were disappointed that Kriser’s only method to book grooming was the telephone.
Pain Points and Insights
My research indicated that users experience frustration with:
- Kriser’s e-commerce flow (evidence of a convoluted relationship between Kriser’s and Instacart)
- A disorganized knowledge base
- Limited personalized online engagement

Thus Kriser’s needs to enhance their online experience in order to:
- Emphasize the uniqueness of their brand
- Encourage in-store business while maximizing benefit of their partnership with Instacart
- Strengthen relationship with existing loyal customers and reach out to new ones
These problems can be addressed by redesigning their website to:
- Communicate education and demonstrate product expertise
- Promote in-store visits and personalized grooming service
- Facilitate onsite shopping experience before sending order to Instacart
Design Principles
Users should easily be able to:
- Find, research, compare, and purchase products
- Schedule grooming appointments online
- Explore personalized employee expertise and recommendations
- Browse Kriser’s knowledge base and cross-reference it with products
- Able to advance quickly through the website to accomplish their task
Solution
This prototype aimed to keep true to Kriser’s original design while streamlining three specific user-flows:
- Find, research, compare, and purchase a product
- Schedule grooming appointment
- Explore knowledge database, find related products and recommendations

These tasks were evaluated with 6 usability tests, each providing valuable feedback and points of improvement.

This design rewards existing Kriser’s customers with a streamlined flow, and allow others who are browsing the knowledge database to navigate through information in a logical way. While still encouraging in-store services like grooming, this design affords users the convenience of finding, evaluating, and ordering products from the Kriser website, and seamlessly guiding them to Instacart to complete their order.
Learning and Outcomes
Working through this project taught me to balance user needs with the priorities of the business, to decide carefully what the redesign should focus on, and what to leave be. Additionally, it was my first time creating a mid-fidelity prototype, as well as doing usability testing. While iterating through the design process, I learned that people will navigate through your design in unpredictable ways, and it’s important to get feedback from your users and implement changes that eliminate ambiguity.
Sources:
- https://www.builtinchicago.org/blog/how-chicagos-krisers-natural-pet-grew-28-locations
- https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/pet-care-market
- https://www.fungglobalretailtech.com/research/global-pet-e-commerce-dynamic-channel-growing-market/
- https://www.bplans.com/pet_products_manufacturer_business_plan/market_analysis_summary_fc.php
