Rethinking the cart experience

Empowering employees to sell faster and with confidence
Employee Sales Platform
2022

Summary

Problem

  • Cluttered cart slowed in-store sales
  • Key info buried across multiple screens
  • Low employee trust led to missed conversions

Solution

  • Rebuilt layout for clarity and speed
  • Grouped pricing and totals into one view
  • Built a strong foundation to scale over time

Collaborators

My Role

UX Designer II (Design Lead)

Employee Selling Tools Team

Design

Product

Engineering

+6

Research

Results

Employee Onboarding Speed

+45%

New employee time-to-productivity decreased from days to hours after using the new cart

Cart Completion Speed

+19%

Results from first 4 weeks post-launch (vs. previous cart as baseline)

Responsibilities

Design Responsibilities

• User Experience Design
• User Interface Design
• Information Architecture
• Interaction Design
• Design System Integration
• Rapid Prototyping

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Product Strategy Alignment with PM + Ops
• Employee Feedback + Research with UXR
• Engineering Partnership for Build Reviews + QA
• Design–Dev Handoff + Pilot Support

Timeline & Status

Timeline

Q2 – Q4 2021 (9 Months)

Status

Shipped

Team

Design

Dir. Product Experience Design

Sr. Manager Retail Product

Sr. Product Designer

Product

Sr. Product Manager, E-Comm

Sr. Business Analyst

Engineering

Dir. Engineering, Retail Tech

Sr. Engineering Manager

+6

Engineers & QAs

Research

Sr. UX Researcher

Tools

Design

Collaboration

Engineering

Research

See More Details

Includes responsibilities, timeline, status, team details and tools

Problem

A clunky, disorganized cart caused employee frustration and inefficient customer conversations.

Legacy CoreBlue cart before redesign

Internal Best Buy employee survey data (2020)

The CoreBlue in-store cart tool had grown chaotic over years of quick fixes. Information was scattered, totals didn’t match, and basic actions like editing items required multiple clicks. Employees wasted valuable time hunting for details while customers waited. This hurt both confidence and sales velocity.

Solution

I led the team in rebuilding the cart to reduce friction and boost in-store conversions.

Rebuilt CoreBlue cart with modern architecture

The new cart introduces a simplified hierarchy, clear task zones, and faster load times. Every interaction, from scanning items to applying discounts, was re-evaluated to support real-world retail speed.

Micro-interactions designed to build user confidence

Financial details grouped for faster comprehension

Subtle micro-interactions confirm each action, while pricing, taxes, and promotions are visually grouped into a single, easy-to-scan summary. The new structure reduces hesitation and helps employees move through transactions with certainty.

Flexible product tile system for various use cases

Each product tile dynamically adapts to the item type: whether it’s a single SKU, bundle, or protection plan. This modular approach keeps layouts consistent while supporting thousands of product variations without manual overrides.

Process

We spoke with employees, mapped out their pain points, rethought the cart's layout and piloted the redesign.

Employee workshops on the current cart experience

New responsive grid structure for improved layout clarity

We had working sessions with employees and and mapped out common pain points. Patterns quickly emerged around cluttered hierarchy and inconsistent feedback. After rapid prototyping and validation with employees, we launched a controlled pilot in select stores.

“The cart doesn’t really make sense. Just put stuff in a logical place so we can use it to close sales as fast as possible."
Best Buy Store Manager

This direct feedback became our north star. We stripped the interface down to what mattered most: speed, clarity, and trust. Every layout decision, color change, and animation was measured against one question: Does this help employees close the sale faster?

Cross-functional collaboration (XFN)
Team
How we collaborated
Design
Weekly design critiques to keep work scalable, consistent, and aligned to Best Buy’s design system
Product
PM syncs ensured priorities stayed clear, blockers were removed fast, and pilots aligned with business goals
Engineering
Bi-weekly build reviews to approve in-progress work and finalize specs through live design/ENG-handoff sessions
Research
Partnered with UXR to lead employee feedback sessions and prototyped new flows to find problem areas

By keeping all teams in the loop, decisions stayed grounded in real store behavior, not assumptions. The result was a cart redesign that felt faster, simpler, and built for the way employees actually work, not how we thought they should.

Evolving the legacy cart through XFN feedback

The final cart has been completely rebuilt from scratch. Every single component has been cleaned up, standardized and is now a strong foundation for future improvements.

Results

Employees were able to move faster and more confidently when using the new cart.

Employee onboarding time reduced from days to hours

Results from first four weeks post-launch (vs. previous cart)

“The updated cart is actually easier to use! It’s not perfect, but I feel more confident using it now.”
New Best Buy Store Employee

Employees moved through sales faster and felt more confident using the cart. New hires who once took several days to learn the system were completing transactions within hours.

Roadmap

Next, we're expanding the cart with advanced features to unlock even greater employee efficiency.

“Customers also bought” section to increase cart size

Real-time store inventory for faster ordering

Moving forward, we’re adding features to help employees sell smarter: contextual “Customers also bought” suggestions to raise cart size, and live store inventory to help associates confirm availability in real time. Together, these will push the tool from functional to proactive and empowers employees close more sales with less effort.