Business Context
Gordon Food Service (GFS) is the largest family-owned and operated B2B food distribution company in North America. Founded in 1897, they currently operate across 50% of the United States and most of Canada. GFS works with independent restaurants operators, healthcare and education institutions, all the way up to major restaurant chains and many more.
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An exploratory research project led at Gordon Food Service in collaboration with their Digital Marketing team. The overarching object of this study was to understand B2B consumer purchasing preferences when it comes to eCommerce imagery for food service order-building. From a business perspective, this study would inform eventual process changes in how product imagery was created for use in the company’s eCommerce product catalog.
Background and Goals
The eCommerce product content arm of the Digital Marketing team needed customer insights to support a process change in how product imagery was generated and displayed.
Key goals were:
Generative Research:
- Understand our target (B2B customers) market’s views of item imagery and their preference for stylized imagery vs simple imagery.
- Understand customer sentiment regarding the value of item imagery in their order building process.
Methodology
After evaluating our needs, I decided to leverage Optimal Workshop to collect participant responses. This would allow me to run an unmoderated A/B test using a first-click approach, as well as collecting freeform responses in addition. To achieve the outlined goals, my partner from Digital Marketing and I, decided to invite 400 customers (GFS has over 60K) to participate. As expected, we received just shy of 70 responses. Participants were compensated with gift cards following the conclusion of the study.
Post-Research Outcomes
Strategic Impact:
- Digital Marketing could now work with vendors and internal stakeholders to revamp the product imagery creation and acquisition process, criteria, and guidelines.
- Assumption: Making these changes would support better purchasing decision-making for customers and in turn, increased sales. Particularly for products that commonly displayed poor and/or unattractive food imagery.
Personal Takeaways:
- Sometimes it’s necessary to provide more in-depth education for stakeholders when conducting such a larger and expensive study. Providing clear expectations for some of the decisions being made.
- Observe additional ways to get higher participation in studies. Particularly when dealing with users who are running a business as their day-to-day work.
My Role
I was an end-to-end Product Designer and Research at Gordon Food Service. All UX research efforts were led by me at that time. During this period, I supported efforts for eCommerce tech, digital marketing, sales tech, and accessibility initiatives.
