Sam's Club · Walmart eCommerce Mobile App · mWeb 2025–2026 Live

eCommerce Checkout

Orders were failing silently — members completing checkout with wrong addresses, wrong phone numbers, wrong expectations. We redesigned the entire checkout experience across every platform Sam's Club ships on.

My Role
Lead UX Designer
Team
2 Designers (Lead + Junior)
Timeline
2025–2026
Outcome
+0.11% Conversion · $5.5M GMV
eCommerce checkout redesign across desktop and mobile

Shipped across iOS, Android, mWeb, and desktop · Research and design led by mobile-first direction

Before — Old Checkout
Before: old checkout — items expanded, address buried
Items expanded · address & phone buried · total far from CTA
After — Redesigned
After: redesigned checkout — address surfaced, items collapsed
Address + phone at level 1 · items collapsed · total near CTA
The Problem

The existing checkout had four compounding problems

1
Information overload
Too much surfaced at once — members struggled to identify what required their attention vs. what was already handled. Every section competed for focus.
2
Items list expanded by default
All items shown in full at the top of checkout — before address, payment, or any action. The most important decisions were buried below a long list of products.
3
Required fields not at level 1
Shipping address, phone number, and pickup details were buried in sub-steps. Members could reach "Slide to pay" without ever verifying them — leading to failed orders and support calls.
4
Total summary far from the CTA
The order total appeared well above the "Slide to pay" button. Members couldn't see what they were committing to at the moment of payment — creating hesitation and drop-off.
Problem Statement

"How might we ensure a checkout process for members to easily review and provide accurate information — across every platform they use?"

Research & Discovery

We audited 9 competitors before designing a single screen

Competitive analysis across 9 retailers
Competitive analysis: Sam's Club vs 9 retailers across mWeb and app — features, checkout structure, address/phone visibility at level 1

Sam's Club was one of the only retailers without shipping address or phone number visible at checkout level 1. That single finding shaped our entire design direction.

1
Competitive analysis across 9 retailers
Audited Target, Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Best Buy, Home Depot, Wayfair, Instacart, and IKEA across both mWeb and app — mapping CXO features, total summary placement, address visibility, and item preview patterns.
2
User research + past transaction data
We ran user research sessions and studied Sam's Club historical transaction data — identifying where members dropped off, what caused confusion, and which moments generated the most support calls.
3
Design explorations + usability testing
After multiple rounds of design exploration and internal reviews with PM, engineering, and accessibility, we ran usability testing with interactive prototypes — validating direction before engineering investment.
System Complexity

Checkout isn't one flow — it's eight

Before designing anything, we mapped every checkout path. Curbside pickup, in-club pickup, delivery, shipping, digital delivery, payment, consent, and order summary — each with its own sub-states. Payment alone had 6 method types with unique conditional logic.

8 checkout paths user flow
Full checkout path mapping — this became the single source of truth for every design decision that followed
Design Explorations

Six directions. One moved forward.

Before committing to any direction, we explored six structural approaches to checkout — each answering a different question about how much information to surface, how to group it, and how to guide members through the flow.

Selected
Option A — section headers with icons
Option A
Section headers + icons
All necessary info exposed at the same level. Items hidden by default — tap item count to open a bottom sheet. Each section clearly labeled with icon and header.
Option B — no section headers
Option B
No section headers or icons
Minimal visual treatment — information grouped by proximity only, without headers or iconography to anchor each section.
Option C — timeline version
Option C
Timeline version
A vertical timeline structure showing the checkout journey as a linear progression — emphasized order of operations over section grouping.
Option D — step titles only
Option D
Step titles only
Ultra-minimal — only step titles shown. Information revealed progressively as each step is entered. Lowest visual noise, highest cognitive demand.
Option E — top stepper
Option E
Top stepper
A progress indicator at the top of the screen showing steps 1–4. Familiar e-commerce pattern — but required members to move between pages rather than reviewing in one view.
What moved forward

Option A's structure — section headers with icons, same-level information exposure, and bottom-sheet item access — became the foundation. We took the two strongest options (A for mobile, B elements for desktop) into usability testing with interactive prototypes.

Usability Testing

We tested two directions. The data was clear.

After multiple design exploration rounds, we ran moderated usability testing across mobile and desktop — comparing Option A and Option B across order details and payment tasks.

Option A Prototype
Option B Prototype

16 UserZoom participants · 8 Desktop, 8 Mobile · 12 Sam's Club Members + Competitors

Finding 01
Mobile Option A preferred
Most participants found Option A quicker, easier, and more efficient — no extra clicks or pop-ups, everything in one view. Items thumbnail preview was appreciated.
Finding 02
Order total near "Slide to pay" felt right
Members preferred seeing the full order summary directly above the payment CTA — it gave them confidence to commit without scrolling back up to verify the total.
Finding 03
Item clarity matters at checkout
Members clearly understood pickup vs. shipped items. Thumbnail previews were simple and effective — but members expected to tap a thumbnail and see item details.
"Option A had the necessary info presented really nicely and it was a pleasure seeing the item pictures. The overall experience of Option A was more user friendly in my opinion."
Participant · Mobile
"I like that you just stay in the [A] experience. This seems more professional — it gives me more information that I need to make an informed purchase, which I appreciate."
Participant · Mobile
Decision

We proceeded with Mobile Option A and Desktop Option B elements — informed directly by participant behavior, not assumption.

Priority matrix — aligning findings with stakeholders
Findings translated into a priority matrix — aligning design decisions with stakeholders across User Value and Organizational Effort
Design Goals

Three principles that shaped every decision

◎
Seamless
Reduce cognitive load. Collapse what's secondary. Surface what members need to act on now — and nothing else.
✓
Accurate
Surface address and phone at the right moment. Reduce overlooked information that causes failed orders, returns, and support calls.
⊞
Parity
One consistent experience across iOS, Android, mWeb, and desktop — regardless of which team built it before.
Feature Deep Dive

Payment wasn't a section — it was a system

15% of one-star reviews on the Sam's Club app were tied to payment management — members couldn't find how to add, remove, or switch cards during checkout. We ran dedicated payment research with 7–9 members to answer one core question: should payment management live on the first level of checkout, or on a separate page?

Direction 1 — Separate page
Payment direction 1 — separate change payment page
Tap "Change" → navigate to a dedicated card management page. Familiar pattern, but takes members out of the checkout context.
Direction 2 — Inline management
Payment direction 2 — all payment types inline on checkout
All payment types (credit/debit, Sam's Cash, gift cards) expanded inline. Add, edit, remove without leaving checkout.
What we moved forward with

Direction 2 — inline payment management at checkout level 1. Members no longer had to navigate away to edit or switch cards. Edit and remove options surface via a 3-dot menu directly on the card row, keeping the experience fast and in-context.

💳
Credit / Debit
Multiple saved cards, preferred card logic, add/edit/remove at checkout level 1 — no longer buried 3 levels deep.
💰
Sam's Cash
Conditional — only applies if balance available. Had to surface eligibility clearly without confusing members with $0.00 shown as an option.
🎁
Gift Card
Add multiple gift cards, apply partial balance, and stack with other payment methods — all within the same checkout flow.
⚡
Split Payment
Most complex — Sam's Cash + Gift Card + Credit combined. Needed clear math, real-time balance calculation, and confirmation at every step.
Key Design Decision

Edit/remove card functionality was moved from checkout level 3 to checkout level 1 — members can now manage their payment method inline without leaving the checkout flow.

Results
Act 1

Redesign shipped. 8 months of live data.

The redesign launched across iOS, Android, mWeb, and desktop. Required fields now visible at level 1, items collapsed by default, payment inline — the changes members needed.

+0.11%
Checkout conversion lift — small percentage, massive scale
$5.5M
Incremental annualized GMV from conversion improvement
Act 2

What came next

8 months after launch, leadership shifted direction to platform migration with Walmart US. The checkout system I designed became the benchmark and foundation for that migration — the standard everything else was measured against.