Petzi
How Petzi rebuilt their Dubai e-commerce store around product discovery and checkout — and turned browsers into buyers.
The Situation
Petzi had a strong product range, a clear brand, and a growing UAE customer base. The website had been built by a team with a service-industry background — and it showed. Service-industry websites are built around information architecture: they guide visitors through content, explain offerings, and build credibility over multiple pages. E-commerce websites need to do something fundamentally different. They need to put the right product in front of the right visitor in the fewest possible steps — and then remove every obstacle between intent and purchase. Petzi's site had category navigation that buried products three levels deep. Product pages loaded slowly on mobile. The checkout process asked for information the cart didn't need. Add-to-cart buttons competed visually with promotional banners. The result: visitors were arriving, browsing briefly, and leaving without buying. The site looked professional. It just wasn't converting. The audit found the core problem within the first session recording analysis: the gap between product discovery and add-to-cart was where most of the revenue was leaking.
THE DIAGNOSIS — CQ SCORE
CQ Score at Audit
64 / 140 — Significant Conversion Gaps
CQ Score = mean of all dimension scores (each out of 140). Scores map to bands: 60–79 Significant Conversion Gaps · 80–94 Below Average · 95–105 Average · 106–119 Above Average · 120–140 CQ Elite.
Product Discovery Architecture
61/140
3-level category hierarchy — visitors required 4+ clicks to reach a target product
Checkout Flow Friction
60/140
Multi-step checkout with unnecessary form fields — drop-off confirmed at payment step
Mobile Conversion Readiness
63/140
Product pages not optimised for mobile — add-to-cart CTA below fold on most viewports
Above-Fold Value Clarity
78/140
Homepage communicated brand well enough — product range and promotions clearly visible
Trust Signal Presence
60/140
Reviews present but displayed below product description, not at the decision point
THE SYSTEMS (1/2)
E-Commerce UX Redesign — Product Discovery Architecture
WHAT WAS WRONG
Navigation was built around internal product taxonomy, not how pet owners actually browse. Visitors searching for 'dog food' had to navigate through 'Nutrition', then 'Dogs', then 'Dry Food', then filter by brand. Most left before completing the journey.
WHAT WE CHANGED
Rebuilt category architecture around pet type and need combination (e.g. 'Dog · Nutrition', 'Cat · Grooming') rather than internal taxonomy. Added featured product collections to homepage. Introduced search autocomplete with product image previews. Moved reviews and star rating directly beneath the product price on all product pages.
WHAT WE TESTED
Category navigation depth (3-level vs. 2-level vs. flat with search-first). Product page CTA placement (below description vs. sticky above fold on mobile). Review placement (below fold vs. directly beneath price).
WHAT WON
Flat navigation with search-first discovery + sticky mobile CTA + reviews beneath price. Combined, this drove the measured uplift in add-to-cart rate.
THE SYSTEMS (2/2)
Checkout Flow Optimisation
WHAT WAS WRONG
Checkout required 7 form fields before reaching payment. Multiple optional upsells appeared in the cart. Mobile checkout required horizontal scrolling on certain device sizes. Shipping cost was revealed only at the final step — causing significant abandonment at payment confirmation.
WHAT WE CHANGED
Reduced checkout to 4 required fields. Removed in-cart upsells and moved them to a post-purchase sequence. Fixed mobile layout across all common UAE device viewport sizes. Moved shipping cost display to the cart summary — visible before checkout begins. Added a progress indicator across checkout steps.
WHAT WE TESTED
Form field reduction (7 vs. 5 vs. 4), shipping cost display timing (at cart vs. checkout step 1 vs. checkout step 3), and checkout CTA copy variants.
WHAT WON
4-field form + shipping cost in cart + single-page mobile checkout layout. This combination produced the measured reduction in cart abandonment.
BEFORE · CQ 74
AFTER · CQ 103
3-level category navigation — 4+ clicks to reach a product
Flat category architecture — products reachable in 2 clicks
7-field checkout — unnecessary friction at point of purchase
4-field checkout — friction removed at point of purchase
Shipping cost revealed only at final checkout step
Shipping cost shown in cart before checkout begins
Mobile CTA below fold — add-to-cart not visible without scrolling
Sticky add-to-cart CTA visible on all mobile viewports
Reviews below product description — not at the decision point
Reviews and star rating directly beneath the product price
No featured product logic — every item treated equally
Homepage features curated collections by pet type and need
THE RESULTS
Significant Conversion Gaps
"The old site looked good but it was designed for the wrong purpose. The new one was built around how our customers actually shop — and you can see the difference in the numbers."
Petzi Team, UAE
WHAT CAME NEXT
The Sprint delivered a complete e-commerce rebuild with measurable improvements to product discovery and checkout completion. Petzi is evaluating the Elite Retainer for Phase 2 — which would focus on paid acquisition optimisation, post-purchase email retention flows, and seasonal campaign landing pages for peak pet care periods.
Current CQ Score:
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