Cathay Shop 2.0
Homepage redesign
Transforming into the greatest premium lifestyle brand from an outdated redemption platform
Timeline-
6 months
Role-
UX/UI designer
Context-
UX/UI design, Web strategy, design guideline
Cathay Shop's recent evolution from a redemption platform to a premium travel lifestyle marketplace revealed challenges in brand positioning and loyalty program integration. Despite initial business unit hesitation toward redesigning the outdated platform, our digital experience team successfully pitched to lead both strategic repositioning and website revamp. Homepage being the main entry point for Cathay Shop, I worked with the team to develop a complete transforamation based on multiple experiments and iteration.
00
Nominated for
UX Design Awards 2025
Impact
103%
Product card clicks increase
20.9%
Add-to-cart rate increase
01
A leading airline expanding its lifestyle business
About the company
Cathay Pacific is evolving from a premium airline into a comprehensive travel lifestyle brand. As part of this transformation, Cathay Shop has been reimagined from a basic rewards redemption platform into an integrated premium retail experience. The platform now seamlessly connects online, inflight, and in-store shopping journeys, offering curated luxury merchandise and travel essentials while providing enhanced loyalty program integration across all touchpoints.
02
Auditing the current experience
What we inherited: 30% homepage bounce rate
The existing Cathay Shop homepage suffered from a high bounce rate of 30%, indicating a lack of engagement and interest among users. Feedback from users revealed key issues:
“I felt bored with the store homepage.”
“The homepage didn’t encourage me to keep shopping.”
“Nothing immediately captured my attention.”
03
Solution overview
Where we landed
-
Shifted from a Product Listing Page-driven structure to a Product Details Page-driven experience.
Highlighted more product cards on the homepage to decrease page depth and shorten decision-making time. Increased visibility of attractive deals, promotions, and trending products.
-
Introduced category showcases and promotion highlights to help users make informed shopping decisions.
Created an engaging layout to encourage exploration across different product categories.
-
Built a personalized experience targeting three main user groups:
First-time users: Highlighted promotions and easy navigation.
Returning users: Showcased relevant recommendations based on past activity.
Loyal members: Focused on exclusive deals and rewards for engagement.
Product-focused approach
Expressive and explorative experience
Flexible component-based layout for personalization
04
Data-driven insights
Research
Extensive research and user feedback uncovered critical pain points and opportunities for improvement:
14
Qualitative interviews
-
17.6% of users were unaware of promotion.
6.2% of users found it difficult to locate sale items.
-
59% of users browsed on their phones.
11.4% of users reported excessive scrolling.
9.2% of users found the store difficult to browse or search on mobile.
-
46% of users visited the shop due to promotions.
49% of users did not log in (non-members).
15.6% of users felt the homepage did not encourage further shoppiung.
10.8% of users said nothing immediately captured their attention.
-
20% of users wanted to buy/redeem a specific item.
20% of users wanted to browse
28% of users sought inspiration.
22% of users prioritized deeming/buying within specific member point limits.
1466
Online questionnaires
05
A/B testing
Product-focused approach
With an objective on decreasing the homepage bounce rate and increasing the add-to-cart rate, we conducted A/B testing to validate homepage changes. Results showed increased user engagement and exploration with the product-focused approach.
06
Flexibility leading to personalization
Flexible component-based layout
The homepage new design is constituded from diverse component, which allows for the flexibility to arrange the homepage in accordance to different user groups, specifically first-time users, returning users, and loyal members.
07
Explore visual design iterations
Craft an explorative experience that inspires
Created an immersive design that showcased clearly communicate what’s unique about the Cathay Shop and why users should stay, while showcasing upcoming product releases and exclusive deals to keep users engaged.
Hero banner design iteration
Promotion card design iteration
08
Current content problems
Content guideline
The multi-merchant nature of Cathay Shop presented content standardization challenges, including inconsistent product imagery, overly complex descriptions, and confusing nomenclature. The platform revamp created an opportunity to establish clear merchant guidelines for content formatting, ensuring a cohesive and professional presentation across all product listings.
Build up Cathay’s retail language
Our content guidelines were developed to establish a distinctive retail voice that aligns with Cathay's premium brand identity.
Establish format and structure standards for dynamic content
Ensure consistency in product names and descriptions
Improve quality control of the content output
Elevate customers’ product browsing experience
10
Qualitative interviews
3
Stakeholder workshops
09
Move beyond
Cathay Shop 2.0
Validation & enhancement
Through our internal user experience community, we conducted iterative usability testing to validate and refine our design solutions. Working within tight timeline constraints, we prioritized full redesigns for critical pages while implementing visual updates for secondary pages. The insights gathered from these testing sessions continue to inform our ongoing improvements to Cathay Shop's user experience.
10
Next steps
Moving towards more personalization
Looking ahead, Cathay Shop aims to further personalize the user experience by referencing successful strategies from platforms like Netflix.
