EG Japan - A dive into local relevance
Some markets are truly unique and Japan is no exception. Recent studies show Japanese travelers find Expedia difficult to use, and a competitive analysis indicates that many websites have different experiences for Japan.
Yahoo.jp vs Yahoo.com experience differences
Research & understand
Starting out with a few rounds of research we identified the following high level themes:
Not as streamlined as local sites
Local sites Jalan and Rakuten set the precedent for expectations of how to shop for travel.
Expedia is evaluated as difficult to use due to the unfamiliar shopping path & additional steps needed to get to the information they are looking either via extra clicks or scrolling.
Information is hard to find and feels ‘foreign’
Overall content in Expedia website is less than Jalan and Rakuten sites who provide more destination and event related information.
Information that is expected is not available on Expedia & the way Expedia organizes information contribute to
the perception of being ‘foreign’
Expedia is price competitive but lacks trustworthiness
Jalan and Rakuten are seen as more trustworthy due to being a well recognized company with established ‘fame’ built in the market over decades.
Expedia is seen as a place for price comparison after hotels are shortlisted using other sites.
Put it all together
To become locally relevant and truly competitive, we needed to develop culturally compatible experiences, communications and engagement models. To start with we introduced missing content types, re-organized the pages into discreet tabs rather than the long scrolling pages, brought in a new photo mosaic component, and also adopted a locally relevant color scheme.
Lab & A/B test candidate
We test our hypothesis
Great news! Overall our candidate did very well in labs and in production. The unfortunate thing is the technology to deliver locally unique experiences isn’t quite ready yet. When it is, we are ready to continue this work.
Digital Assets
https://www.figma.com/file/jWaJh1FN5l6R8aI3RAEAzL/Ronin?node-id=8947%3A24