E-commerceGrowthiOSAndroidB2C

How research-led design helped Bloom & Wild scale from £4M to £13M

Bloom & Wild roundel

When I joined Bloom & Wild in June 2016 as the founding designer, I was building the design function entirely from scratch.

Over eighteen months, working largely solo, I established user research and testing as core to how the product team operated — and led the redesign of the website, iOS app, Android app, and expansion into three new international markets. Revenue tripled to £13 million.

£13M Revenue at exit
App of
the Year
startups.co.uk, 2017
+8% Android conversion
+7.5% Average order value

Solving a Growth Blocker

As the company scaled, delivery anxiety was quietly damaging retention and repeat purchases. Data told a clear story: "tracking" was the top search in the help centre, 80% of NPS detractors had concerns about delivery, and 11% of customer support enquiries were about delivery timelines — a problem better product information could have prevented entirely.

I worked with data and customer delight teams to reframe the opportunity: users needed visibility, and the business needed to reduce support burden whilst driving repeat purchase through an app-exclusive feature. I tested three tracking concepts with users, scoring them on desirability. Delivery notifications scored 9.2, significantly ahead of alternatives.

Problem framing — three signals from search logs, NPS interviews, and a feature preference test pointing to the same gap
Research and concept testing informed the direction before a single screen was designed.

To deliver this, I mapped every delivery state to the exact backend events from our carriers. Every customer-facing piece of copy and UI was tied to real data flowing through the system.

In transit delivery state Problem delivery state Delivered state
Mapping backend events to frontend messaging ensured every delivery state — including edge cases and failures — was accounted for before design began.

The result was direct: NPS detractors with delivery concerns dropped from 80% to 71%, and support enquiries about delivery fell from 15% to 9%. Removing friction at one of the highest-leverage moments in the customer lifecycle helped drive a 5% increase in repeat rate.

Bloom & Wild iOS order tracking
iOS order tracking — App of the Year, startups.co.uk 2017.
80→71% NPS detractors, delivery
15→9% Support enquiries, delivery
+5% Repeat rate increase

Scaling Design Across the Ecosystem

The iOS app redesign earned App of the Year recognition from startups.co.uk in 2017. The Android redesign — built natively for the platform — was featured on the Play Store and drove an 8% uplift in conversion. Adding a shopping basket increased average order value by 7.5%.

Bloom & Wild Android app
Android app — featured on the Play Store, +8% conversion uplift.
+8% Android conversion uplift
+7.5% Average order value
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