DECATHLON · 2025
Future-proofing product information on the PDP
Using research and experimentation to serve very different purchase decisions—and helping a senior designer grow toward Staff level.
TL;DR
ROLE
Senior Product Design Manager, Upper Funnel
OVERVIEW
More than 60% of Decathlon’s traffic lands on a product detail page, but one fixed layout had to serve everything from socks to high-consideration sports equipment. Research showed two very different behaviours: customers making fast decisions and customers needing richer information and reassurance.
I gave a Senior Product Designer end-to-end ownership of the discovery, design sprint and experimentation roadmap. My role was to set the direction, raise the quality of the thinking and help the team keep going when the first tests were flat.
IMPACT
After three inconclusive experiments, the team delivered two successful tests the following quarter. Together they represented more than €25M in projected annual incremental revenue, including Decathlon’s highest-impact A/B test to date.
THE BACKGROUND
One PDP could not serve every product—or every decision
Decathlon sells a huge range of products, from low-cost essentials to technical equipment that customers research carefully. The existing PDP treated those decisions in the same way. Important information was often hard to scan, while richer specifications and reassurance were not always surfaced when customers needed them.
At the same time, I wanted this to be a meaningful growth opportunity for one of my senior designers. She had the experience to lead a strategic piece of work, so I gave her ownership from research through experimentation and supported her progression toward Staff level.
OBJECTIVE
Define a PDP direction that could adapt to the product and the way customers make decisions.
WHAT I DID
Turn a north star into a learning plan
The team used research to define two needs: help fast shoppers understand the essentials at a glance, and give considered shoppers the detail and reassurance to decide with confidence. A design sprint translated those needs into a differentiated PDP north star.
Rather than attempt a full redesign in one release, we broke the concept into measurable experiments. This reduced delivery risk and made the roadmap a sequence of questions the team could answer with evidence.
Decision 01 — Give the designer real ownership
I stayed close to the strategy, evidence and quality bar, but she led the work and the cross-functional conversations. That stretch was as important as the product outcome.
Decision 02 — Read beyond the primary metric
The first three tests were flat on conversion. Reviewing the results with the designer and experimentation lead, we saw useful movement in secondary behaviours. The direction still had potential, but the changes needed to be bolder.
Decision 03 — Challenge inherited constraints
The new design system had quietly become a boundary around the team’s thinking. I made it explicit that they could challenge it when the evidence supported a stronger customer experience.
THE OUTCOME
Flat results became the evidence for a stronger next round
The first experiments did not produce a conversion win, but they helped the team understand which behaviours were changing and where the concept was still too cautious. With permission to push further, the next two experiments succeeded.
The work established a more flexible direction for product information and showed the team that a flat test is not the same as a failed idea. It can be the point where the learning becomes useful.
EXPERIMENTATION
From a fixed page to differentiated product stories
The north star changed the hierarchy and depth of information according to the product and purchase decision. The roadmap then isolated the riskiest assumptions so the team could test them one at a time.
IMPACT
Evidence that moved the work forward
2 WINS
Successful experiments in the following quarter
€25M+
Projected annual incremental revenue
TEAM GROWTH
Senior designer led a strategic initiative end to end
“Flat tests are not failed ideas. They can become the evidence that makes the next, bolder experiment possible.”
Reflections
RESEARCH DOES NOT REMOVE UNCERTAINTY
Strong research gave us a better starting point, but it could not predict the test result. The team still needed room to learn from flat experiments and the confidence to try again.
NAME THE CONSTRAINTS YOU CAN CHALLENGE
I would give explicit permission to move beyond the design system earlier. The team treated it as a fixed boundary, when the strongest version of the idea needed more freedom.