StrideX

The constraint

What the system had to solve before a line of it was designed.

StrideX Athletics had a loyal offline customer base and fast-growing revenue, but their 2019-era web store scored 38/100 on mobile usability with zero native app presence. 60% of traffic arrived on mobile, but the experience was haemorrhaging customers at checkout — size anxiety, broken regional stock visibility, and no personalisation were the three compounding drop-off drivers. The brand's identity was bold and performance-driven; the digital experience was an afterthought.

Architecture

The stack read top down, from what the user touches to what keeps it running in production.

Modules delivered

Each one shipped production-grade, not as a demo surface.

• 01Product strategy & discovery
• 02UX research (5 markets, 40 sessions)
• 03UI design system (600+ components)
• 04iOS app (React Native)
• 05Android app (React Native)
• 06Real-time inventory API
• 07AR size advisor
• 08AI personalisation engine
• 09QA, launch & phased rollout

Mobile surface

What the app does on the device, and what it needs from the backend to do it.

• 01One-tap checkout with Google Pay and 12 regional payment methods
• 02AR size overlay trained on 1.4 million StrideX purchase records
• 03Real-time stock by store, warehouse, and click-and-collect location
• 04AI-powered feed updated every 15 minutes from browsing and purchase signals
• 05Push notifications for price drops, restocks, and exclusive member drops

Delivery

6 months in total, staged so each phase reached production before the next one started.

1. 01Discovery and UX research (6 weeks)
2. 02design system (4 weeks)
3. 03parallel iOS and Android build (14 weeks)
4. 04QA and phased rollout to 38 markets

Design decisions

What we learned before building, and what the built system moved.

We opened the engagement with a structured discovery: stakeholder interviews across StrideX's product, logistics, and regional marketing teams, a competitor teardown of eight direct rivals, and 200 moderated user sessions across five markets (UK, US, Germany, Japan, UAE). The findings were consistent — customers loved the brand, tolerated the website, and abandoned on mobile because the experience felt like an afterthought. Three insights shaped the architecture: first, size anxiety was the single biggest cart-abandonment driver (solved with AR overlay and a data-driven size advisor trained on 1.4 million purchase records); second, regional stock visibility was broken (solved with a real-time inventory API unifying warehouse, flagship, and franchise feeds for the first time); third, discovery was pure browse with no personalisation (solved with a recommendation engine seeded from browsing history, purchase data, and trending signals updated every 15 minutes). We built against those three pain points before touching anything else.

The StrideX app launched in 38 markets simultaneously after six months of development. Downloads hit 2 million in Q1 — the fastest product launch in the company's history. Monthly active users reached 500,000 within 90 days, driven almost entirely by organic word-of-mouth and App Store feature placement. The average session length on the app was 4.1 minutes, versus 1.8 minutes on the old mobile website. Revenue attributable to the app channel grew 40% year-on-year in the first comparable quarter. The AR size advisor reduced returns by 23% in the first 60 days — a significant operational saving given StrideX's average return logistics cost. The App Store rating stabilised at 4.8 stars across 47,000 reviews, with the most common compliments centring on speed, ease of checkout, and the accuracy of size recommendations.