---
title: "Case study | PlaceMakers | UXCam"
description: "See how PlaceMakers, a New Zealand construction materials supplier with 60+ stores, doubled its sales and cut research time from months to days with UXCam."
url: https://uxcam.com/case-study/placemakers/
language: en-US
date_published: 2022-09-20T00:00:00.000Z
date_modified: 2026-05-27T00:00:00.000Z
---

Construction

# How PlaceMakers Doubled Sales After Using UXCam

PlaceMakers is a construction material supplier in New Zealand with more than 60 stores across the country. They launched their app in April 2020 and have since grown to more than 3,000 daily users and 100,000 monthly sessions.

UXCam features used:

[Session Replay](https://uxcam.com/experience-analytics/session-replay/)[Heatmaps](https://uxcam.com/experience-analytics/heatmaps/)[Event Analytics](https://uxcam.com/product-analytics/smart-events/)

- 2,100+ employees in New Zealand
- Sales doubled since implementing UXCam
- Research time reduced from months to days

## The Challenge

The PlaceMakers app launched a month after lockdowns began in New Zealand in 2020. A surge in demand combined with pandemic supply chain disruptions meant materials were selling out faster than the app could update stock levels.

Customers were able to add a product to their basket, but by the time they got to checkout, the item was displayed as unavailable.

To solve this, the team built a feature called Constrained Products, a tag on materials under a certain stock level that clearly showed they weren't available to order. But sales dropped by 80% after its release.

When we added [Constrained Products] we didn't pay much attention to the UX side of the message and what we saw is that orders from April [compared to March] were down 80%.

Blake Johnson Product Owner

## The Solution

After watching just a few [session replays](https://uxcam.com/experience-analytics/session-replay/) and [heatmaps](https://uxcam.com/experience-analytics/heatmaps/), the team discovered that their messaging was too strong. With red and bold lettering communicating the product wasn't available to order, users stopped purchasing in advance for future deliveries.

Users were scrolling past materials with the Constrained Products tag, even though it perfectly matched their search intent and would be back in stock shortly.

The team revamped the design with a more positive approach, communicating to users that the product is available but delivery may take slightly longer.

UXCam's Session Replay feature clearly showed that users were scrolling past materials with the Constrained Products tag, even though it perfectly matched their search intent and would be back in stock shortly.

## The Result

Once the revamped design was implemented, the team checked back with UXCam and saw clear results:

- Sales hadn't just recovered, they had doubled
- The entire process from identifying the issue to testing the solution took just 3 days
- Research time reduced from months to days

PlaceMakers continuously uses UXCam insights to make better-informed decisions on UX design and new feature releases.

[UXCam for retail and e-commerce teams](https://uxcam.com/solutions/ecommerce/)

UXCam helped us to find a hidden flaw with one of our new features. Within three days, we ran an experiment with a revamped design. The updates helped us double our sales after the release.