Research Questions for Ecommerce Projects

I have no support for this work from my company, not yet at least :), and will run them independently. wondering if ya’ll have some input.

Issue One
I have an ecommerce website to redesign. I’ve got some input from the SEO team about URL structure based on search terms. i think search terms are useful here.

I want to use these search terms, along with some competitor labels to do a card sort. does this sound fair?

Issue Two
Same ecommerce site. Someone had an idea for a guided purchase process, but I’m not sure it’s going to be useful. it sounds like a lot of work for an assumption. i could just design it with sales team input, but i want to in/validate this idea first. How would you look into this?

Qualitative user research is my weak point. it’s embarrassing.

UPDATE:
I’ve been reading “Just Enough Research” and am beginning to put together an approach. work in progress.

GOAL
describe the tent purchasing process.
describe the event planning process.
describe the users tent knowledge level.
identify the content of a guided sales process.

QUESTIONS
describe how you went about renting your last tent?
was that your first time?
what did you know about tents at that point?
what questions did you have?
what what did you learn?