How excess stock hurts retailers
Excess stock is one of the biggest pains for retailers. In fact, recent surveys suggest that nearly half of retailers are stuck with excess stock, even after their 2023 New Year sales. Dead stock has various costs associated with it, which impacts a company’s profitability. These could be explained as below:
Smatch helps cash in on excess inventory
As Smatch embarks on constructing its online B2B Marketplace for retail buyers and sellers, my role is pivotal in ensuring the successful launch of this foundational MVP service.
(hover the picture to see each step)
Project outcomes
In this project, we successfully designed and implemented the first version of the MVP, garnering positive reviews from clients and securing $2.8 million in seed funding.
Strategy #1
Understanding buyer and seller journey
Simply creating new features and upgrades won’t bring measurable growth in our product. Instead, dive deep into our personas and their flows and understand what they want and need. We used data from existing customers, along with insights from the sales team to provide invaluable insight.
Map comprehensive customer flows
As this project is in the MVP phase, we've realized that our main focus is getting more potential users onboard, helping them set up preferences, and guiding them to the auction stage. Additionally, we're addressing other challenges by mapping the entire journey.
For buyer: improving the registration process and highlighting the ability to match suitable auctions.
For seller: enabling them to manage listings and transactions effectively while ensuring account privacy and authenticity.
Strategy #2
Getting more potential users onboard
Before delving into the details of designing the buyer page, we reference customer-centric design, identifying and studying B2B direct competitors and B2C indirect competitors to learn how their designs facilitate buyer decision-making.
Pain points
Complex Registration Process: requests for too much info upfront without demonstrating value.
Lack of Personalization: no tailored guidance or recommendations based on the user's role or industry.
Slow Time to Value: users not seeing immediate benefits or value from the platform.
Poor Communication: lack of follow-up to ensure users are progressing and resolving any issues.
Create a frictionless onboarding experience
Buyers prefer to learn on their own, if they can do so easily and quickly, rather than relying on sales teams to guide them. We implement efficient onboarding processes and pre-define user preferences to create a frictionless onboarding experience.
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Validation and feedback
We invited five participants from user interview to conduct usability test using unmoderated remote user testing (URUT) method due to cross-nation and time-zone difference. Through sent out the Invision prototypes to the participants via Lookback user testing platform. It records users’ every move on the screen and everything they say and every facial expression they make throughout the test. This allows me to understand what the users think and their frustrations better during the entire process. Once everything is validated, tested and approved from the stakeholders, we hand-off everything to the developers.
Users And Scenarios
In our B2B organization, a multitude of roles brings diverse work scenarios and distinct needs. Designers face the challenge of addressing the requirements of individuals with different functions in various scenarios. The scenes exhibit varying degrees of relevance, demanding a more comprehensive design approach to effectively cater to this diversity.
Localized Design
When it comes to localized design, prioritizing regional cultural adaptability is crucial. This includes considerations such as language, device variations, and user habit disparities. For instance, factors like the preference for using email, willingness to answer private calls, and the necessity for external maps require careful attention, aspects that may not have been considered previously.
Business uncertainty
In the design process, numerous business uncertainties arise, leading us to formulate design assumptions. Moving forward, we aspire to have more data or research to substantiate these design assumptions in future design.
Project Review
Creating actionable insights when lack of direct access to real users
Throughout this project, we've received a wealth of qualitative insights translated from our client, shedding light on various aspects. While direct access to users is ideal, we've explored various avenues for actionable insights, proving invaluable in the B2B context.
User feedback translation sessions
We collaborated closely with client during user feedback translation sessions. Understand not only the literal translation but also the underlying sentiments and nuances conveyed by the users.
Prototype testing with client
We collaborated with the client to conduct two prototype testing sessions. Their feedback offered valuable insights into the usability and effectiveness of the design.
Informal usability testing
Within the design team, we applied usability heuristics and principles to the designs. Even without direct user testing, evaluating the designs against recognized usability principles helped identify potential issues.
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