Project summary ✦
I redesigned a marketplace's discount interface, using a parametric algorithm to simplify discount calculations for the marketing team. This led to a significant increase in seller participation, with 43 campaigns launched in the first month and over 500,000 products involved, boosting platform sales and engagement.
Audience
Marketers, responsible for initiating marketplace campaigns.
Context
One of the key needs for sellers on the marketplace is to promote their products. A primary promotional mechanism involves participating in marketplace campaigns. The process works as follows: the marketplace sets a minimum discount that sellers must offer, and sellers choose products on which they can apply this discount.
Business Problem
The marketplace was requesting discounts so big, that many sellers couldn’t participate in the campaigns.
This is a problem because the marketplace is interested in sellers offering discounts on their products during promotions. This is because it increases sales on the platform and, as a result, the company's profits.
Recent campaigns had significantly lowered the thresholds for participation, making it nearly impossible to engage. Even competitor's name did not demand such high discounts, despite historically leading in this aspect.
— Feedback from sellers during in-depth interviews
Business Solution
Business proposed implementing a parametric algorithm for calculating discounts. The algorithm empowers marketers to choose specific parameters that influence the discount calculation, providing transparency on the resulting discount magnitude. This approach allows for a diversified range of campaign discounts: substantial discounts for major events (Black Friday, New Year) and smaller discounts for weekly campaigns.
Measure of Success
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Increase in the proportion of merchants participating in campaigns.
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Increase in the proportion of products featured in campaigns.
Team
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Project Manager,
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Product Designer (myself),
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UX Writer.
My role
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Discovery and analysis of research data,
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Developing task scope with Product Managers and Business Analysts,
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High fidelity design, edge cases.
Insights
CRM users, including marketers, were accustomed to unfriendly interfaces, often requiring assistance from colleagues to navigate settings. Several sections lacked design input and UX consideration, with developers often adding new features by themselves. As an example, here's a snapshot of an existing CRM section's structure:
Process
My aim was to articulate the campaign parameters and their impact on discount calculation using simple language. Ideally, a new team member should grasp the process without seeking guidance from colleagues.
❤️🔥 Initiative:
To ensure comprehension through imagery alone, I decided to visualize all user-selectable parameters. After parameter selection, the resulting discount size is illustrated, facilitating user learning. Therefore, the interface serves as an educational tool, it helps users learn how their choices affect the final discount size.
UX research
Quick hallway usability testing showed, that the majority of surveyed colleagues understood the interface's functioning.
Result
In the first month post-launch, the new interface facilitated the creation of 43 campaigns using the new algorithm. Over 2,000 sellers and 500,000 unique products participated in these campaigns, showcasing a significant engagement increase.
By implementing the parametric discount algorithm and enhancing the user interface, we successfully addressed the marketplace's discounting challenge, boosting seller participation and campaign effectiveness.
Made by Daria Khitrina | CV | LinkedIn | Medium | khitrina.dasha@gmail.com