Offers
Revolutionizing the way buyers buy!
My Role
Product Designer
Team
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Product Manager
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4 full-stack engineers
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Head of Product
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CEO
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4 sales team members
Timeline
2023 - 3 months
What is Ghost?
Ghost is an online marketplace that houses hundreds of brand’s surplus inventory. Ghost allows sellers to sell products they have too much inventory of when they have exhausted their options, and Ghost allows buyers to access brands and products in minutes.
Who uses Ghost?
1. Amazon Resellers
2. SMB Buyers
3. Enterprise Buyers
4. Merchandise Sellers
Context
The way Ghost operated before this project was through emails and phone calls. If a buyer wanted to express interest in a listing (what Ghost refers to as a batch of inventory from 1 seller) or make an offer, they would have to pick up the phone or open their computer to contact their Ghost Account Manager to request a line sheet. After they receive the line sheet, the buyer does calculations based on their budget and the company's financials to determine how much to offer. Then they contact the account manager to send them the updated line sheet with what they want and their offer.
The Problem
Merchandise buyers are stuck in a very jaded process of ordering inventory. The current process lives in Excel sheets and phone calls. This leaves buyers getting ghosted by sellers and often feeling unsure about their purchases.
Research - Interviews
Goal
Get an understanding of:
1. How do buyers make offers outside of Ghost?
2. Understand if any improvements can be made to the current UX of the browse experience.
3. Since this is a whole new feature that is going to revolutionize the way that people think about Ghost, I really wanted to understand what Ghost wants to accomplish as a business.
Questions
User Focused:
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Why haven’t buyers or sellers done anything to update the jaded process?
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Will they be receptive to the change?
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How will a new process affect a user's day-to-day workflow?
Business Focused:
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What are we trying to accomplish with an offer flow? (Ask why a couple of times)
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What are the tangible success metrics?
Engineering Focused:
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Are there any limitations I should be aware of?
Product Focused:
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Will any other features be affected by this one?
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What is the timeline?
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Who is the engineering lead?
" I am a big collaborator, so I always ask who is apart of the project so I can keep them in the loop during the whole design process"
-Tiffany
Findings
Buyer Interviews: Over Zoom, I had a few conversations with buyers who were a part of the Ghost Advisory Board. Here are the results:
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90% of buyers stick to a set work schedule.
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Monday: looking for inventory
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Tuesday-Wednesday: requesting line sheets
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Thursday: Getting the budget approved by managers and sent back to the seller
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Friday: Restarting the process by looking for inventory
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Relationships and connections are the “bread and butter” of the industry
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There is an expectation to be “ignored” when sending an offer
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Low-balling is a big problem for both buyers and sellers
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Buyers are not willing to give up their company’s personal information
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The concept of line sheets is found to be a better solution. They offer privacy, are efficient, and are cohesive to industry standards.
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Buyers often feel like they are playing mind games with a seller. All they care about is getting the best deal ever. So they always low-ball with the notion that their offer will get ignored. They are submitting offers blindly.
Stakeholder Interviews: To make sure that the potential solution aligned with business goals and what the company was trying to accomplish I had a few conversations with the stakeholders. They wanted to achieve the following:
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KPI: 1 million dollars of revenue needs to be made through the platform
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Engineering is going through a huge migration, so resources are limited.
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Offers will be A/B tested with a very small group of Amazon resellers
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There is a shift in the primary user.
I also asked stakeholders to elaborate on what they think a buyer would want out of an offer flow. I wanted them to imagine all possible solutions without thinking about any limitations.
Definition
The Hypothesis
Giving buyers a way to make offers will alleviate resources on the sales team, reduce buyer decision time, and increase Ghost revenue.
Design Goal
To design and efficiently test an offer flow that offers resources to buyers during the process while minimizing the negative impact of their working activities. The design will promote a sense of confidence in buyers by providing a new way to explore and purchase inventory.
How might we...
develop an on-the platform workflow that allows buyers to make an informed decision about a listing, place an offer, and reduce the amount of time it takes from offer to shipment.
Research - Brainstorm
Brainstorm - Overview
Next up in the research phase is a brainstorm, led by myself in Figjam. It included the product manager, the 4 engineers who will be working on the project, members of the sales team, and the stakeholders.
I kicked off the brainstorm by going over the problem statement, the hypothesis, an overview of the space the users are currently in, and the type of feedback I am looking for in this brainstorm. (All of this information can be found at the beginning of this case study)
To protect the privacy of my team members I will be providing a summary of the brainstorm.
Brainstorm - What would a buyer want to have in a feature?
The first task of the brainstorm is allocated to listing out all possibilities of an offer features. I made sure to let everyone know that in the brainstorm there is no limitations. List everything that comes to mind whether it is possible to develop or not.
A few highlighted answers:
"Buyers would love a faster way to get information on an offer. They need visibility. Having a dashboard can provide transparency."
"Buyers would love an automated way to submit an offer. They hate being ignored after submitting an offer. Also, buyers need a way to package an offer that is tempting to a seller."
"The sales team is one of the things that sets Ghost aside from other companies. The team caters to every need of the buyer. Having a feature that can embody the interaction would be something a buyer would love."
"Buyers would hate to have to email offers in. It also wouldn't make Ghost innovative"
Brainstorm - What would a buyer not want to have in a feature?
The next task I ask the participants to do is to list out what a buyer would not want to have in a feature. This allows me and the product manager to stay aligned and focused on a buyer's needs when brainstorming possible solutions. By addressing what they would not want, cuts down on time and teaches me a lot more about buyer preferences.
A few highlighted answers:
"Buyers do not want to share personal information. They are very secretive about their budget."
Brainstorm - Closing
Once that is done, I ask participants to read out some highlights from their sticky notes. This allows a free-flowing conversations and others to leave reaction stickers and comments in the figjam.
Once everyone has went, I asked the group if there are any companies that doing is doing what is mentioned in either of the parts. The team mentioned companies like Inturn, Excel, and other merchandise brokerages in the market. This arms me with a list of companies that I can research.
Research - Review
After all of the research I have conducted, I did a review session with the product manager and the tech lead. We reviewed all of the notes and pulled out these 5 concepts about the nature of offers and buyer's behaviors toward them:
My Revised Problem Statement
A merchandise buyer who feels frustrated and worn out about submitting an offer to a seller needs to purchase merchandise for their business but gets placed in a jaded, endless cycle of sending offers, and having them ignored or sent back with a higher asking price.
Buyers are open to a new process to purchase inventory.
Buyers love the "on the phone access" they get with Ghost.
Buyers are never submitting offers alone. They are working with a team, a set weekly schedule, a set budget and has to go through approvals.
There wasn’t a way to easily access offers and keep track of them. Offers tend to get lost in email inboxes.
Transparency would be greatly beneficial to the buyers.
Defining a Solution
With the concepts I can start to define a solution.
Buyers are open to a new process to purchase inventory.
"I can think outside of the box and do not have to design a solution that emulates the behavior the buyers are currently doing."
Buyers love the "on the phone access" they get with Ghost.
"Communication! Providing a tool that allows buyers to communicate with either the sales team during business hours or an automated system 24/7 would be something that buyers can find useful."
There wasn’t a way to easily access offers and keep track of them. Offers tend to get lost in email inboxes.
"A dashboard or a section on the site that housed all of the made offers."
Buyers are never submitting offers alone. They are working with a team, a set weekly schedule, a set budget and has to go through approvals.
"A dashboard or a section on the site that housed all of the made offers."
Transparency would be greatly beneficial to the buyers.
"All aspects of the offer needs to be present; date submitted, position in the total overall flow, contents of the offers, financial contents and insights."
Solution Creation
Based on the concepts there are 2 solutions I can move forward with; a chat feature and a full serviced online offer dashboard. Since there was more excitement from buyers and the sales teams for a chat feature I decided to move forward with a chat feature.
Solution 1 - Chat
What is it?
The chat feature will allow buyers to message sellers about inventory related questions and make an offer.
Hypothesis
With a chat feature I believe that a buyer can make a quicker and informed offer.
Industry Research
There is not any direct competitors in this space with a chat feature that will allow buyers to talk to an automated system or a member of a sales teams. This feature will place Ghost is a blue ocean in the market.
There are adjacent industries that I looked at that has similar features:
- The real estate industry
- The real estate industry utilizes chats that allow potential buyer and real estate agents to communicate. I looked at companies like cobroker.ai and Landbot to see how they were bringing value to their users.
- Customer Service
- The customer service industry is a big reason why professional chats are so popular. So I looked at how chats were being utilized. When was the feature presented in the process? When was it not? What did the overall interaction feel like?
- Based on reviews, users found that the chats did not feel very friendly to navigate. Some people described it as "quite cold." This had to do with the generic stock image used as a recipients profile picture and one tone answers. These are all things that I should avoid in my designs moving forward.
A Potential User Flow
"I think buyers will really enjoy this. It is simple, there wouldn't be a learning curve. The only thing that would need to think about is how this will affect the sales team. They would have to rearrange their workflow to accommodate this feature."
- The Product Manager
Mid Fidelity Designs
Testing
Once I have finished the low-fidelity designs for the chat feature, it is time to test the feature. I want to ensure I am on the right track before moving any further. I decided to get feedback from 5 buyers from the advisory board.
The first thing I did was explain what the feature is. I stated that "this feature will allow you to contact your Ghost concierge from the sales team and give you the ability to make an offer over chat." Then I asked them to think out loud as they were examining the screen. Once I asked all the observational questions I wanted to know if this is something they will actually want and use in the future. I asked buyers to reflect on their last made offer. To end the interview I asked them if a feature like this would have positively impacted that interaction.
Testing - Results
Here are the results from the test:
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5/5 buyers were able to accomplish the task of making an offer through the chat flow.
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2/5 buyer would use this in their day-to-day
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They felt like they would adapt to the feature so they can use Ghost
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4/5 buyers had a feeling of hesitation with using this feature
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One buyer stated, “this will not fix anything. This will just be another platform I will get ghosted by a seller on!”
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" Based on the results I think we should pivot."
- Product Manger
"Even thought there isn't a chat in the market, it isn't "innovative" enough. This isn't the direction I want Ghost to be moving in "
- Stakeholder
Review
Based on the test, my hypothesis is deemed untrue. My next step will be to pivot and move forward with another solution that is backed by the research that was conducted.
Solution 2 - Offer Dashboard
Due to the feedback on the proposed chat solution, the team and I have decided to pivot and go in the direction of an offer dashboard. Given that we have discovered that the user wants transparency and access, we believe that the offer dashboard will provide that need while being innovative enough for the company to compete in the market.
Definition
The product manager and myself spent some time trying to figure out what will the offer dashboard consist of. Based on the research exercises I conducted the users want the following:
- All of their past and active offers accessable in one place
- With active offers they would like to know what is needed to close this offer.
- Ways they can improve their offer
- Insights on a seller
" This can be a page that houses all offers."
" This can possibly be a timeline or a to-do list."
"A sections that gives the user automated data can be beneficial. For this section to work, it would need to be automated so the sales team is not delegating resources. This will also help with the innovation piece the business is trying to solve for. "
" Buyers are begging for more information on a seller. Ghost is a private marketplace and does not share the information of the seller. But in order to give the buyer something to work with and make a more informed decision, there is information like a rating, or sellers typical habits that I can share with the buyer while keeping the seller's identification private."
Updated Hypothesis
Providing an offer dashboard to buyers will give them a "one-stop shop" for making and controlling an offer. This will result in a faster timeline for offers (offers being created to closing) and more offers being made on the platform.
Initial User Flow
Offer Dashboard
Past offers
Active Offers
Upload Linesheet
Offers Page
" This user flow is a good approach, It is something that we can iterate upon down the line. There is a lot of room for growth."
- Product Manger
Medium Fidelity and High Fidelity Designs
For the design, I knew I wanted to make things easy to find and very clean-cut. This means adding descriptions to new elements and sticking to a neutral color palette that is only used to brand periwinkle color to highlight important elements. Because this is a new feature, I did have to do a huge update to the design system to house all of the new elements.
Testing
Now that all the designs are finished it is time to see what buyers think about this feature. I conducted a usability test with 5 buyers from the advisory board. To kick off the test, I presented a situation to the buyer. I told the buyer to imagine that they were on the site and saw a listing they liked and wanted to put an offer on it.
Testing - Results
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4/5 buyers were able to accomplish the task of making an offer through the chat flow.
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3/5 buyer would use this in their day-to-day
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After explanation 5/5 buyers said they would use this feature
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4/5 said they would recommend this feature to a colleague.
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4/5 buyers wanted more transparency
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4/5 buyers want a confidence meter that will tell them if they are making a good deal
" This is a good direction! The results are proving that this can be a solution that the buyers will want in their professional lives."
- Product Manager
Revisions / Design Decisions
After conducting the usability test and a design review, it is time to make the necessary edits to the designs and prep them for handoff. Here are some of the conscious design choices I had to make.
Homepage
- Instead of having just an upload button, I made it a banner that gives the buyer an explanation of what they can do on this page
- I categorized all of the offers and separated them by tabs. This will provide a better navigation experience for buyers because they will not have to scroll through inactive offers if they are looking for a particular active offer. V2 will include other navigational elements like sorting.
Offer Dashboard
- I am really big on making sure my designs can grow and be scalable. So the first iteration has the to-do card by itself on one line. But as the feature grows I can add more elements to that row to provide more information on an offer to a buyer; like seller information.
- I created a different style of merchandise cards on this page so the buyer is nationally aware that this card has new and different information than the other cards they interact with on the platform.
Finalized Protogtype
Results
$1M
in transactions on the platform
40%
increase in buyers on the platform
80%
increase in offers made on the platform
"Post Mortem"
This project really put my user research skills to the test. Given that it is a new feature on the site, I wanted to double-check and triple-check the solution to ensure it was accurate and beneficial to buyers. I used multiple user research techniques to find the best answer.
Next steps:
1. Add an onboarding step to get more buyers used to this new way of adding an offer. Due to the amount of buyers that exist on the platform, the stakeholders did not want to waste resources building out an onboarding flow. However, I do believe that one is necessary to ensure all buyers are comfortable on the platform.
2. Evolve the AI feature of the platform. There is more learning that needs to be done on the buyer and their habits that can help advance this feature.
3. Continue to interview more buyers and use tools like HotJar and Datadog to view live sessions of the way buyers are interacting with the feature