Optimizing submissions
Increasing submissions through 70% improved time-to-completion for collectors
Overview
COMC is a collectibles marketplace empowering collectors to buy, sell, and store trading cards via consignment to simplify transactions and shipping. I led a key design-led initiative of the item submission flow to help new collectors easily process submissions and increase overall seller inventory for the business.
My Role
Product designer
Team
iOS engineer
Android engineer
UX Writer
PM
Platforms
iOS, Android, Web
Timeframe
3 Months
Impact
Launched new and simplified submission flow for the largest collectibles convention in the world, reducing time to submission completion by 70%.
Reduced time to submission by 70%
Launched on mobile apps
Problem space
COMC was preparing for “The National” convention, a major card show with over 100,000 collectors. To prepare for an influx of item submissions and new customers, the business wanted to understand friction points which inhibited new and existing sellers from putting items up for sale.
Ensure new sellers can successfully submit items to grow sales inventory in the marketplace
Business need
Help sellers easily submit their items to put for sale onto the marketplace
User need
Project goals
Design strategy focused on entry point, management, and utilization of structured data.
Goal 1
Improve ease of use
Reducing friction points of the existing 10+ minute process to help sellers easily process their items
Goal 2
Create a scalable system
Designing the end-to-end system from consumer devices to internal item processing
Increase overall completions
Improving successful submission completions
Goal 2
Pinpointing points of friction through journey mapping
Two main friction points were identified. First, during the initial inventory sign up, sellers felt overwhelmed with the variation of submission options available. Second, the internal item processing had a large backlog which led to delays in processing to get inventory up for sellers.
Seller user journey
Tackling "The text wall" challenge
User research with both existing and new sellers revealed that cognitive overload was a recurring blocker to completing the item submission funnel. By having what I called "The text wall" page to describe our services, COMC struggled with succinctly communicating essential information to sellers, leading to overwhelm and drop-off.
The "before" services page experience
Providing information hierarchy and simplifying steps
To tackle information overload, I balanced cues for guidance while simplifying decision making for new sellers through simple step flows. This guidance also scaled for the business to allow for personalized recommendations, such as limited time promotions, or when sellers had unique items - such as $100+ cards that required elite processing. With guidance and recommendation, our system created a simple experience that brought personalized recommendations to sellers.
Feature overview
Revamped mobile submission flow
Sellers can easily submit their order for processing during a card show.
Refreshed internal processing
COMC employees can easily scan and process card submissions into COMC systems
Wall of love and appreciation
So thankful to have worked with this great team!
What I learned from this project
Rising to the occasion for timely opportunities is worth the extra effort. I put in extra hours during a timely hackathon period because I saw the potential to showcase my design effort and build backing from the CEO to get our product shipped to users faster.
Don't be afraid to stretch outside pre-established team lines to help improve the end-to-end experience. I was initially tasked on the consumer team, but quickly realized through understanding the problem space that I needed to also support internal teams to truly deliver improved outcomes for customers. I learned a ton by consulting outside of my immediate team, and was proud of owning the entire experience from front-end to back-end process improvements.