Optimizing submissions
Increasing submissions through improved readability and scanability
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 National" card convention, reducing time to completion by 70%.
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.
Improve ease of use
Reducing friction points of the existing 10+ minute process to help sellers easily process their items
Goal 1
Create a scalable system Designing the end-to-end system from consumer devices to internal processing
Goal 2
Increase overall completions
Improving successful submission completions
Goal 3
Pinpointing points of friction through journey mapping
Two main friction points were identified. First, during the initial inventory sign up, cognitive overload of the options were available. Second, the internal processing had a large backlog being a blocker to getting processed inventory up for sale.
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.
Desktop - control 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
What I learned from this project
Rising to the occasion for timely opportunities is worth the extra effort. I put in extra hours during this 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.
Improving internal processes alongside front-end consumer experiences can lead to increased efficiencies for customers. I balanced working with both consumer and internal-facing teams to deliver this project, learning that team lines should not limit the scope of my work to improve the end-to-end user experience.