Merchant Marketing
Project Overview 🔍
Enhancing Merchant Differentiation in a Competitive Marketplace
With over 6,200 sellers on the platform and multiple outlets offering identical products, how can we equip our merchants with resources to effectively differentiate themselves from their competitors? This initiative aims to support merchants by providing them with the necessary tools and opportunities to stand out in the marketplace.
Our Goals
01
Enable Merchant Differentiation
Provide tools for merchants to effectively distinguish their brands in the marketplace with branding.
02
Improve Customer Engagement
Facilitate meaningful interactions between merchants and customers through personalized communication.
03
Increase Brand Loyalty
Create features that promote repeat purchases and strengthen customer relationships.
04
Encourage repeated purchases
help customers form habit of re-purchasing the same item from the same merchant - more sales.
Challenges/Constraints
01
Identifying suitable touchpoints
Only existing app touchpoints can be utilized for enhancements.
02
User Familiarity
Changes must maintain user familiarity to avoid disrupting the current user experience.
03
Minimal Design Changes
Significant alterations to the current user interface are not permitted.
04
Merchants' effort & ease of use
Minimal changes to backend for merchants to ease transition
Anticipated Impact⚡️
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Ideation & Iteration💡
Trying things out…
Initial research combined with insights from PMS brief assured us to the next phase: brainstorms and redesigning in iterations.
Exploring what could be done by examining both users and merchants POV
User Personas were utilized for this.
Store Page revamp
Need for flexibility
Merchants will need to be able to re-order components and customise them to present the brand image they want and run campaigns and promotions more easily compared to the old store page.
Housing new features
The redesigned platform hopes to introduces new functionalities such as integration with our social network, Share Hub, along with a bespoke loyalty scheme for sellers.
Prompting users to follow a merchant
The purpose of this is to notify customers about new store updates and content. It helps merchants to build their brand and conduct CRM. One incentive for users to follow a store could be to gain exclusive deals and savings.
Prompting user to follow stores after purchasing and also after giving products a good review is also a good touch point as it turned in a positive sentiment .
Replenishment & reward
Stamps vs points
Initially, stamps were considered for our reward scheme.However, I some research and concluded that collecting points might be more effective as a loyalty program initiative in this case.
A point-based offers flexibility and tiered rewards and also offers immediate gratification. It also has proven success with other examples like YUU and Moneyback.
Opportunities to expand capability of "My List"
The original my list was outdated in design and had a lot of potential for utilisation of space. After analysing the old design, I identified areas of improvement and went through a few iterations to optimize it.
After that, I also combined the idea of adding another touchpoint for users to keep up with their followed merchants.
FInal Designs
Elevating merchants and helping customers
After numerous iterations and brainstorm sessions with PMs and stakeholders, we have decided to slice up designs to push out in a few phases. A more sophisticated loyalty program will be our focus in the next ones, but now, we start by helping brands build a solid customer base with branding.
Revamping Store Page
A much needed refresh
Before the redesigned the store page was rigid and not flexible with limited tools store owners cannot unleash their creativity and create a brand voice.
With new tools and recent feature developments the store page now houses loyalty rewards and social content as well as UGC reviews. Existing features are now available to be stylised.
Making "My Lists" smarter
Herding users (in a way)
Only revamping store pages doesn't do much - as not much users actually check it ( focused on products > stores). So without these touchpoints, there won't be enough traffic anyway.
Integrating stores into lists
Keeps users updated with new and restocked products in a glance. Also helps merchants spotlight their selected products without needing users to actively search for them.
Making "My Lists" smarter
Spotlighting products
Utilized space to enlarge product images -> more clicks! also more diffrentiation between user curated lists and system generated auto lists.
Integrating stores into lists
Keeps users updated with new and restocked products in a glance. Also helps merchants spotlight their selected products without needing users to actively search for them.
Anticipated Impact⚡️
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Takeaways 🥡
The Secret Sauce for Loyal Customers🥫
I'd like to believe that authentic connections are essential for fostering loyalty, so when merchants engage genuinely and offer real value—through personalized experiences or transparency—loyalty follows. (hopefully) By equipping them with the right tools, we empower merchants to create meaningful interactions. Ultimately, it’s about nurturing relationships that drive sales and cultivate passionate brand advocates, turning strategies into lasting connections and growth.
