JuniperMarket
OVERVIEW
A leading wholesale online marketplace, connecting the in-person, physical market experience to a streamlined platform for buyers and sellers to come together online.
ANDMORE serves as the hub of commerce for wholesale industries such as furniture, gift, home decor, and apparel. With over 20 million square feet of high-end wholesale showroom space located in High Point, N.C., Las Vegas, and Atlanta, ANDMORE boasts over 60 years of experience in developing scalable business platforms for wholesale commerce.
Despite the exceptional opportunities for networking and product discovery provided by in-person markets, buyers often encountered limitations due to time constraints and accessibility issues. Recognizing this challenge, ANDMORE saw an opportunity for a digital transformation of the wholesale buying industry that could complement their physical seasonal markets.
In January 2022, JuniperMarket, a fully integrated B2B commerce solution and multi-line B2B e-commerce marketplace, was launched. Providing the only omni-channel business platform that seamlessly connects physical and digital wholesale commerce.
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
July 2020-
January 2023
MAKE OF THE TEAM
UX/UI Lead- Myself
UX Researcher- Luna Felo
UX Designer- Leandro Valdez
KEY GOAL
Provide an omni-channel business platform to connect physical and digital wholesale commerce.
MY ROLE
I was the lead designer on this project with UI and Research support from 2 fellow designers.
I established the UI style guide, page layouts, flows, and patterns for the entire ecommerce experience.
BUSINESS GOALS
A clear understanding of the business goals for JuniperMarket was essential to get started. Were there any strategic outcomes in mind for the platform? What were they designed to achieve in terms of IMC's core business, and what long-term value were they meant to create? These questions led to several conversations, which ultimately clarified the overarching goals from the outset.
Increase revenue for ANDMORE's core business.
Enhance the value proposition for sales representatives.
Attract and retain top vendors by offering attractive terms and support.
Establish buyer engagement by creating a seamless user experience and providing excellent customer service.
Build and maintain brand equity.
Use data-driven insights to improve business outcomes, such as increased conversion rates and buyer retention.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
Our goal was to map out the entire buyer journey and uncover pain points. The insights we gained were invaluable and helped us refine our understanding of the buyer journey. By synthesizing common themes and patterns from the interviews, we were able to challenge our assumptions and prioritize features that aligned with communicated needs.
BREAKING DOWN THE PROCESS
Based on insights gathered from user research and interviews, our team identified the key Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) that Junipermarket could address. We then translated these JTBDs into user stories to help clarify the task flows needed to shape the initial design sprints. As a team, we developed a site map and used it as a baseline to create low-fidelity mockups that translated the main user flows.
The initial site map, user flows, and designs brought clarity and excitement to the team. We could all see the project taking shape, and conversations around the initial designs led to healthy and challenging discussions. Next came prioritization, and we agreed on the MVP features for our first release. As the MVP started to take shape, we held frequent design review sessions with the product and engineering teams. During these discussions, we made trade-offs and feasibility analyses that led to regular design rework to ensure alignment with the latest team decisions and the updated acceptance criteria.
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USABILITY TESTING
After designing the main MVP flows, we invited buyers that we spoke with during the discovery research phase to test our MVP prototype for usability.
Following the usability tests, we actioned some of the insights immediately by making iterative changes to our designs. Other insights informed our future roadmap planning, as they were outside the scope of the initial release. With these insights in mind, we proceeded to the implementation phase to develop and launch the MVP.
IMPLEMENTATION
During this stage, my role was to prepare the design files for hand-off to the production team. I refined the files to a production-ready state and supported the engineering sprints during the build phase.
The successful launch of the marketplace on January 22nd, with more than 1500 sellers and over a million product SKUs, was a testament to the incredible cross-functional collaboration between the product, design, QA, and engineering.
POST MVP
DISCOVERY &
ITERATIONS
After the initial launch, we created & launched a survey to gather feedback from buyers about their experience. Our goal was to identify what was working well, areas that needed improvement, and quickly respond to any bugs while making changes based on tangible feedback.
We identified several main areas of concern:
🚩 Unclear registration steps: resulting in users abandoning the process altogether.
🚩 Gated and unavailable products: adding friction and uncertainty to browsing and buying.
🚩 Overwhelming search results: that were hard to narrow down, making it difficult for users to find what they were looking for.
🚩 A lack of recommendations and curation: leaving users feeling lost in the vast array of options available on the platform.
During the post-launch period, it was critical for us to learn from our customers and respond quickly to their feedback.
As Art L from North Carolina noted, "Searching here feels like walking into Nordstrom Rack, I have no idea where to find anything."
While it may be painful to hear how our choices have frustrated users, it will inevitably prove even more painful if we don't address their concerns.
Releasing and testing software is about learning from mistakes and demonstrating to users that we are listening. By addressing their concerns, we showed our users that we valued their feedback and were committed to creating a product that truly met their needs.
SOLUTIONS
LESSONS LEARNED
My involvement in this project significantly contributed to my growth as a designer, researcher, colleague, and as a person. As a team, we matured and developed our understanding of continuous research, making it a powerful tool in our collective arsenal.
JuniperMarket continued to be improved over a year and in the end, after much continuous discovery, our team realized our efforts would serve our users better in the form of a mobile app to use before, during, and after market. That led us to creating the @Market App.
Parts of JuniperMarket still serve our buyers today in their discovery efforts as well as in a consolidated place for all their at market activity from the @Market App.