The marketplace was indeed to serve two primary purposes: Allow users an internal e-commerce experience in addition to providing an additional stream of revenue to the business by partnering with vendors to sell items in-app. The primary issues were that it wasn't created with with those factors in mind and was buried within certain workflows leaving the users to stumble upon it (mostly by accident, according to user feedback) and not understand its usefulness towards their daily operations once they engage with it. Its current flow also didn't lend itself to being seen as beneficial for other vendors looking to partner with Fullbay due to its short comings of usability.
- The Fullbay Marketplace only accounted for $15k sales in all of 2021 (0.5% overall revenue)
- Rather than use the flow of the marketplace, users often found the experience confusing and preferred searching and purchases the items they’ve sought via external sources.
- Shop employees search for items by their item code/number more than by name or any other identifying information.
- The initial design of the marketplace did not address best practices or apply familiar design patterns which indicated its intent or usefulness.
With this information, the Project manager and I conducted brainstorming sessions with users to uncover any additional pain points from their perspective. The result of these sessions yielded the following aspects of a strategy for addressing the issue(s):
- Addressing entry points to the feature in such a way that users know that it exists.
- The feature should allow for quick navigation and processing to account for already convoluted processes and activities within the shop locations.
- Design the feature in such a way the encourages further business relationships and collaboration with vendors.
With these things in mind, the general consensus was to focus primarily on the feature as it relates to supporting existing repair efforts (most widely used from user feedback and analysis) and expanding the scope from there.
