AZANY:
B2B Ecommerce Platform
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Project
Web App Design
Tools
Figma
My Role
Lead Product Designer
Researcher
OVERVIEW
Azany
Shopazany B2B
Shopazany B2B serves as an international ecommerce platform that enables businesses from diverse nations to engage in sales and transactions.
Azany Company
Azany operates as an ecommerce marketplace featuring a comprehensive range of products that include Shopazany B2B, Reward Glo, and Azany Affiliate Marketing. These interconnected components collaborate harmoniously to deliver seamless ecommerce solutions.
Business goals​
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Develop a platform that enables individuals to engage in unrestricted cross-border trade.
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Implement a rewards points system that grants users points for their platform purchases, which they can subsequently utilize to cover utility bill payments.
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Enable vendors to efficiently post, manage, and find their products from one centralized platform.
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Create a culture centric platform
SOLUTION & USER FEEDBACK
Final Designs
What I did
I designed a b2b platform with features to help businesses conduct both local & international trade. Along the way, I Owned the end-to-end design process • Partnered with Product, Research, Engineering, & DevRel • Tested designs with users • Iterated off feedback • Advocated for user needs • Adapted to new technical constraints • Supported engineers in implementation
Impact
With this platform, users can:
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Manage their products on the go
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Manage orders efficiently
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Monitor market trends ​
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Track orders including international shipments
Final Designs
The Key Features I designed provides an ecommerce system to help users manage their products & orders and monitor the marketplace through three main tools:
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1. Dedicated dashboard for each type of user
2. Activity Board to monitor market trends
3. Multiple discount options for a product
EARLY COLLABORATION
Understanding the problem space...
To understand the problem space, I partnered the following roles:
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Previous Designer to review the history of this project
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Research Lead to review existing research + plan additional research
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Product Manager to discuss business goals and business constraints
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Developer Relations Engineer to understand the technical context
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Creating an e-commerce platform specifically for business-to-business (B2B) transactions.
RESEARCH
Understanding businesses & international trade
Research Goals
1. Understand How a B2B platform can facilitate seamless order tracking, shipment visibility, and after-sales support for manufacturers and vendors
2. Understand What specific features or functionalities manufacturers and vendors would prioritize in a B2B platform to improve their efficiency and productivity
3. Understand What are the key pain points or challenges faced by manufacturers and vendors in their current B2B transactions
4. Understand What integration capabilities are most important to manufacturers and vendors, such as ERP systems, payment gateways, or shipping logistics.
I started the research phase by reaching out to manufacturers & vendors. The research involved asking questions about current pain points faced by vendors, features vendors will like to see & what process can be improved in logistics. Though the management had a list of features they wanted on the product, these questions were important in order to properly prioritize the features that we needed to give the most attention to.
COMPANY INTERVIEWS
Discovery
Most of the findings from these interviews are proprietary to Azany so I can't share them in detail.
To gain a comprehensive perspective, I found it necessary to conduct interviews with past vendors from the previous website. This allowed me to understand their viewpoint and gather valuable insights. The specific areas of insight I aimed to gather were as follows:
1. Gain insight into their existing user flow and operational processes.
2. Identify the challenges they face when accessing the product on mobile devices.
3. Explore the diverse scenarios in which manufacturers and vendors utilize the website and understand their specific needs and requirements.
PERSONAS
Using insights from the research, I created 2 personas. I worked with the PM to prioritize user needs.
WIREFRAMES
Initial Ideation
1. User Flow Mapping
Explored multiple Customer User Journey execution options.
2. Paper Wireframes
Explored structure & feature approaches
3. Digital Wireframes
Shared with the team for initial input on scalability, UX consistency, component requirements, and more.
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CONCEPT TESTING
Feedback from users
In particular, I sought feedback on four elements of my design: the live chart, discount feature, order tracking, and farmers interface. To get answers, I independently conducted research with 16 vendors from various countries on zoom.
How I prepared:​
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Defined research goals with Product Manager
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Prototyped 4 different screens
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Developed testing plan
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Wrote question script
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Coordinated recruitment & logistics.
Users loved:
Live Chart: Enabled them to monitor market trends.
Discount Feature: Allowed vendors add multiple discount options for a product.
Order Tracking: Allowed users track an order in real time
IMPLEMENTATION
Applying user feedback to designs
The insights gathered from concept testing offered a clear direction on the most essential features for users. Now, I needed to communicate these findings to the project team, establish new design priorities, and tackle intricate UI and interaction obstacles.
After testing, I presented my user insights to the team and we aligned on the following prioritization of features:
P0: Discount customisation for products
P0: Live Chart for market trends
P0: Order Tracking
P1: Farmers interface
UNFORESEEN CONSTRAINTS
Adapting to New Technical Constraints
As we neared the final phase, the back-end engineer assigned to our project informed us that the required back-end engineering resources exceeded what was available to implement certain features the way we wanted. This meant we might have to redesign certain features to meet our launch deadline.
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As the user advocate, my responsibility was to identify which features could be redesigned while ensuring users still had a delightful and helpful experience. To make these decisions, I revisited my design goal statement, the Product Requirements Document (PRD), and focused on the most prominent user feedback themes. Working closely with the engineers, I understood the implementation challenges and collaborated to find solutions that aligned with user goals.
Providing with multiple shipping quotes:
We encountered a challenge in accurately calculating shipping costs and presenting them in a user-friendly way for orders going from one location to another. After thorough research and consideration, we resolved this constraint by integrating with third-party shipping companies. This decision allowed the shipping companies to handle the costing and made order tracking more straightforward.
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Additionally, we provided users with the option to get shipping quotes from our list of shipping partners and select their preferred shipping method.
FINAL DESIGNS
Launching Summer 2023
Home Page
Cart Page
Vendor's Page
Farmers Interface
Product Page
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Vendor's Dashboard
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CONCLUSION
Next Steps & Lessons learnt
​Next Steps:
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Analyze User Feedback: Consistently analyze the feedback collected from customer support channels, user surveys, and social media to identify common themes and pain points experienced by users. This analysis will offer valuable insights to pinpoint specific areas for enhancing the overall eCommerce user experience.
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Streamline Checkout Process: Analyze the checkout flow and identify potential bottlenecks that might lead to cart abandonment. Optimize the checkout process by minimizing steps, offering guest checkout options, and providing clear instructions and feedback.
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Personalization and Recommendations: Consistently integrate personalized product recommendations by leveraging user browsing history, purchase behavior, and preferences. Utilize machine learning algorithms to provide relevant product suggestions, enhancing cross-selling and upselling opportunities for the eCommerce platform.
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Implement Live Chat Support: Integrate live chat support to offer real-time assistance to customers during their shopping journey. Prompt and helpful support can resolve queries, improve satisfaction, and increase conversion rates.
​Lesson Learnt:
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Collaborate with cross-functional partners to define the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) at an early stage to prevent scope creep.
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Involve engineers throughout the design process to prevent unexpected constraints and the need for redesigns.
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Whenever feasible, conduct early testing. In this project, gathering user feedback at an early stage allowed me to realign the design with what users truly required.
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It is vital to align management expectations with users' needs effectively.
For more work inquiries, or to grab a coffee, do email me at Favallifav@gmail.com
Thank you for reading!
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