Automate
product management in e-commerce
How to enhance product management efficiency?
CONTEXT
Our company is a e-commerce platform especially focus on B2B business.
The Vendor Business has been sharing over 50% of the company’s profits.
I was brought on board to enhance the vendor selling business, and during my investigation, I discovered that due to the company’s rapid expansion, Vendor Managers, Demand Planners, and Supply Chain Managers are struggling with manual tasks in an outdated ERP system, as well as excessive back-and-forth communication.
Therefore, I designed a Product Lifecycle concept to improve the automation process.
Updated: Sep.2023, please note all the shared UI and content are modified due to the project confidentiality,
Customer
*Vendor sells goods or services for a profit. In B2B, they are often known as suppliers.
Warehouse
1. Product & Price Agreement
2. Inform / collaborate
3.Order & reorder
*Vendor Manager facilitate and maintain relationships with vendors
*Supply chain Manager organizing the movement of goods
Methods
Lean UX
Semi-structured Interview
Multi-stakeholder workshop
Information Architecture
Prototyping (low-high fi)
Wireframes
Usability Test
Value vs. Effort
Toolkits
Figma, Axure
Lucichart
Condens, Google Analytics, Hotjar
Jira, Confluence
Duration
Feb.2022 - Present
Role
Design Lead
UX/UI design
RESEARCH QUESTION
What are the pain points in Vendor Business?
Semistructured Interview
3 Vendor Manager + 2 Supply Chain Manager
As a new employee, I received feedback from Vendor Managers regarding their struggle with managing warehouse products. Taking the initiative, I analyzed the entire vendor management process and identified areas where users experienced difficulties. Through this analysis, I discovered a manual and primary process in the vendor management system.
The Product Manager also invests in business analysis and this project potentially could bring large business value that is hard to evaluate by numbers.
USER RESEARCH
Key Findings
Rapid Growth with Numerous Product
This company has been the fastest e-commerce in Europe in the last two years. There is a plan to triple products and be growing even faster in the upcoming years.
Vendor Managers find it challenging to reach upcoming business goals with the current resources.
Manual/overloaded Management Tasks
- Effort to back and forth communication with multiple stakeholders(Vendor, Supply-chain, Warehouse)
- Exchange files manually and it often outdated soon
- Manually work could only cover part of the products
It caused a series of maintenance problems(eg. overstocking, data outdated and so on. ) and money loss.
​
Align Multi-saleschannel Business Strategy
Vendor management has been separated into region, category, and sales platforms(Amazon, eBay etc,)
There is no clear view of the sales channels available for viewing/edit products, a good overview is missing
Overstocking due to lack of transparency
Due to the manual exchanges among vendor managers supply chain warehouses have low visibility on stocks. The re-buying decision could be unreliable, it is not aligned with the business demands.
DESIGN
How could we improve vendor management process?
Team Brainstorm
Product Manager + Tech-developer + Designer
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Present Research Finding (Persona)
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Discuss Design Needs/requirements
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Available Solutions in the Market
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Benchmarking
-
Brainstorm ideas
User Needs
1.Automate Management Process
Design Idea: Product Lifecycle Status
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Simplifying selling / repurchasing decisions for products
-
Sharing PLS information with the Supply Chain system enables better demand planning and replenishment.
In a nutshell, a tool streamlines the vendor management process, reduces operational costs, and increases efficiency.
​
Use Cases
If the vendor manager sign
keep
"Active"
, system pushes the product online,
then Supply Chain manager
"Reordering"
Blocked
, system sells out the warehouse stock,
Stop Reordering temporally
Inactive
, system offline product immediately,
Stop Reordering
Phase-out
, system sells out the warehouse stock,
Stop Reordering
2. Centralized and structured view on Multi saleschannel
Design idea: Mapping Products at SalesChannel level
-
Provide clear and structured information at the sales channel level (country and platform)
-
Stakeholders share the same information in a centralized space
Product
Country
Sale Platform
MM
Amazon
eBay
Lifecycle Status
MM
Visualize Design Ideas
First Prototype
.png)
I check the sales performance in the dashboard
Go to PLM page
.png)
Find my products
Make decisions
Get respond
Retrive history
Priority Matrics
Business
UX
Tech
Result
Feature 01
4
4
3
Feature 02
5
4
2
Feature 02
2
3
3
12
13
9
TEST & ITERATIVE DESIGN
Does it work? & How to make it work better?
Usibility Testing
We conducted iterative user testing with 3-5 participants who shared their interest and needs for the tool. As a result, we opted to begin with an MVP implementation.
What is not working and what is missing?
.png)
User Testing Result
1. Interface: Intuitive and easy to use
2. Design concept: The learning curve for Lifecycle Status is not steep
1. Missing data to support the decision-making process
Synthetic data metrics include factors such as product profit, units sold, and other related data.
A2
Product
Country
Sale Platform
MM
Amazon
eBay
MM
Lifecycle Status
Product Level
A1
A2
Metro
Gross Margin: 21.01 Euro / 41.21%
VIP: 123.00 Euro
Strategy: Automate
APS Dropship
VIP: 124.20 Euro
Gross Margin: 20.92 Euro / 21.21%
Strategy: Sell-out
VidaXL Dropship
VIP: 125.72 Euro
Gross Margin: 19.01 Euro / 16.21%
Strategy: Promotion
A2
alternative suppliers are needed
2. Missing PLS for Seasonal / One-off products
.png)
2. Access roles need to be further defined
Stakeholder Workshop: Align with the user and High-level management group
Role
Admin
Country Lead
Senior Vendor Manager
Vendor Manager
Vendor Support Manager
Demand Planner
Suppler Planner
View
Edit
Scale
All
Country
Saleschannel
Category, Vendor
Add data support decision making process
Redesign
Add Product Level:
levels based on selling performance.
A1 is the best-selling product
A1>A2>...D3>D4
Add filters to refine the sales performance.
Take Away
Take away
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Use words users use
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In order to obtain valuable user feedback, it is crucial for research and development to keep up with the changing times.
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Communication Communication Communication