In Person Sales App
How might we alleviate the pain of sales across multiple platforms for our users who sell both online and in person at the Farmers’ Market or local pop ups?
My Role
Discovery, Research, Project Management, Product Design
Goal
Because our users are hyper-local food sellers, they are conducting an even split of their business online and in person. How might we alleviate the pain of sales across multiple platforms for our sellers?
Discovery 📝
After rounding up existing requirements and goals from stakeholders, I began to dig in on technical requirements, start tech reviews with my engineering lead, and begin to prep for further research including competitor research, persona surveys, and user interviews.
Research 🕵🏻♀️
For competitor research, I explored 5+ similar apps including Square, Helcim, SumUp, & Clover to get a clear understanding of the existing landscape.
With this, I was able to take away some high level wants, needs, and nice-to-haves, including how we might be able to stand out and solve our users’ specific needs.
Simultaneously, we sent out a quick poll to our active Facebook group, a more in-depth survey to our full database of leads and customers, and started to schedule 1:1 user interviews.
Utilizing the early discovery work, I was able to detail the app and purchase flows to identify all components needed.
Thanks to our active Facebook group of users and leads, I was able to quickly gather more info into how sellers currently manage in person sales.
After outlining what we wanted to learn, I created a survey and sent it to our users. This allowed us to gather 10+ survey results and schedule follow up interviews for more in-depth learnings.
Research Learnings 🕵🏻♀️
User Needs
Must be easy to set up, easy to start selling, no bulky devices that are difficult to manage. Often setting up the morning of the event after setup while they wait for the market to open.
Flexible pricing is a must, such as bundle deals or end of event discounts to get rid of product.
Strong desire for product price consistency when in person. The perceived price (“cookies - $5”) should match the actual total. This is especially important for in person sales.
Cash sales logs are a nice to have, not a need.
Asking for tips in person is only comfortable if the device is asking the customer, not the artisan.
The more popular an artisan gets, the fewer in person sales opportunities they take, unless they go storefront.
Where can we provide value?
Collect customer info for in person purchases. Most of the sellers we spoke to are not gathering contact info for in person sales.
Remove the need to manage multiple sales records systems. Accept both online and in-person transactions, allowing sellers to operate from one, unified platform.
Remove the need to manage multiple product listing systems. This came up as a major painpoint when it comes to managing a Castiron online store and a Square in person store.
Allow artisans to sell from their actual product listings so they can track product sales and sales metrics more accurately. Sellers we spoke with had a very difficult time reconciling actual sales to understand product trends and adequately prep for the next in-person event.
Designs 🏃♀️
Based on the in-depth discovery work and lengthy research methods and sessions, I was able to start wireframes and designs for review with engineering, all within a couple of weeks.
The physical card reader would allow our users to sell both online and in person and manage all sales in one unified product.
Sellers were able to use their existing products, create carts quickly, and accept credit cards or other payment methods from shoppers live while at in person events like Farmers' Markets, pop ups, or other specialty events.
My role in this project spanned across a wide range of deliverables including: Apple app technical documentation, in-depth user research, wireframes, prototypes, designs, physical card reader branding and distribution strategy, and more.