Streamlining Price Management

The Problems

Based on research that was done previously, there are three major issues for the Price List.

• How Might We create a more intuitive price list creation flow?
• How Might We improve price list clarity to empower users in understanding their profit margins
• How Might We enhance efficiency in product price editing for large inventories?

Process & Solution

Stage 1 - Price List Creation

Issues

• Users often feel overwhelmed by the current price list creation page, making it a major blocker during onboarding. Some clients have even created step-by-step guides for their suppliers and vendors to help them navigate and complete this page.
• The latest design, which aims to enhance and perfect the entire flow by covering every possible feature and user requests, requires six months of development time.

Design Decisions

To balance the two, I collaborated with the PM and customer success team to identify essential elements for the price list and which features could be deferred. For v1, we focused on improving clarity and reducing cognitive load for users.

The proposed solution include

• A step-by-step approach to help users complete tasks without feeling overwhelmed.
• Explain each step with examples in conversational language to simplify concepts.
• Provide summaries to clearly communicate and document the information users enter.

I then tested the prototype with customers and further refined the UX copy based on their feedback.

Design Decisions

• Use the product image, name, and variety instead of SKUs. Meanwhile, provide options for users to customize their view.
• Removing the Price List Settings to its own tab to reduce cognitive load and user error.
• Use formulas to clearly communicate the relationship between numbers and help user to quickly identify their earnings for each products.
• Use plain language for terminology, and provide tooltips to clarify what each number represents.
• Enabled users to edit SKUs directly on the table instead of through a modal. Provided the ability to perform individual, multi-select, or select-all SKUs to edit at once.

Through design feedback, we had internal debates about whether using the formula format would make sense to users. I teamed up with the PM and conducted several user feedback calls with clients and customer support. It was fascinating to see how quickly viewers grasped and understood the formula format.

They appreciated the updated design, finding it simple to view and helpful in understanding the relationship between each number. They also valued the ease of editing.

Additionally, we discovered the need to manage large quantities of products via CSV, so we included that in the Price List improvements. For this particular feature, the main contributor was our incredible engineer, who made the CSV template easy to use. My main role was to provide clear feedback on changes made by users.
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Outcome

By the end of the project, our support tickets related to the price list dropped to near zero, marking a significant success. Our dev time also went from 6 month to 2 weeks.

Once the updated version was implemented by our engineers, our customer support team noted a significant decrease in related inquiries. Users no longer required explanations for various terminologies, clarity on their profits, or assistance in updating or setting up price lists correctly.

Takeaways

All roads lead to Rome

There are often multiple ways to solve a problem. Embrace constraints like limited time and resources. Sometimes, by digging a bit deeper, even minor changes can lead to significant impacts.
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Don’t reinvent the wheel

By allowing users the flexibility to use tools they are familiar with, such as CSV, instead of forcing them into the app, we avoid reinventing the wheel. This approach helps us reduce development time and improve customer satisfaction.

Get a reality check early

During the design process, I frequently collaborate with engineers to validate ideas and understand what is technically feasible and our constraints. While this sometimes requires making design adjustments, it allows us to iterate quickly and avoid wasting time.