About Product
BuildMart is on a mission to reshape the building and construction industry in Saudi Arabia and wanted to expand in other middle-east countries such as Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar. It’s an all-inclusive SaaS-based marketplace desktop version platform with a range of building and construction material products and service providers from top brands. As the first-of-its-kind online marketplace, BuildMart is setting new standards in construction industry.
My Role
I joined as a senior product designer and had a personal connection to: the Buildmart, a company from KSA (where I am from), collaborating with the founder and another tech lead to transition the web app from its alpha stage to version 1/beta. This involved not only refining existing features but also introducing key new functionalities to enhance the user experience and drive engagement.
Category
Product Design
Client
Buildmart
Tools
Figma Jira Google Suite Slack
The challenge
The primary goal was to tell Buildmart’s story in a way that would build excitement, loyalty and awareness. It lack of some key features such as a Wishlist feature which forced customers to rely on temporary solutions like carts or browser tabs, leading to inconvenience and potential data loss. Secondly, price comparisons, requiring manual exploration of multiple retailers for bulding materials, making it difficult for users to find the best deals, a key factor for budget-conscious construction projects. But whilst their product was hitting all the right notes with their avid users, CEO Mohammad and his marketing team felt that their own brand and website was vastly underselling their powerful offer — so I came onboard to help.
- cluttered and disorganized information architecture
- inconsistency between items displayed in resultsdifficulty determining the price of certain items
- tediousness when requesting live chat support
The hypothesis was that by addressing these limitations and offering a more relevant and personalized wishlist & price comparison experience, user retention would increase through stronger builder-service provider relationships and increased platform engagement in an enhanced version.
Key metrics
The Solution
We refreshed Buildmart’s brand experience by combining the founder’s vision with user insights, on a mission to transform BuildMart into a robust enhanced beta versions. Since launch:
- Wishlist Engagement: 20% of users created wishlists, driving a 12% increase in purchases directly from them.
- Price Transparency: Integrated price comparisons resulted in 15% more price alert signups, empowering customers and boosting loyalty.
- Enhanced Shopping Experience: Product page redesign led to a 10% increase in average order value and a 5% decrease in customer service inquiries.
Our design team sought a challenge:
How might we differentiate BuildMart from the competition by offering a user-centric platform with wishlist-driven project management, a powerful price comparison engine, and enhanced product discovery, fostering user loyalty and driving business growth?
Research
Desk Research Competitive Analysis
We measured and analyzed extensive information about industry competitors and how people were using the current desktop platform during my UX audit process. I reviewed analytical data, defined user personas, enhanced product pages and developed user flows to boost performance for every page of their site.
Also I delve deeper with the Buildmat team :
– the significance of wishlist tools
– explore the considerations when choosing between building a custom wishlist feature or adopting a third-party tool
– examine the essential elements of a wishlist-equipped ecommerce website
– and provide illustrative scenarios to help envision their implementation
Key insights for wishlst
Analysis
From customers perspective
Wishlist tool offers convenience and personalization. Shoppers or Builders often come across products or service provider they admire but may not be ready to buy/hire immediately. Think of shopping for a future home building purchase; you likely have many ideas for the layout and decoration, but you aren’t at that point where you need to buy items yet.
From the store owner’s perspective
Wishlist tools are a goldmine of insights. They provide valuable data about customer preferences and popular products and service providers. This information can inform inventory management, marketing strategies, and the introduction of new products, managing bigger building ultimately driving sales and boosting revenue.
Price Comparison and Wishlist Features
Competitor Analysis
With an idea of my users’ pain points in mind, I next turned to competitors’ sites to see how they were (or were not!) approaching the user experience. I conducted research on popular e-commerce platforms regarding their approaches to displaying price based on quantity/ overall price comparison and wishlist features. The table below summarizes insights:
| Platform | Price by Quantity/Comparison | Wishlist | Best Features | Areas for Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | Range displayed on PDP/PLP based on seller | Sign-in required, Multiple wishlists, Can name/share wishlists, Sorting/filtering, List/grid view | Easy to compare, Good filtration, Price tracking | Sign-in requirement |
| Noon | No price range displayed | Sign-in required, Multiple wishlists, Can name wishlists, List/grid view | Simple interface | No price range, Sign-in requirement, No sharing option |
| eBay | Range displayed based on quantity/pieces | Sign-in required, Multiple wishlists, Can name/share wishlists, List/grid view | No other seller display | Limited features, Sign-in requirement |
| Alibaba | Shows price per quantity, Lead time displayed | Sign-in required, Multiple wishlists, Can name wishlists, List/grid view | Lead time information | Sign-in requirement, No sharing option |
| Shopee | Shows price range with hash | Sign-in required, Multiple wishlists, Can name wishlists, List/grid view | Simple UI | Limited features, Sign-in requirement, No sharing option |
Ideation
Personas
We created persona to effectively distill and communicate the insights I had gathered through my research thus far.
User flows
Moving forward in the design process, We created a user flow and wire frames, to outline the steps personas would take.
Design
Helping Buildmart become a modern, professional, and highly credible brand.
We prioritised products reviews and shopping experience on the homepage, and adjusted layouts to allow for more and larger images.
Setting the Launch Page UP
Within 30 days after the launch, Buildmart experienced an uptick in everything from trial conversions to demo sign-ups, compared to the old website.
The Result
My primary objective was to uphold the essence of the existing Buildmart website and focus on refining and optimizing the elements that resonated well with users while simplifying areas that detracted from their overall experience for the beta launch.
Build Mart’s integrated approach, combining wishlist appeal with price competitiveness and 50+page enhancements, resulted in significant improvements in customer engagement, sales, and brand perception. This demonstrates the power of a holistic strategy in maximizing ecommerce success.
Research
- Competitive benchmark
- UX Research & UX Audit
- User flows and Wireframes
Branding
- Visual benchmarking
- Identity development
- Brand guidelines
Digital experience
- Creative direction
- Website design
- Design system
Engineering
- Front-end development
- Quality assurance
- Post-launch improvements
