The Problem

As mentioned above, Veeqo is a multichannel shipping software that allows sellers to connect all their e-commerce channels. Bringing all their orders from channels like Amazon, Shopify, eBay, WooCommerce, and others to a single location. Having a presence on various channels helps the seller to reach a wider audience, but also raises a few challenges:

• Having your stock sync across different channels;
• Keeping up with the customers' shopping habits, like offering free shipping or quick checkout;
• Optimise your warehouse efficiency when picking, packing, and shipping items;
• Keep shipping costs low.

With this competitive landscape, sellers have to offer incentives/benefits to the end-consumer to buy more and easily. This generates a common issue that sellers experience daily, which is consecutive many orders for the same client. As a seller trying to keep your operation cost low, an easy win would be combining various orders for the same end-customer into one. This results in a single shipping label being purchased and a package being used.

Challenges

Update shipping status across all orders/channels.
When combining orders from many channels, we need to consider the following:

• What are the channel requirements;
• Update the shipping details across merged orders;

Different touch-points
There are several touch-points that will need to be updated across the app. From inventory to channels, emails and printed docs. This involves having several teams and PMs to be looped in as we implement a solution.

Tech approaches considered

Option 1. Merge order A into order B
There were a few cons to consider with this approach. It would be a large tech lift. Un-combining orders could be challenging, and if combining orders would need to be limited to orders from the same channel.

Option 2. Create order C with information from Order A and B
Sellers could combine orders from various channels, but more complex from a tech perspective to keep all the information updated.

Option 3. Link shipment to Order A and B
Requires new a pattern that allows the user to create a shipment without being attached to an order at first. It would be a mid tech effort.

Out of scope

Automatically refund labels
Having a system that allows the seller to refund automatically the unused shipping cost of one or multiple combined orders.

Partial shipment
Not allowing the seller to split a combined order into various packages. Since we're allowing combined orders from different channels, this could bring issues to the order status and management.

Discovery

Quantitative data

Product roadmap feedback

• 104 instances of sellers requesting the combine orders feature
• 18 mention that this would be an enormous cost saving measure
• 22 cited as a critical/important feature to have

Q1'23 Survey - Inactive and partially active sellers

• 43% of small to medium size sellers cited that “There’s a need to combine orders for the same customer into a single shipment" when asked "Why don't you use Veeqo to ship these orders?";
• 80% of large sellers cited "combine orders" as a must have feature to continue using Veeqo.

Q1'23 Survey - Active sellers

• 40% of sellers selected "Combine orders for a customer into a single shipment" as a "Critical" need when asked "What fulfilment improvements would you like to see in Veeqo";
• With a further 31% of sellers selecting "Important" on the same question;
• Making it the second highest request fulfilment feature request.

Previous solution

Here is a quick preview of what that experience was like before we implemented our new solution. The simplified prototype will have notes along the way to explain what is happening. For a better experience, change the prototype to full screen with the top right button.

User interviews

Building on the insights gained from surveys, I conducted in-depth interviews with our active and partially active sellers to delve into their experiences and pain points. The objective of these conversations was to gain a comprehensive understanding of their needs and aspirations for an enhanced experience.

Here are the 3 big points that stand out during the calls:

• No matching system
  Veeqo does not check automatically for potential mergeable orders when they are synced into the system
• Long manual process
  For every mergeable order that the seller finds, they choose one to edit and manually add the products from the other orders
• Channel updates issues
  Each manually merged order must be marked as shipped. This can be an issue across multiple channels, as they have their own requirements. This can lead to penalties, like in the case of Amazon losing the Prime badge. Also, traceability and solving issues like returns becomes more challenging.

Problem statement

With the insights collected, we were ready to define the problem we were trying to fix. Here's what we came up with:

• As a seller, I may receive multiple orders from the same buyer in quick succession. Examples of this include:
  • Buyers cannot edit or add orders, they create a new order for forgotten items;
  • Buyers responding to promotions after a recent purchase and deciding to reorder on my ecommerce storefront, etc.
• Sellers need a way to quickly and easily identify orders that can be combined into a single shipment. This will reduce fulfilment and shipping costs while increasing customer satisfaction.

Ideation

Lo-fi wireframes

After going through some potential ideas to solve the problem (illustration above), I end up the first iteration that is presented on the prototype below.

A more extended version in terms of interactions was used to test with sellers on moderated calls. For this user testing, I reached out to 6 sellers that had mention on the Q1 Surveys that mergeable orders is a "must have" or "critical" feature to have. For a better experience, change the prototype to full screen with the top right button.

User testing

The tests revealed several recurring patterns, which were then incorporated into the subsequent iteration of the solution. Here are some of the issues that sellers mention:

• Alert toast
  With the alert, users found it useful to receive notifications when new orders are synced in, but it was distracting if they were in the middle of a task
• Information on the modal
  Users mention that when merging orders, they only require key information, such as customer name and address
• Amount of steps
  Displaying the correct information to facilitate the decision-making process for merging orders can shorten the user journey
• Merging orders from different channels
  The initial assumption was that this feature would be useful. However, most users mention that they would prefer not to have it. For the end-consumer, it would be strange to buy from different channels and receive a single package.
• Notification system for ignored alerts
  Sellers would prefer a more visual way to interact with ignored toast alerts

Solution

After this first round of tests, I worked on an improved version and tested with usertesting.com. Here is the final version. Taking into account all the feedback collected. For a better experience, change the prototype to full screen with the top right button.

Why it was such a tricky project

Although the solution appears straightforward, it necessitated close collaboration across various teams. The solution required coordinating allocated stock across different channels, seamlessly updating order status, and updating all the communicating with end consumers.

• Inventory
  When merging or un-merging orders, it was necessary to transfer the allocation between them, ensuring that the stock is correctly updated across all channels
• Channels
  With each order, we need to send the shipping information for all merged orders to avoid any penalty from the different channels
• Shipping
  Building upon existing shipping patterns, we implemented an informative toast at the time of shipping to address any potential overlooked previous checks.

Project highlights

• Quick and easy to implement
  Since the solution utilised existing patterns, the implementation effort was low
• Several interviews
  Due to the changes happening in the company, I had the possibility to do several rounds of interviews/testings with users
• Updated the modal component
  Our modals were inconsistent across the app, so I took the initiative to find patterns between them and find a solution that could be used across the web app and added to Storybook.

Next steps

• Track usage of the feature
  Review our task completion rate, customer satisfaction barometer, and FullStory

• Future iterations
  Test a different way of presenting grouped orders. With other new features on the roadmap, I could re-use these new patterns in the merge orders feature, allowing sellers to identify and take action quickly.