The Launch of the Overstock Trade Program

Overstock, the popular online retailer, announced the launch of Overstock Trade, a new program aimed at providing businesses with a seamless, reliable, and cost-effective way to purchase the products they need. As the lead product designer on this key initiative, I directed and executed on strategy, design, research, and implementation of the program from the very beginning.

The following is a walkthrough of how we arrived at some of the solutions and deliverables associated with the project.

UPDATE: In July of 2023 we relaunched the entire program as Bed Bath & Beyond Trade to coincide with Overstock, inc. purchasing Bed Bath & Beyond’s intellectual property (IP) and the launch of the new website. Overstock Trade may once again be used as we launch Overstock.com again in 2024.

The Problems

Business Problems

In late 2022 as the market saw a downturn and consumers spent less, Overstock needed to diversify its market offering.

We sought to target trade professionals (interior designers, architects, realtors, construction companies, etc) with a new product offering that would cater to their individualized needs.

Customer Problems

These types of customers have shopped on Overstock for many years and have approached us periodically about offering them a specialized experience. Stating they need more features that will allow them to cater to their clients.

Goals & KPIs

New User Sign Ups Goal: 3,000 by end of Q2 | 2,846 as of May 1, 2023

• Design Page Engagement: Goal by end of Q2 3% of members | .5% as of May 1, 2023

• GMS (Gross Merchandise Sales): Goal of 10 million by end Q4 2023 | ~1.5 million GMS as of May 1, 2023

• AOS (Average Order Size): Goal of 3x compared to .com AOS | Reached 2x consistently April 2023

• Returns of the recommended products: Goal to reduce returns % compared to .com | Not enough data yet…

Generative User Research

We spoke with 8 professionals who ranged from self-employed, small business owners, to design-specific employees working for larger organizations to better understand what type of trade programs they use and the benefits that are important to them. All of the individuals shop with their preferred trade programs weekly or more. After having 30-minute conversations with these individuals, it was clear, Wayfair Pro would be our greatest competitor.

No matter how great the discount from other trade programs (30%-40%), Overstock and Wayfair seem to be the less expensive and more reliable options for purchasing home goods for their business needs.

Learnings

Likes:

• Customer Service- Local Reps who are available to understand their unique needs

• Competitive Pricing

• Coupons/Discounts

• Store Rewards- More valuable than cash to them

• Free Shipping and Returns

• Fast Reliable Shipping

Personalized Design Pages

Through this research, we also asked them about the concept of owning a space within our site where they could promote their business and interior design projects using our products.

Almost everyone saw value in the concept of a personalized design page living within Overstock. They were all familiar with other websites doing something similar such as Etsy, Pinterest, and Amazon. They saw value in gaining rewards by referring, reviewing, and directing traffic to our site.

Journey Mapping

We began by mapping out the experience so we could identify the key opportunities, metrics, and goals of this new program offering.

Outcomes:

• Helped us uncover the user problem that our initial Beta user single-page Trade registration form may be considered a bit clunky and overwhelming by industry standards. We decided to start discovery on improving the initial Beta Trade registration form.

• We also uncovered the opportunity for our end users (customers) will need a way to navigate to interior designer pages.

Branding

I created Overstock Trade’s wordmark and made sure we had a cohesive clean look and feel that would draw in interior designers to use the program and upload their interior design projects to be featured on Overstock.

Trade Benefits Page Deliverables

Prototype

Functioning prototype you can click through the registration process. All fields will fill in for you as you work your way through the happy path registration.

Personalized Design Page Deliverables

Design Pages are a space where anyone who belongs to the Trade program can feature themselves or their business, their interior design projects, and their favorite products in order to gain new clients and reach new audiences. They also earn rewards from these pages anytime a customer purchases a product they recommend.

Mocks of the Public View of the Design Page

Editable View of the Design Page

Evaluative User Research Write-Up

Analysis Overview
Participants had no trouble moving through the workflow of adding a design board. They seemed to understand why an interior designer may create one of these types of design pages on Overstock.

Customer Problem Statement: Small businesses and interior designers are often looking for new ways to gain clients.

Business Problem Statment: Overstock needs a way to gain new customers without much advertising cost. Overstock also needs a way to increase our product quality perceptions and average order size (AOS).

Hypothesis: By providing Trade customers with an easy way to add their own content and recommend Overstock products to their clients we will see an increase in GMS, AOS, and fewer returns associated with these products.

User Test Objectives
- Are participants able to create a board, add products, and save their board?
- Do the participants understand why they might create a design board or a profile?

Test Details
7 participants 4 female 3 male

Main Takeaways
- All 7 participants were able to successfully create a design board and understood how they would add products to it.
- 4 participants had trouble adding products and saving photos, but that was due to the flyouts and modals being cut off by their smaller screens.
- 2 participants had trouble understanding the flyout that informed them how to add products.

➕ Positive Quotes
“I liked that you could group the products you liked. It would make it a lot easier if you were shopping for furniture or accessories for different rooms in a house, or different interior design projects.”

“I thought it was very easy to use and I liked that you could add the products to more than one list”

“Like because its easy and its just like shopping but you just add to your board”

➖ Negative Quotes
“I would have to go through the site and add hearts of products I like rather than simply giving a description and getting the ideas off of that alone.”

“I didn’t like that the instructions for how to add an item to your designer board were confusing because it made me feel unsure about whether I understood how to do it. The wording was confusing me and it made me feel lost. However, I like that I got to actually try it out myself and from there it was easy to understand how it worked. This really helped clear things up for me.”

UX Recommendations
- Basic usability seems straightforward.
- Will re-work the message in the add products modal to be more clear.

Conclusion

Overstock Trade MVP launched in March of 2023.

Key Metrics as of May 2023 | 3 months after launch

• New User Sign Ups Goal: 3,000 by end of Q2 | 2,846 as of May 1, 2023

• Design Page Engagement: Goal by end of Q2 3% of members | .5% as of May 1, 2023

• GMS (Gross Merchandise Sales): Goal of 10 million by end Q4 2023 | ~1.5 million GMS as of May 1, 2023

• AOS (Average Order Size): Goal of 3x compared to .com AOS | Reached 2x consistently April 2023

• Returns of the recommended products: Goal to reduce returns % compared to .com | Not enough data yet…