Making second-hand the smart choice.
Shifting the perceptions of a global marketplace to increase sales by 35%.
OLX
Agency: DesignStudio
My Role: Product Design Director
The Team: 2x Product Designers, Product Owner, Client Partner, Full-stack engineers
What is OLX?
Founded in 2006, OLX is a global marketplace not unlike eBay, operating in over 40 markets and generating $1.3 billion in revenue. With over 6 million active daily users, it is the leading marketplace in many of its operating locations.
The marketplace is accessible via web on desktop and mobile, as well as through native apps on Android and iOS, optimised for a large number of devices.
The Challenge
Despite massive growth in many of the markets it operated in, OLX faced an uphill battle because Amazon was widely viewed as ‘the cheapest option’. The user-experience was also lacklustre, lacked cross-platform optimisation and didn’t appear to be designed with any real insights or research into how people interacted with it. Additionally, with the growing threat of Facebook Marketplace encroaching on user base, the objectives became clear.
Another surprising learning from initial workshops and research was that in contrast to the UK and US, in many of the markets OLX operates in people had a negative opinion of buying ‘used’ or second-hand.
The Objectives
The rebrand exercise by DesignStudio set a great foundation in improving the perception of second-hand trade with it’s key messaging, this needed to be carried through any experience we designed.
• Create and maintain a robust design system to reflect the new brand.
• Build a UI toolkit with comprehensive documentation for handoff to internal teams.
• Refine the overall experience to build customer trust and shift purchasing perceptions.
Research
OLX operate in a number of different global markets. To best understand the customer need and identify any potential cultural differences, the team conducted immersive workshops and interviews with users and non-users locally. We visited 3 countries and 21 cities. We also spoke to OLX staff and reviewed local marketing (which was all very different!).
User interviews determined firstly what people’s opinions were of the current OLX brand and experience, and then any pain-points in using the current apps. Immersive workshops followed initial design sprints and involved prototypes and hypothesised design elements.
Outcomes
“Buying second-hand is like using someone else’s toothbrush” - OLX User, Argentina
This response turned out to be a common perception across almost all of OLX’s markets. It was clear that by making the experience feel more premium, similar to the Amazon/Facebook experience building on the brand-work, was crucial to shifting trends in purchasing goods from other people.
The existing site was built using adopted components from marketing and comms, creating an inconsistent and clunky platform which was flagged by users. Search functions and category filtering were also noted as being inadequate.
Existing OLX platform with category selection
Disparity in product experience across markets
Competitor Analysis
Our assumption was that eBay would be the most direct competitor, however this assumption proved incorrect and as noted previously, Amazon was seen as the favoured marketplace. Facebook Marketplace was also a rising threat and had a growing user base in most of the OLX markets. Best-in-class search, filtering and navigation was standard across competitor offerings and needed to be factored into any design.
Design Phase: Prototyping
Given the challenge of injecting a new brand identity into the product, and the importance of building on key messaging around raising the profile of the service, we approached design slightly differently. We ran ‘hackathon’ style design sprints where 80 prototypes were created quickly, with little commitment. Many were written off quickly, some made the cut, but the process allowed us to identify moments of magic we could take to the final product.
These prototypes were static UI sketches, animations, interaction ideas or navigation concepts. This quick and dirty approach to design led to some exciting discoveries that we took to users via paper and screen to get feedback. The response was brilliantly positive and allowed us to take forward these concepts to the next stage.
UI Design
Although there was now an established brand identity in place, one of our first challenges was to identify which brand elements would translate well to a product UI. Many of the inherited brand assets looked great in marketing and social comms, but in many cases lacked the flexibility and nuances required to deliver a comprehensive user interface. This meant revisiting and evolving certain elements of the brand for digital outputs, this included: typographic hierarchy, refining colours (with accessibility in mind), simplifying icons and photographic art direction
Responsive Grid
Given the grid-based card layout across a large majority of the product, we needed a modular, flexible system that would successfully scale up and down across device sizes.
The grid we created allows a limitlessly flexible foundation to insert a hierarchy of card and content types, resulting in surrounding content shifting into place to create a fluid, good-looking layout.
UI Components
Responsive grid design
Design System and Component Library
As with any product, a comprehensive and robust design system was fundamental. Using Figma we built a responsive library of flexible components to maximise versatility when creating new layouts. We worked with engineering to ensure no components were being unnecessarily rebuilt and documented interactive elements.
We also created a new icon set and worked with local markets to hand over the UI toolkit.
Measuring success
Following a rollout in 20 countries across the world, local teams began to capture the spirit of ‘Smart choices’ with bold new campaigns. Perceptions around the purchase of used goods changed favourably and the updated product helped drive significant growth in many markets.
35% increase in sales transactions
75% increase in registered users
“Smarter consumption is at the heart of classifieds - being able to own that and take it up a notch, defining the future of trade through the strategic and visual platform that DesignStudio created, is nothing short of awesome.”
Alex Hutley, Director- OLX