2022 - 2024
Seller tools – Compliance – User research – Design System – global eCommerce
The Discogs Orders system was an archaic relic based in a twenty-year-old codebase and needed a redesign from the ground up. Working with a third-party cart provider, we aimed to modernize a crucial aspect of the online marketplace.
In 2022 there was a lot of buzz within Discogs internally to "fix the cart". Orders were down, the system has a unique quirk were orders are technically created before buyers pay for their items (something that savvy buyers and sellers have learned to take advantage of as a means to reserve items or evade platform fees)
The Ask:
What would "fixing our cart" actually entail?
What would "fixing our cart" actually entail?
As the lead designer for the Marketplace team, I was asked to look into some quick wins to aid our conversion rates and reduce fee avoidance. It came to my attention that what was needed was much more than could be accomplished in a few sprints. What we needed was an order system overhaul.
Discovery + Research
First, we needed to identify the current system and how it would be affected by integration with a third party.
Affected pages:
- Cart + Checkout + Confirmation
- Order management + order details
- Purchase management + purchase details
- Transactional emails
- Marketplace pages (shopping pages + item detail pages)
- Seller settings (listing currency, ships from + billing addresses)
- Cart + Checkout + Confirmation
- Order management + order details
- Purchase management + purchase details
- Transactional emails
- Marketplace pages (shopping pages + item detail pages)
- Seller settings (listing currency, ships from + billing addresses)
Working with an agency to help us find a vendor to partner with that could meet our product needs, I identified our unique needs, such as merging orders, and our multi-seller cart functionality. We wanted someone who could help us build a tool that later would allow a buyer to check out from multiple sellers at once.
Defining the user flow
We eventually found a partner in VTEX, the Brazilian based cart powerhouse. They were excited to work closely with us, as our system required some features they did not yet possess, but knew that it could be a win-win for everyone. I then worked with our VTEX account managers to understand what features we would get out of the box vs what we would need to build ourselves. To start, their system would dictate most of how the cart would look and feel. It was up to us to define the current, future, and ideal feature sets for every part of the roadmap.
This was a huge project to take on. We needed to have an incredibly in-depth understanding of not only our system, but how VTEX's system current features would best integrate with ours. We needed good visuals loaded with details to all be on the same page when designing for MVP, Phase 1, and the future.
Once we had a clearer vision for the cart, we began to identify the ways our Orders (language used to refer to the seller side) and Purchases (language used for the buyer side) systems would be affected by VTEX. When bringing any outside third party tool into a product ecosystem, there is always a push a pull that must be accounted for. Just like they would work to accommodate us, we needed to work to accommodate them. Each system brings its strengths and weaknesses. Being the client, we needed to understand where we had some room for change.
For a period of time, sellers will need to manage both legacy and VTEX orders. To remove some of the mental burden two different interfaces could put on them, we decided to match the experiences as closely as we could. VTEX orders will not allow for partial refunds and will use a different system for order numbers.
The Outcome
We landed on an MVP version of the cart that would satisfy our users, stakeholders, and developers on the Discogs and VTEX sides. Making sure to design for desktop and mobile, you can see the
Covering our bases
It was vital that we design for every step in the cart to checkout workflow. We also made sure to cover the different requirements for first time vs returning users and how the flow would work across devices.
This new and improved Discogs cart and checkout flow is set to be released 2026.