BackMarket

Incentivising clients to trade-in old devices when buying a new one.

User research

Ideation

Desktop

BackMarket

Incentivising clients to trade-in old devices when buying a new one.

User research

Ideation

Desktop

BackMarket

Incentivising clients to trade-in old devices when buying a new one.

User research

Ideation

Desktop

ROLE

Product Designer

TIMELINE

2 weeks (2023)

SCOPE

Discovery + Delivery

TOOLS

Figma, Notion, Google suite

CONTEXT

What is BackMarket ?

Launched in 2014, it is one of the world’s leading marketplaces for refurbished electronic devices.

They operate in over 16 countries and have raised over 884M€ raised to date. Their objective is to reduce electronic waste to preserve the environment better.

It's one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 489 million monthly active users, including 205 million paying subscribers.

It's particularly popular among young people.

Why did I choose this project?

In the context of my Product Design bootcamp with the Design Crew, Product Designers at BackMarket came to pitch us a real-life problem they are currently facing.

They observed that most of their customers are still reluctant to sell their old devices. Despite most of them not having use for them any more.

ROADMAP

For this project, we covered the full-scope of the product design process. User research was crucial for us to better understand why BackMarket users did not use the trade-in feature more and refining our problem statement.

For this project, we only focused on delivery.

The problem to be tackled had been clearly identified beforehand and concerts tickets selling represent a clear market opportunity for Spotify.

User research

Understanding the habits, motivations and opinions of our users.

Benchmark

Getting inspired by competing and related services.

Ideation

Generating many ideas and choosing the best ones.

Prototyping

It's time for our solutions to come to life.

User tests

Getting feedback from our users on our solutions.

Iterations

Fixing the issues and preparing for handoff.

About my role

'I was involved in every step of the design process, with a particular focus on user research, ideation and UI design.'

USER RESEARCH

To better understand the problem we are trying to solve and the motivations of our users, we conducted qualitative user research.

Objectives

Habits and motivations

Understanding the consumption habits and motivations of our panel of users regarding tech devices.

Experience on BackMarket

Understanding their experience on BackMarket and the factors that determine whether to trade-in electronic devices when buying a new one.

First impressions

Check their understanding and first impressions of the trade-in process when buying a new electronic device on Back Market.

Test parameters

Semi-directive interviews

45min

Via Google Meet

3 men / 2 women

5 testers

🧠 What we learned

The price is the deciding factor on whether to trade-in an old device when buying a new one (not the environment).
'I don’t consider the environment very much. It’s not something I care much about. I’m able to trade them for like 30€ and by that point I keep them as back up.'
5/5 panelists
The logistics associated with shipping an item is a major obstacle in the trade-in process.
'There should be a minimum amount of money for me to sell : I think under 80€ I wouldn’t even bother. I’d be like “fine I’ll keep it”.  If someone picked it up for me, I’d be like fine I’ll sell it to you for 35€.  I don’t like going to the post office.'
5/5 panelists
There is a lack of transparency regarding the assessment of old devices.
'At Apple they check it with you when you trade it in, whereas BackMarket they can screw you over, they could tell you the camera doesn't work when it has always worked. There is a risk.'
5/5 panelists

The price is the deciding factor on whether to trade-in an old device when buying a new one.
'I don’t consider the environment very much. It’s not something I care much about. I’m able to trade them for like 30€ and by that point I keep them as back up.'
5/5 panelists
The logistics associated with shipping an item is a major obstacle in the trade-in process.
'There should be a minimum amount of money for me to sell : I think under 80€ I wouldn’t even bother. I’d be like “fine I’ll keep it”.   If someone picked it up for me, I’d be like fine I’ll sell it to you for 35€.  I don’t like going to the post office.'
5/5 panelists
There is a lack of transparency regarding the assessment of old devices.
'At Apple they check it with you when you trade it in, whereas BackMarket they can screw you over, they could tell you the camera doesn't work when it has always worked. There is a risk.'
5/5 panelists

REVISED PROBLEM STATEMENT

How do you increase the perceived benefits of trading-in an old electronic device and make the process frictionless, to turn more BackMarket users into buyers/sellers?

Objectives:

👁️

Awareness

Increase the awareness of the BackMarket Trade-in service.

🫶

Conversion

Increase the number of users who trade-in old devices at the time of the purchase.

📍

Business

To not decrease the conversion on the purchase side.

North star metric:

🌟

Visbility

Percentage of users who resell at the time of purchase.

IDEATION

We came up with many ideas, some more realistic than others. Ultimately, we chose the ones that represented quick wins (low cost of implementation, high impact).

We came up with many ideas. Some more realistic than others and some easier to test than others.

Ultimately we chose the ones that fit the scope of the project best.

Karma points progress bar
What's wrong with the item
Donating old devices
New shipping options
Which devices can be sold
Personal BackMarket wallet
More detailed bugs section
Trade-in attractiveness score
Selling many devices in a row
Personal devices drawer
Nudge messages
Nudge messages (2)

We chose to discard some ideas because they would be too difficult to implement (legal or IT security hurdles) and others because they were outside the scope of this project (donations). We also merged some ideas together.

The real challenge was to decide what to keep and what to discard.

Some were too difficult to test without creating bias during the tests. Others were not critical for an MVP.

🤟 What we kept

A personal devices drawer

A loyalty program

An optimised assessment process

🗑️ What we didn't keep

Donating old devices when the price is too low

Donating devices when the price is too low

Personal BackMarket wallet

Which concerts friends are attending

BENCHMARK

In order to come up with the design of our solutions, we took inspirations from various refurbished electronic device marketplaces as well as other services with interesting features related to our project.

Whentocop?

-> A label system to know when to buy and when to sell.

Levi's

-> An effective and lightweight loyalty program with coupons.

Swappie

-> An example of a great refurbished electronic devices marketplace.

PROTOTYPING

Whenever possible, we tried to work with Figma components to make the process of iterating after the user tests much easier.

An excerpt of our Design System

The design of the BackMarket app is very mature. Overall, the current product works well, so we had to be mindful not deteriorate the current experience with our new solutions.

Our V1

A personal devices drawer

Most people have unused devices at home. A major issue we noticed during our user research is that they have no idea what those are worth and how much money it would represent bundled together.

Therefore, we created a personal drawer with live pricing for all their devices. We also added the ability to sell everything at once.

A better way to know what to trade-in

Most of the people on our user research panel did not realise they could sell other devices than used phones during the trade-in process. As a result, many of them did not even bother to try to get a trade-in offer.

We first added an illustration to let them know what types of devices can be traded-in. For convenience, we also added the ability to sell items from their drawer, which had already been assessed.

A streamlined assessment process

Most user drop-offs occur at the end of the assessment process. For instance, some might be disappointed by the price offered and others might be dettered by the shipping logistics involved.

Therefore, we added the ability to receive more context on the price being offered for their device(s) as well as new shipping options.

Karma points — a new kind of loyalty program

By far the biggest reason whether to sell their old devices or not among our panel members was the price. Many were disappointed by the offer they were given and thought they might as well keep their devices instead.

We introduced a new feature called the Karma points which unlock discount coupons. Users get 1 point for every dollar spent or earned on BackMarket. We also decided to give users 5x more points when they sell a device that's not worth much any more.

USER TESTS

To deliver a successful solution and create a great user experience, we performed a series of user tests.

Objectives

Device drawer

Test how easy it is to use the device drawer and whether it incentivises users to trade-in their old unused devices.

Assessment process

Test if the iterations made to the assessment process have an impact on the drop-rate of the trading-in process.

Karma points

Test if the way Karma points work is easily understood and if it really adds value for users.

Test parameters

Semi-directive interviews

30min

Via Google Meet

3 men / 2 women

5 testers

✅ What worked

Understanding the purpose of their devices drawer and how to access it.
'I like the assessment of whether it’s a good sell or not.'
5/5 testers
Being able to choose shipping options when trading-in old devices.
'I see I'll be able to drop it up in a relay point, that's perfect.'
5/5 testers
Understanding how karma points work and using them properly to get a discount.
'It's interesting. That's why my iphone brought me more.'
5/5 testers

Understanding the purpose of their devices drawer and how to access it.
'I like the assessment of whether it’s a good sell or not.'
5/5 testers
Being able to choose shipping options when trading-in old devices.
'I see I'll be able to drop it up in a relay point, that's perfect'
5/5 testers
Understanding how karma points work and using them properly to get a discount.
'It's interesting. That's why my iphone brought me more'
5/5 testers

⛔ What didn't work

Doing the assessment of all their old devices and trading-in in bulk.
'I don’t see the difference between "Save it for later" and "Assess an other device’". At the end of the flow, I would presume the assessment was automatically saved.'
2/5 testers
Medium priority
Medium difficulty to fix
-> Introducing the ability to trade-in item by item. Implementing automatic back-ups of assessments.
Seeing the final trade-in price on the offer page.
'Don’t know if it’s live tracking / where does the price assessment comes from.'
2/5 testers
High priority
Easy to fix
-> Improve the layout of the order page.
Understanding how the labels work for when it's the best time to sell.
'I had a hard time finding it, I don't think I even found it."
2/5 testers
Medium priority
Medium difficulty to fix
-> Change the outlook of the card for concerts on the search page to make it more noticeable. Improve UX writting.
Understanding that Karma points have no expiry date.
'I had a hard time finding it, I don't think I even found it."
2/5 testers
Low priority
Easy to fix
-> Add an expiry date on the activity section.
Understanding that Karma points are nested in the payment section.
'I would expect a button to go shopping.'
2/5 testers
Low priority
Easy to fix
-> Add a shopping section on the karma points page.

Doing the assessment of all their old devices and trading-in in bulk.
'I don’t see the difference between "Save it for later" and "Assess an other device’". At the end of the flow, I would presume the assessment was automatically saved.'
2/5 testers
Medium priority
Medium difficulty to fix
-> Introducing the ability to trade-in item by item. Implementing automatic back-ups of assessments.
Seeing the final trade-in price on the offer page.
'Don’t know if it’s live tracking / where does the price assessment comes from.'
2/5 testers
High priority
Easy to fix
-> Improve the layout of the order page.
Understanding how the labels work for when it's the best time to sell.
'I had a hard time finding it, I don't think I even found it."
2/5 testers
Medium priority
Medium difficulty to fix
-> Change the outlook of the card for concerts on the search page to make it more noticeable. Improve UX writting.
Understanding that Karma points have no expiry date.
'I had a hard time finding it, I don't think I even found it."
2/5 testers
Low priority
Easy to fix
-> Add an expiry date on the activity section.
Understanding that Karma points are nested in the payment section.
'I would expect a button to go shopping.'
2/5 testers
Low priority
Easy to fix
-> Add a shopping section on the karma points page.

OUR V2

Time to sit back and enjoy the show.

HANDOFF

The iteration process is a major part of the job of Product Designers. It's much easier to do with an organised design file, not only for ourselves and other designers on the team, but also for developers.

The iteration process is a major part of the job of Product Designer.

That's much easier to do with an organised design file, for ourselves, potential other designers, and of course, developers.

Our figma file

NEXT STEPS

Although the tasks below exceed the scope of the original project, it would have been worthwhile to explore them given more time.

🧪

More tests

After our first series of test, we improved our solution. It would be useful to now test those iterations.

👀

Alignment

Organise a session with PMs and developers to make sure everyone is up to date regarding the project.

📦

Handoff

Double check once again that our design files are organised and documented.

Lets collab

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Victor Cartier

About

Works

Let's chat

Victor Cartier

About

Works

Let's chat