The Story
Pinkoi is Asia’s leading original design e-commerce platform, providing designers and creators with the opportunity to sell their works worldwide. However, as the market expanded to 8 countries, the original listing system could no longer meet its needs. Therefore, the shop management backend was completely redesigned.
role
Project Management
UI Design
UX Design
UX Writing
2017/04 - 2017/12
CLIENT OVERVIEW
CLIENT
DATE
Reshape
Listing Manager
to help new
market expansion
DATE
Pinkoi is Asia’s leading original design e-commerce platform, enabling designers and creators to sell their works worldwide. Initially, the target market was Taiwan’s handmade original design market, but after six years of operation, it has expanded to eight markets. The platform’s original design no longer meets the needs of its international users (buyers and sellers). Since it was initially aimed at the Chinese-speaking market, Pinkoi did not provide sellers with the ability to write in other languages. Buyers had to rely on limited translations through Google Translate to decide whether to make a purchase, which caused many to hesitate due to unfamiliarity with product information. This has been a significant challenge for Pinkoi in achieving its vision and expanding its market.
Additionally, as Pinkoi was primarily targeted at handmade sellers, the platform featured various workarounds for items that could not be directly purchased, such as “selecting color or material” options. Sellers often had to spend time handling incorrect orders, leading to numerous customer complaints from both buyers and sellers due to unclear product listings, affecting the platform’s user experience.
The accuracy of product information impacts various aspects of e-commerce user experience and business development. As designers at Pinkoi, we need to reshape the listing structure on the platform to ensure that buyers and sellers from different countries can trust Pinkoi and help achieve the company’s vision.
the challenge
Invalid Orders
We received numerous complaints from buyers and sellers regarding invalid orders. Many incorrect product listings exist in the current store: customizable options (engraving) and slight adjustments in product specifications (color, material selection) can be purchased independently, causing both buyers and sellers to spend significant time handling invalid orders.
Additionally, we found that sellers often need to provide orders exclusive to specific buyers, but these items are frequently purchased by other buyers once listed, undoubtedly increasing the time sellers spend managing orders.
1
Complicated and Confusing Product Names
Many sellers use special symbols in product names to express their individuality, but these special characters negatively impact Pinkoi’s search quality. Buyers often struggle to find products using simple keywords.
Additionally, in previous versions, Pinkoi did not allow sellers to set other languages. The translation quality of Google Translate often deterred buyers from other countries, undermining Pinkoi’s original intention to expand the market with good design.
2
Lack of Complete Product Information
Buyers usually need detailed product information to decide whether to make a purchase, especially when shopping online internationally. We found that many products on Pinkoi lack complete information. Additionally, issues such as low-quality product photos, uncertainty about whether an item is handmade or custom-made (many buyers determine the price reasonableness based on the manufacturing method), and the absence of size charts for clothing further complicate the buying process. We also discovered that due to the lack of proper product specification design, buyers often purchase product variations that are actually out of stock.
3
Design Process
1
Design Sprint
Led by the CPO, all designers participated in a 5-day design sprint to gather ideas. We decided that this revision would primarily focus on assisting growing sellers, rather than those just starting out or already established. This design approach aims to maximize coverage for sellers of various sizes.
2
User Story Mapping
Since there was no product manager position at Pinkoi at the time, the user stories for the Listing Manager relied on all designers’ results from past interviews with internal stakeholders. Finally, we voted based on the project timeline to select the requirements that would maximize the improvement of existing issues.
Crazy 8 ideas
Crazy 8 ideas
We spent two days writing user stories for sellers, buyers, and the platform.
Then, we voted to decide which user stories to implement in this revision.
We use Grid System to design a responsive web experience , sellers now can manage their shop on any devices.
Solutions
Solution 1.
Simplified Listing Types
Initially targeting handmade buyers, Pinkoi offered a large number of customization options. Due to the small team size, we used alternative solutions (e.g., designing color and material options as $0 add-ons) previously. This design caused confusion for buyers, sellers, and customer service colleagues, leading us to simplify Pinkoi’s complex product types. Based on user data across different product types, we found that only four types were most frequently used:
1. Regular Listing
2. Exclusive to Specific Buyer
3. Add-On
4. Additional Shipping Fee.
The team identified add-on products as part of “Store Marketing Tools,” so we reduced the product types to just three.
Notably, we adjusted the products exclusive to specific buyers, inspired by the concept of “Private Listings.” These products will no longer be actively displayed on the store shelves. Instead, once created, sellers will need to copy the URL and send it to specific buyers through in-site messages.
Exclusive to Specific Buyer
61.2%
13.5%
1.7%
18.4%
1.1%
2.6%
1.4%
Add-on
Additional Shipping Fee
Matching Gift
Grab Bag
Choose Material
Choose Color
In Add/Modify Listing interface, we inventoried existing needs and had multiple discussions with sellers in the community.
(You can scroll within the box above to see the full design)
Solution 2.
Enhance Product Name Quality
Due to the lack of restrictions on product names in the past, not only was Pinkoi’s search experience affected, but buyers often couldn’t quickly understand the product content from the name. Additionally, this made the Pinkoi platform look quite chaotic. Therefore, we started to implement some restrictions on product names.
First, I analyzed the data on the length and content of past product names and found that many sellers excessively used special symbols, which blurred the focus of the product names. Next, I created a whitelist for special symbols, allowing only the symbols on the whitelist to be used in product names. This visually simplified the overall complexity of the text strings.
When sellers need to restock sold-out products, they must re-confirm the product name before listing it. Over time, this mechanism continuously simplifies the originally complex product names, making them easier to read. Although this change caused many seller complaints, it helped us automatically reshape a better platform.
Finally, we established guidelines for writing product names. We encouraged sellers to consider how buyers search for products and to think about how to help buyers understand the product content with just a few words.
Product Name
21/80
Product Name
Product name should not includes some symbols.
Solution 3.
Provide Translation for Oversea Customers
In the past, Pinkoi buyers could only read the original text written by sellers or rely on the Google Translate version. However, inaccurate translations often deterred international buyers. From market observations, we learned that Japanese buyers are usually very cautious when shopping online, particularly concerned about whether they can understand the product information.
In this update, we provided customized translations for each specification, mainly offering English and the two languages of Pinkoi’s primary expansion markets at the time (Thai and Japanese).
Additionally, we offered some pre-translated common options to reduce the barriers for sellers when writing product information.
Storage Method
點點款
English
Japanese
Thai
Polkdot
Normal Temperature
Avoid high temperature
Solution 4.
Streamline Variation and Inventory Management
As the types of products sold on Pinkoi became more diverse, the original single-dimension product specifications were no longer sufficient. The lack of linkage between product specifications and inventory often resulted in buyers purchasing out-of-stock items.
Therefore, in this update, we designed two-dimensional product specifications, offering common general specification data and allowing sellers to customize specification names applicable to their store. Additionally, we enabled sellers to set different prices for different specifications, which helps sellers create limited edition items without having to create a separate SKU. Each specification also has a corresponding inventory quantity, aiding sellers in better managing their sales on Pinkoi.
Price
Amount
Specifications
500
20
Size
XXS
Custom
XS
S
M
L
Design value
Transitioning from a Marketplace to a Professional E-commerce Platform
Pinkoi is a UGC (user-generated content) platform, where the information uploaded by sellers determines the overall tone of the platform. In the past, without sufficient guidelines, Pinkoi looked more like an auction site rather than a professional e-commerce platform with quality control.
As Pinkoi continues to expand its business scope, it needs to demonstrate its professionalism.
Therefore, the platform becomes increasingly important at this stage. I believe that revamping product information not only changes the appearance of Pinkoi but also redefines the brand’s tone.
1
Improving Search Results
Searching for products has always been a headache for the Pinkoi team, buyers, and sellers, often yielding irrelevant and inaccurate results.
However, after optimizing product names, we were able to help the engineering team improve the search algorithm, which in turn enhanced Pinkoi’s search results.
2
Infrastructure of Seller Paid-Advertisement
The revamped product structure provides more information, and the improved product names make the company’s algorithms more precise. This enables Pinkoi to recommend more similar products to users and allows sellers to promote their products through a paid advertising system based on the recommendation system. This also expanded Pinkoi’s advertising business by charging sellers for ads.
3
UI COMPONENT
We use Design System and UI Library to keep the visual consistency.
english
