Evaluated and identified cost-effective product content solutions for Zalando's Preowned experience.
The Pre-owned product team was focused on achieving a new, cost-effective business goal. With several ideas for optimization but no clear direction, the team was blocked.
My research was initiated to provide the clarity needed to move forward and help uncover which types of content would most effectively build customer trust and confidence in second-hand items.
I employed a mixed-methods approach to provide the insights necessary to confidently inform the solution design.
Qualitative Insights: Conducted in-depth interviews and concept tests to evaluate different buyer and seller flows.
Quantitative Insights: I collaborated with the product team to test different UX copy variations and validate qualitative findings with on-site data.
Impact
My research provided a data-driven foundation that allowed the team to confidently move forward with a clear, user-centered roadmap.
Prioritized must-have features: Narrow the scope for the first milestone by focusing on high-impact, essential features.
Influenced key design decisions: Drove a core design change by highlighting the critical need for trust and transparency in product images.
Gave the team confidence with the data they needed to confidently proceed with a user-generated content A/B test—a direction they were previously hesitant to pursue.
Company
Zalando SE
Project Duration
Oct 2022 - Dec 2022
Role
User Researcher
Team
2 x product managers, 2 x designers, 1 x content designer
Project background
Project context
Zalando's Pre-owned category was facing a critical scalability challenge: generating product content for secondhand items was expensive and inefficient.
The problem
The team had multiple solutions on the table but no data to inform which path to take. The team's ambiguity stemmed from a lack of understanding about what information customers valued most when buying and selling pre-owned items.
My contribution
I led the research to provide the data and insights necessary to unblock the team, helping them confidently narrow their focus and define a strategic roadmap for the Pre-owned experience.
To align on the research focus, I met with product managers and designers to understand what decisions they needed to make and where they saw the biggest risks or challenges for users. These conversations helped me translate their concerns into clear research objectives and questions, which then guided my research plan.
This phase looked at three different aspects of the entire preowned experience:
Buyer flow | Informing product content
Testing three different product image approaches.
Key question: Which of these approaches would best enable customers to confidently evaluate and purchase pre-owned products.
Seller flow | Expanding the experience
Redesigning the experience to allow users to sell items not originally purchased on Zalando.
Key question: Test what concepts would encourage users to submit the necessary content, without negatively impacting the overall experience or lead time.
Overall: Uncovering core motivations
Key question: Customers' mental models and what they consider when evaluating the value of a secondhand item.
To understand what information a buyer needs to make a confident purchase, I mapped known user needs and behaviors on the Product Details Page (PDP). This work also informed what data we must collect from sellers, creating a clear and valuable feedback loop for the platform.
I designed and led a two-part, mixed-methods study to holistically evaluate the pre-owned experience. I divided the scope into two separate studies for each distinct user group: the buyer and the seller.
Buyer Flow: Online Semi Structured IDIs (6)
Seller Flow: In-person Semi Structured IDIs (6)
The one-on-one, in-depth interviews allowed us to gain a holistic view of user needs, enabling us to understand their world beyond our product and see how it compared to their current solutions. Breaking the research into two studies was crucial for tapping into the different mental models of secondhand fashion buyers and sellers.
The recruitment criteria were designed to gather a mix of:
Users and non-users of Zalando's pre-owned product
A mix of demographics, including age groups, genders, and users from various Zalando markets.
Both online and offline secondhand users, including participants with no online secondhand experience
With a new photo-taking feature in the seller flow, we needed to observe the experience firsthand. Due to a lack of time for remote distribution, we conducted in-person studies using a working iOS prototype.
Part 1: Discussion
Past experience of buying secondhand items.
Barriers to buying secondhand online
Part 2: Prototype review
Click-through prototype, showing catalog pages with products from multiple image sources.
Part 3: Different image source comparison
Participants then navigated through three different product detail pages.
Part 1: Discussion
Past experience / pain points with selling secondhand items online.
Part 2: Concept test
Tested a live prototype, showing 2 different category flows to users.
Thematic analysis: Identified recurring themes, captured insights into users' frustration, confusion, and positive experience
Data synthesis: Synthesised key findings with supporting evidence, mapped themes to actionable insights and next steps in collaboration with the product team
To ensure quick iteration and digestion of learnings, I ran an insight-action mapping session with the product team. This workshop helped us identify immediate action points and map the next steps for the roadmap.
Created a significant disconnect between user expectations and the actual product.
I designed an unmoderated copy test to explore how to communicate to customers that they were not seeing photos of the actual pre-owned item. I also worked with a content designer to define appropriate new UX copy for a product flag and onboarding description.
The findings from the copy test provided clear direction for the team to create a more transparent and trustworthy experience.
This strategic shift helped reduce customer confusion and build confidence in the product.
Additionally, while visuals were helpful for selecting size, they were not enough to provide confidence.
I identified these user experience issues and worked with the team to reduce the number of steps in the flow by reviewing and simplifying the required data across all categories. The team then iterated on the design based on these new category requirements.
Significantly reduce friction in the seller journey, leading to a streamlined and more intuitive user flow. This strategic redesign increased the likelihood that users would successfully list an item.
The new flow was then validated in a follow-up unmoderated test, which the Product Manager ran with minimal research support.
Working with a fast-paced product team was an eye-opening experience that sharpened my ability to deliver timely, actionable insights.
I gained a deeper appreciation for how user research can directly inform both business and design decisions, and I loved seeing my work impact the overall pre-owned service offering.
It was incredibly rewarding to see product managers and content designers take the initiative to run their own targeted follow-up research, which demonstrated a growing research-minded culture within the team.
This project provided me with the opportunity to run my first in-person study, a valuable experience that added a new skill to my toolkit.
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