FEATURE ADDITION
BOOK marketplace
Pangobooks
An easy way for both buyers and sellers to make offers and drive book sales
TIMELINE
Q3 2023
ROLE
UX/UI Designer
TOOLS
Figma, Figjam, Miro
CLIENT
Pangobooks
BACKGROUND
PangoBooks was founded in 2021, making it one of the newest book reselling platforms in the industry. Users can sell or buy used books on the website, as well as download the app on Android and Apple devices. 80% of Pangobooks users are based in the US with 56% visiting the website on mobile devices.
PROJECT TYPE
This was a creative exploration independent of Pangobooks. I was in close contact with one of the marketing team members in order to gain business insights.
USER PROBLEM
Pangobooks buyers and sellers interested in bundles and rare items find negotiating through messages limiting
Since Pangobooks is a marketplace for used books, sellers in the platform are having a hard time selling used books individually. Because of that, sellers have found much more success selling their books through bundle offers and price negotiations for rare items. Through a survey I conducted, I found that majority of users seem discouraged negotiating all-together on the platform due to the lack of a streamlined negotiating system and the awkwardness that comes with negotiating through chat.
SOLUTION EXPLORED
A make an offer feature that allows both sellers and buyers to gain control over their negotiations
Buyers can make offers on both individual and bundled books
Seller can set the minimum amount they are willing to accept from buyers when listing items to prevent lowballs
Sellers can send bulk offers to users that have placed items in their cart
Users can opt-in and -out of negotiations whenever they want
preliminary research
Pangobooks testimonials encouraged me to dig deeper into the why behind the desire for a make an offer feature
In an online official Facebook group called “Pangobooks Users”, I asked a couple questions to get an idea of the users’ current priorities and to check whether there was a real interest in a negotiating system within Pangobooks.
“Based on your experience with Pangobooks, are there any things you wish Pangobooks did differently?”
“What are some things that would benefit you as a current user?”
After asking questions like the ones above, this is what current users had to say:
MY APPROACH
Knowing that users were interested in making offers was a good start. However, I had to conduct more research to identify particular pain points users were experiencing with driving sales and opportunities that exist to address those pain points.
COMPetitive ANALYSIS
Do other book marketplaces offer features and tools that makes it easier for users to negotiate prices?
I was able to compare negotiation systems between major competitors and identify tools used to assist users in making decisions and driving sales. Overall, it seems that Ebay and Mercari offer the most advanced negotiation tools for both buyers and sellers in order to help them drive sales.
survey
To better understand and identify trends among book buying and selling motivations, behaviors and pain points, I conducted a survey. The survey was conducted on a mix of Pangobooks users and non-Pangobook users. I created a set of questions for all participants that were book buyers with an additional set for those that were also experienced in selling books.
Seller Motivations
82% of sellers surveyed were individual sellers
What does this mean? Individual sellers sell books that they already own. They do not sell books at a scale that professional sellers would, but may still have a following or a social media presence.
What are the sellers’ main goal?
Selling more to buy more
Based on the fact that 82% of sellers are not professional sellers, it makes sense that most participants surveyed did not care a lot about maximizing their profit. Individual sellers prioritize making enough profit in order to fund their book reading habits and clearing out their space to make space for new books.
Negotiation Results
Most sellers surveyed did not prioritize negotiating prices with buyers
That was a surprising finding since several Pangobooks users expressed an interest in a negotiatIon system. Because I didn’t know how to interpret this finding, I decided to ask follow up questions to gather more insights.
Insights from negotiators
The pros of negotiating
#1. Bundle offers
Making offers on bundles is beneficial, especially for used books, which are harder to sell individually and are priced lower than new ones. The benefits are multiple: more book shelf space, less trips to the post office, less packaging.
#2. Collectibles/ Rare books
Buyers that collect rare books have a set budget that they want to meet. To meet their budget, they are more likely to negotiate the price with the seller.
Insights from non-negotiators
The cons of negotiating
#1. Sellers lose profit when negotiating for a lower price due to selling fees.
For example, Pangobooks charges 20% selling fee, which is significant when users negotiate for a discounted price. As a result, sellers whose goal is to maximize their profits do not like to negotiate.
#2. Sellers feel uncomfortable having to haggle every time to secure a sale
Mercari, for example, has a variety of features available that allow both buyers and seller to haggle, so much so that buyers will haggle for most items they are interested in. Unfortunately, sellers cannot opt out of this feature. As a result, sellers are discouraged to use a platform that uses haggling as a default option and doesn’t allow users to have much control over it.
Buyer Habits
25-34
67% of participants were of the age 25-34 years old
At least once a month
48% of interviewees purchase books at least once a month
Printed
94% of buyers prefer to buy books in printed form
Buyer motivations
What do buyers value the most when deciding on a purchase?
Book condition, competitive pricing, and free shipping are top considerations
According to the above results, most buyers will spend most of their energy trying to find the best condition for the best price.
Participants like to compare prices of books between different vendors in order to get the best deal.
Participants are attracted to free shipping and will often purchase more books at a time (bundles) in order to save on shipping.
Based on this information, I assumed there is an opportunity for users to save even more if they are able to negotiate a fair price for bundles.
USER INTERVIEWS
Since I wanted to dive deeper into buyer and seller motivations, user and needs behind negotiating, I decided to conduct interviews.
Age 26-45 years old, 4 buyers and 1 Pangobooks seller
Book lovers
People that have an interest in selling or buying used books
Moderated remote user interviews via Zoom 45 minutes long
KEY FINDINGS FROM AFFINITY MAPPING
#1. Buyers are skeptical about initiating negotiations
Buyers sometimes feel lost about coming up with a good offer to suggest and are anxious that they might come off as rude. Other times, they are afraid of being portrayed as stealing from the seller or being “cheap”.
#2. Buyers do not like the back and forth of negotiating
Users would prefer it if they had a more impersonal and straightforward way of sending offers to the seller, since messaging directly takes time and is more confrontational than they are comfortable with.
Knowing this, I wanted to come up with a solution that would facilitate the process of negotiations, allowing sellers to have more control over negotiations, while also making it less intimidating for buyers to participate in negotiations.
IDEATE
How might we foster a positive and productive negotiation interaction between buyers and sellers in the platform?
I used analogous inspiration combined with a time constraint session in order to brainstorm ideas. Analogous inspiration helped me the most because I analyzed how successful marketplaces, like Ebay and Mercari, tackle user needs within their negotiation systems.
feature roadmap
I placed higher priority on the features that were essential for a successful negotiation interaction - the option to make an offer, the option to opt-out of negotiations, the option for sellers to send offers to interested buyers, smart offers and bundle offers. The rest of the features in the roadmap are meant to address the concerns that certain users had while negotiating prices. Due to the lower utility of these features and limited time, I placed them lower in the priority scale.
THE user flows
In order to add the new negotiation feature, I had to construct a user flow that utilized existing elements of the app and that was intuitive to both buyers and sellers.
Why add the new feature on the app? I decided to incorporate it on the app since the app allowed for more functionalities, such as “listing books to sell”. In addition to that, since more than 50% of Pangobooks users visit the website on their phone, I assumed that they would be managing their account on the app more frequently than on the website.
Among other things, the user flows helped me explore:
What pages to include the “make an offer” button in
At what stage would users be asked to input their payment information, since the offers are binding
What scenarios may lead to the user not wanting to accept an offer and what alternative actions would encourage further engagement
TASK flows
I created four task flows, two for sellers and two for buyers, in order to see how both types of users would interact with the new feature.
My main challenges with these flows were:
To find a starting and ending point that felt intuitive to the user, for example the notification directing the user to the listing negotiation area instead of the cart
To ensure that previewing the offer before sending it is a useful step in the negotiation process instead of being redundant (and validating that through user testing)
SELLER TASK FLOWS
Buyer TASK FLOWS
LOW FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Below I am showing how I integrated the new feature into the Pangobook’s original account page, my listings page and my cart page (buyers’ flow).
high FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Buyer Task Flow 1: Make a bundle offer
Buyer Task Flow 2: Edit bundle offer and resend
TESTING
User testing was done to the 5 interviewees (age 27-45) that ranged from avid readers and book industry professionals to occasional readers. The interviews were conducted remotely through Zoom.
Tasks tested:
2 seller flows (sending bulk offers to buyers that have added the seller’s item in the cart, sending a counteroffer to a buyer’s counteroffer)
2 buyer flows (adding two items in the cart and sending a bundle offer to seller, editing a bundle offer after one of the items in the bundle was sold)
I would like to know
How satisfied are both buyers and sellers with their experience of the “make an offer” feature?
How likely are users to adopt the new feature? What motivates them or does not motivate them to use it?
Success Metrics
Most participants made at least one error during the usability test.
Users were able to recover from their errors quickly. The main error that users were experiencing was that they couldn’t identify the tabs on the top section of the “My Listings” page. 1 out of 5 participants wasn’t able to complete one of the tasks because of this error.
Since these tabs are already part of Pangobook’s current design system, I tried to find a solution that would not require altering them.
Namina Forna
The Gilded Ones
$15
Send offer to carts
2
4
Home
Feed
Sell
Wishlist
Account
Namina Forna
The Gilded Ones
$15
Send offer to carts
2
4
Kerri Maniscalco
Kingdom of the Feared (Fairyloot)
$50
Send offer to carts
2
2
Sarah J. Maas
A Court of Thorns and Rsoses (Collector’s Editions)
$45
Send offer to carts
1
2
Home
Feed
Sell
Wishlist
Account
In Carts
3
Wishlisted
4
Offers Sent
0
Listed
5
10:49
61%
Search...
Rate of ease
How satisfied are users with their experience of the “make an offer” feature?
A Feature that supports Negotiations and drives sales
The feature was received really positively. All the above testimonials validated that the new feature would help anxious buyers gain more confidence in asking for a discount, as well as make it easy for buyers and sellers to negotiate and give them a sense of control. Sellers in particular felt confident that having the new feature would drive more sales by removing the friction of direct messaging.
REVISIONS
Prioritization
I analyzed the user’s feedback on a matrix of severity vs frequency. I focused on iterating on the outlined feedback, since they were the most frequent and of higher severity.
FINAL PROTOTYPE
Clicking on each screen will start the prototype.
Sending bulk offers to carts
Making a counteroffer to a buyer’s counteroffer
Sending a bundle offer to seller
Editing bundle offer with sold item
Pangobook’s Input on “Make on Offer” Feature
Since I wanted to learn more about Pangobooks’ business goals, I asked the head of marketing a few questions regarding the make an offer feature.
Pangobooks and myself have had common concerns regarding the feature, some of them being that buyers may initiate offers even if they are willing to pay full price or lowball their offers.
Another consideration is that Pango consists of a small team with the main goal of prioritizing different good competing ideas against each other and fixes that developers need to work on.
wHAT i LEARNED
Not letting assumptions get in the way of my research
Having a background in online selling, I made from the start assumptions of what I expected the interviewees to respond, which led me to ask questions with a solution in mind. Discussing with my design peers and being reminded that I need to start my research with an open mind and focus on understanding buyer and user motivations first, helped me gain my focus back and get more valuable insights in the end.
Working with the current design system enhances consistency, but has its limitations
Working with the Pangobooks’ current design system accelerated my design process as I didn’t have to create all elements from scratch. However, I was restricted from iterating on Pangobooks’ current design elements, which affected my usability test results. The information I got from my usability testing was still valuable and was an opportunity for me to suggest solutions that worked well with the current state of the Pangobook’s UI system.
wHAT i would have done differently
Using a more advanced questionnaire would have yielded more useful results
If I were to use a more advanced questionnaire, I would have been able to combine different statistics together and gather more cohesive insights. For example, if I was able to measure what “x%” of negotiators were both buyers and sellers or were using only one platform or multiple for selling, would have helped making connections and forming a more representative persona.
NEXT STEPS
Test revisions during second round of usability testing with primarily Pangobooks users
Designing elements necessary for a complete negotiation system, such as the My Offers Page