Brand Onboarding Redesign
SUMMARY
This project was for Abound (helloabound.com) where I was the founding designer for its two-sided marketplace. Abound is a curated e-commerce platform for buying and selling wholesale.
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Two of the core pillars for Abound's mission were scalability and growth. In order to build for this, we needed to have a seamless onboarding experience that enabled brands to launch their shop and be ready to start selling on Abound quickly.
ROLE
Product Designer
RESPONSIBILITIES
User Research
Wireframing
Product Strategy
UX Copywriting
Prototyping
User Testing
TEAM
Product Designer (me)
Product Manager
3 Engineers
THE CHALLENGE
Brands Aren't Launching With a Ready-to-Sell Shop
One of our offerings to retailers was that new brands would be added to the platform weekly. Through previous user interviews with retailers, and watching retailers shop on FullStory (a platform that captures every user interaction) we knew that a retailer's first stop on Abound was typically the "New Arrivals" section where they would look for new brands to discover and shop from. This meant that having brands onboarded quickly and ready to sell was important. But we were observing two main challenges:
Challenge 1: Brands start, but don't complete, onboarding, and therefore never launch their shop
Challenge 2: Brands complete onboarding and launch their shop, but it's not in a good place to sell (incorrect assets uploaded, bad photos etc.)
THE SOLUTION
Multi-Step In-App Guide
By redesigning onboarding as a multi-step in-app guide, we would:
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Provide clarity: Clearly outline each step for brands to set up their shop successfully.
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Educate: Offer best practice tips to help brands optimize their shop
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Streamline catalog submission: Allow brands to submit their product catalog in-app
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Offer support: Give brands easy access to help and resources throughout the process
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Focus efforts: Lock brands into the onboarding process, ensuring they complete each step before moving forward
USER RESEARCH
Where Are Users Getting Stuck and Why?
While we had a hypothesis that the solution to our challenge was a multi-step in-app guide, I wanted to gain validity. In order to do this, I worked with coworkers from the brand success team (who had been the closest to the issues happening with the current onboarding process), to come up with a list of assumptions. These assumptions were based on what brands asked for help with during onboarding, and what they observed that brands hadn't done well when conducting brand assessments. I then interviewed seven brands who had been approved to sell in the marketplace and had started, but not completed, onboarding.
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I conducted the seven brand interviews via Zoom where I had the brand share their screen and complete onboarding. I asked them to talk out loud while they completed each step and verbally share any frustrations/ideas/thoughts they had.
Original onboarding flow
After each brand user interview, I filled out an assumptions table, testing the same assumptions with each user.
Assumptions table filled out after an interview
USER STORIES & FLOWS
Seeing it in the Context of the User
Using the insights gleaned from the user interviewers, I put together user stories to lay out the focus for the redesign:
“I want to be guided throughout.”
“I want to be able to ask for help."
“I want to see where I am in the process.”
“I want to see where my images will go.”
“I want to see examples of the images I'm adding.”
"I want to know what my shop will look like as I build it."
“I want to know the status of my product catalog upload."
For this project, I was only redesigning the brand onboarding experience once they were approved to sell in the marketplace, but I wanted to lay out the user's entire journey to give me a full picture:
Flow for user before they begin onboarding
Proposed onboarding flow
IDEATING & WIREFRAMES
Exploring Different Options
With a clear understanding of user needs, I moved into wireframing, designing desktop-first since most brands used Abound on their computers. I presented two options to the team for feedback.
Option 1
Option 1 was the most simple, straightforward approach: I reorganized the existing fields in brand settings and structured them within a stepper layout.
Pro: Simplest approach with minimal engineering lift.
Con: Lacks the guided experience brands requested, provides limited space for detailed guidelines/examples, may still feel overwhelming, and doesn’t clearly display shop progress.
Option 2
Option 2 proposed a more complete redesign, with a reimagining of each step.
Pro: More visual; the hand-holding experience brands want; less information requested in each step is less overwhelming and allows for more focus on each task; provides more guidelines for images; provides examples for reference
Con: Larger scope; potentially takes brand longer time to complete which could result in them abandoning
Decison: Option 2
The team felt that Option 1 didn’t offer a significant improvement over the current setup and wouldn’t help us achieve our goal of brands launching with a shop optimized for sales. They anticipated that, with Option 1, the same volume of brands would still need guidance, which our small Brand Success team couldn’t support at the scale we were aiming for.
Option 2 user flow; wireframes for "build brand shop" step
GUIDED ONBOARDING
Creating a Hand-Holding Experience
Creating a hand-holding onboarding experience was essential for the redesign's success, so I focused on adding key features to achieve that goal.
Having a progress home screen
A key feature of the redesigned onboarding was the progress home screen, which displayed all the steps and sub-steps a user needed to complete to launch their shop. This gave them a clear overview of what they’d completed and what still lay ahead. After completing each main step, they’d be directed back to the home screen for easy reorientation. Plus, if they ever felt lost, they could save their spot and return to the home screen to get a full view of their progress.
Completing the last sub-step of step 1 and being directed back to the progress home screen to see progress
Seeing a visual of their shop progress
To give brands a sense of their shop as it came together—helping them see progress and make sure they were using the right assets—I added a live preview to the progress home screen. As they moved through each step, the preview would automatically update, building excitement as they watched their shop take shape for launch.
Letting the user see what their shop looks like while they move through the steps. You'll notice there are no products shown. That is because the user has not added their products yet.
Including tips and examples
When relevant, I added clear tips for choosing the right images and other best practices. I also provided examples showing how and where each image would appear in their shop.
Showing guidelines and tips for what image to choose, and highlighting where it would appear in their shop
Having an option to get help at any point
At any point during their journey, if a user had a question, they would would be able to choose a way to get in touch with the brand support team.
Giving the user 3 different options for getting in touch to get help
EVOKING THE RIGHT EMOTIONS
Creating a Sense of Community and Excitement
Having been with Abound since the beginning, I had interviewed dozens of brands across various projects. A recurring theme I noticed was that brands highly value a sense of community, something we always aimed to foster on Abound.
Seeing Other Brands Live On Abound
To build a sense of community during onboarding and spark excitement about launching their shop, I included photos of brands that had already launched, along with their launch dates.
Using images of brands already launched on Abound to give a sense of community
Getting Congratulated on Launching
I added a congratulations screen at the very end to really amplify the excitement of launching. The brand had put in a lot of work to build their shop, and it was definitely something to celebrate!
Since our goal was to get brands ready to start selling quickly, I included a CTA on the congratulations screen to schedule a brand assessment (a service the brand support team was already offering with great success). I also added a link to join our maker group on Facebook, where brands could ask questions and support each other
Final screen of onboarding
BUSINESS GOALS
Taking Business Goals Into Account
To drive sales, we needed retailers to sign up and start shopping. One way we encouraged this was through our Boost referral program, where brands could invite their retailers and offer them a sign-up credit. To maximize Boost’s visibility, we decided to integrate it as a dedicated step within the onboarding flow, capturing the brand’s full attention.
Push to take advantage of our Boost referral program during onboarding
Unlike the other onboarding steps, we couldn’t make adding retailers to Boost mandatory, so I needed to build in some flexibility. I included a 'skip for now' option on the Boost screen so brands could move forward if they weren't ready to add their retailers just yet.
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But since Boost was key to achieving our business goals, I wanted one more touchpoint to nudge brands toward adding their contacts. I added this final reminder in the last step before launching.
Encouraging users to take advantage of Boost one last time
USER TESTING
Does It Solve the Problem?
To thoroughly test the redesign, I created a prototype and user-tested it with six brands, receiving very positive feedback. Users conveyed:
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Navigation was easy, with steps that felt simple and straightforward.
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Image placement was clear, and they knew exactly where images would appear in their shop.
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They liked the consistent format and appreciated the ability to personalize their shop.
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The visual design of each screen was engaging and well-received.
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Tips were helpful and well-timed throughout the process.
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Multiple options for reaching brand support were valued and appreciated.
THE FINAL PRODUCT
Bringing it All Together
After several iterations with copy and UI changes, the designs for the feature were ready. I designed desktop-first because the majority of brands accessed Abound on a desktop computer.
RESULTS & KEY TAKEAWAYS
How Successful Was the Feature?
​The new onboarding flow had a positive impact on our goals:​
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There was a big improvement in the time it took a brand to launch their shop. In 2021, on average, it took a brand 36.17 days to complete onboarding, and in 2022 the average was 16.12 days.
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There was an increase in the number of brands that launched their shop. When comparing the number of brands that launched their shop during the same period (Jan - June) in 2021 and 2022, in 2021 45% launched and in 2022 56% launched.​
36.17
Days it took brands, on average, to complete onboarding pre redesign
16.2
Days it took brands, on average, to complete onboarding post redesign
45%
Brands that launched pre redesign
56%
Brands that launched post redesign
A Consideration
Even though the project was well-received by brands, in retrospect I do wonder if we could have started with option 1, the simpler iteration. While option 2 may have been the better user experience, the scope of it was too big and we ended up removing some of the features (Boost referral program, preview page) so that we could launch within our given time frame.​​ There were also a lot of bugs and the Q&A for the feature took weeks. Option 1 would still have been an improvement to the original onboarding flow and we never user-tested it to see if it would achieve our goal. As a company, we were iterating on our process of building features, and going forward we moved to a more agile framework where the scope of projects was smaller so that we could get a feature out quickly and start gaining feedback early on.​
