B-Stock Solutions

Simplifying the Seller Experience

Restructuring the product architecture to create a seamless user experience and unlock future business growth

person

role

Product Design Intern

access_time_filled

timeline

10 Weeks (Jun. - Aug. 2024)

work

skills

Design Systems, Product Architecture, Prototyping, Storytelling

group

team

2 Product Managers, 3 Product Designers

brush

tools

Figma, Figjam, Lucidcharts

overview

My internship at B-Stock, a B2B marketplace that digitizes the selling of overstock inventory for major companies (imagine eBay for Costco), began with a seemingly straightforward task: designing the user flow for a new product.

However, this task quickly uncovered a bigger problem. The platform was built on separate products, which created a confusing seller experience and technical debt. Adding a new separate product would worsen these issues.

This realization prompted my project to pivot from a single feature to a full-scale strategic redesign. I worked closely with product, engineering, and design teams to redesign the platform's core architecture, merging fragmented products into a single cohesive framework that creates a seamless experience for sellers and supports long-term growth for B-Stock.

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achievements

impact

While the full implementation was scheduled to begin after my internship, the new framework and designs I delivered still had an immediate and clear impact:

Shaped Company-Wide Strategy

My final presentation, which introduced the new unified model to the company, was so successful that the Head of Marketing adopted my slides for official internal material for explaining the platform's new vision. This demonstrated the clarity and power of the new concept

Accelerated Future Development

By redesigning the architecture to eliminate redundant codebases, this was projected to significantly reduce future development effort. The new model also paved the way to launch new product types with minimal additional architectural work

Simplified the Seller Experience

The new unified framework and the initial flows I designed laid the essential groundwork for a simplified, cohesive seller experience. This directly addressed the user confusion and fragmentation that had challenged the previous platform, and made it easier for B-Stock to explain and market the product to potential customers

Contributed to Design System

To support the new, unified designs, I contributed several new and updated components to B-Stock's design system. This work helped ensure that future designs would be built consistently and efficiently by the team

reflection

learnings

thrown into the deep end

With other designers occupied with other projects, I became the point person for designs despite being just an intern. During my first week, I was initially overwhelmed by the responsibility of meeting with senior stakeholders. However, with my manager's encouragement, I quickly found my footing. This experience taught me to trust my design instincts, advocate for my decisions, and transform a challenge into a significant opportunity for growth.

designs as a tool for clarity

In early meetings with product managers and engineers, I was hesitant to contribute beyond taking notes. The turning point came when I started creating simple lo-fi wireframes during discussions to visualize ideas in real-time. This simple act transformed my role from a passive observer to an active facilitator, using design to anchor conversations and foster true collaboration

lessons from the finish line

Towards the end of my internship, I was entrusted with the design handoff to engineering while the other designers were away. Answering their specific, technical questions was a crash course in what truly matters for implementation. This taught me the importance of meticulous documentation and how to bridge the gap between a design file and a final product.