SchoolShock is an online school supply marketplace for parents, students, and teachers to buy and sell used school supplies.

My seller flow is too complicated and my users are having trouble completing the task of listing an item.

Upon investigation of the website’s current seller flow, I found that the flow used a long wizard for sellers to fill out before they could list an item.

Then, the user was directed to an overwhelming dashboard.

I decided to turn to competitor analysis to sample some quick and easy-to-use seller flows from other popular marketplace websites.

After reviewing several popular marketplace websites like eBay, Etsy, and Grailed, there were two in particular that modeled the idea of ease of use and low-investment: Grailed and Ebay.

Grailed

Grailed, a men’s fashion marketplace, is both easy to use and is a low-investment for sellers. After the user sets up their account, they can start selling without filling out a lengthy wizard to set up their storefront. Their user interface is also to the point with minimal distractions, focusing on the task at hand.

Ebay

eBay, a global marketplace serving c2c and b2c, is probably the most easy to use and is still a low investment for their sellers. The best part about eBay, in my eyes, is that you can start listing an item to sell without creating an account right away. Essentially it removes the barrier to entry and only offers resistance once the user is invested in creating a listing.

After researching the seller flows of each marketplace, I outlined an ideal seller flow for SchoolShock. The seller flow encapsulated the best parts of both eBay and Grailed. It captured eBay’s jump-right-in approach where the user doesn’t have to create an account right at the start. The user starts listing an item and then creates an account once they are invested in following through. I also captured Grailed’s ease of use through their simple user interface layout and design.

After outlining SchoolShock’s user base and needs, conducting competitor analysis across three popular marketplaces, and analyzing their strengths and weaknesses I was able to formulate a seller flow that highlighted ease of use and low investment for their sellers.