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Design Consultant · Product Experience
2023 – 2024 · Rogaland, Norway (Remote)
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Zeproc: Designing for Industrial Procurement
Design Consultant · Product Experience
2023 – 2024 · Rogaland, Norway (Remote)
The Problem
Zeproc is a Norwegian B2B marketplace serving industrial procurement teams—100,000+ products, 100+ suppliers. When I joined as sole design consultant in 2023, the platform had inventory and supplier relationships but a fragmented user experience.
Analysis of 6 months of support data revealed systematic failures across the entire buyer journey:
- Navigation categories were inconsistent, making discovery difficult
- Product pages buried critical specifications below the fold
- 28% abandoned orders due to unclear multi-supplier cost breakdowns
- 32% of users couldn't edit quantities without restarting checkout
- 21% contacted support to modify payment methods or delivery addresses
Discovery & Navigation
The existing navigation made product discovery harder than necessary. Categories were inconsistent, search returned irrelevant results, and buyers couldn't filter by the criteria that mattered—material type, stock availability, supplier location.
I restructured navigation around how buyers actually think: by category, by brand, by application. Search gained smarter filtering with material type, size range, stock status, and supplier filters. This wasn't about aesthetics—it was about reducing time to relevant results.
Working with the Chief Product Officer and engineering teams, we reorganized the entire information architecture to match buyer mental models, not backend structure.
Result: Buyers could now find products that met their specifications without multiple searches or support calls.
Product Pages That Answer Questions
Industrial buyers need to verify compatibility, check stock, and understand delivery timelines before adding to cart. The original product pages buried this information in PDFs or below the fold.
I redesigned product pages to front-load specifications, compatibility data, and stock availability. Everything needed for a purchasing decision moved above the fold. Technical specs, dimensions, material properties, delivery estimates—all immediately visible.
Bulk ordering options with quantity-based pricing and shipping thresholds became clear at the product level, not hidden until checkout.
Result: Buyers gained confidence at the point of decision, reducing abandoned carts and support inquiries about basic product information.
Multi-Supplier Cart Transparency
A single cart often contained items from three different suppliers, each with distinct shipping costs, delivery windows, and discount thresholds. The original cart treated this as one transaction, hiding per-supplier breakdowns.
I redesigned the cart to surface multi-supplier information upfront. Each supplier got a clearly delineated section showing their items, shipping costs, and delivery timeline. Buyers could see which items shipped together and adjust quantities strategically to hit discount thresholds.
The consolidated total included all fees and VAT, but per-supplier subtotals remained visible throughout. No surprises.
Result: Post-launch Trustpilot reviews consistently cited "clear pricing" and "transparent costs"—problems that previously generated support tickets.
Inline Editing Without Restarts
Procurement orders change. Support logs showed buyers contacting the team to modify quantities, update delivery addresses, or switch payment methods—tasks that forced them to restart checkout.
I introduced inline editing for all critical fields. Change quantities, add addresses, switch payment methods—all without losing progress. The system recalculated totals in real time and displayed a review banner showing exactly what changed.
Address management became especially important. Industrial buyers ship to job sites, warehouses, and client locations—not a single headquarters. The new address manager let users add, edit, and select from saved addresses inside checkout, with validation to catch errors before submission.
Result: Task completion for mid-checkout modifications increased from 40% to 100%. Support requests for order changes dropped 68%.
Streamlined Checkout Flow
The original flow had too many stages. I consolidated it to three clear steps: Cart → Checkout → Confirmation. Each stage had a defined purpose. Progress indicators showed location. Buttons used outcome-focused language—"Review Order," not "Next."
This didn't remove complexity; it organized it better. All necessary information remained—shipping, payment, terms—but presented in a sequence matching buyer mental models, not backend structure.
Usability testing with 10 procurement managers confirmed faster task completion and higher confidence in order accuracy.
The visual and structural changes we made addressed that. The platform started to feel coherent rather than piecemeal. Buyers could move through the entire journey—discovery to purchase—without confusion or unnecessary detours.
Impact
I redesigned Zeproc's end-to-end procurement experience—from discovery to checkout—increasing task completion rates across critical friction points:
- Quantity edits: 40% → 100% success (previously required restart)
- Address changes: 30% → 90% success
- Payment switching: 50% → 90% success
- Checkout completion: 60% → 100%
What Made This Work
Started with documented problems. Every design decision addressed a specific failure point identified through support data, analytics, and user testing—not assumptions.
Treated transparency as core functionality. Multi-supplier breakdowns, real-time recalculations, and clear audit trails weren't decorative. They were essential for buyer confidence.
Designed within constraints. Close collaboration with engineering meant evaluating feasibility early. We shipped what could be built on schedule and actually worked.