Bringing convenience to the convenience store. Designed 0-to-1 B2B e-commerce platform for wholesale distributor, bringing convenience to rural convenience stores. Digitized the ordering process for stores that had relied on phone calls, faxes, and paper catalogs for decades.
Role: UX Designer and Researcher. Team: 3 Designers. Timeline: 4 Weeks. Stack: Figma, Google Workspace, Notability.
Rural convenience stores operate with limited technology infrastructure and store owners who are comfortable with analog ordering processes. The challenge was designing a digital platform that felt as simple as picking up the phone, while adding the efficiency and accuracy benefits of e-commerce. The platform needed to work for users with varying levels of technical literacy and unreliable internet connections.
Conducted user research with convenience store owners, wholesale distribution staff, and delivery drivers to understand the end-to-end ordering workflow. Mapped the existing analog process from catalog browsing through phone ordering to delivery, identifying friction points and opportunities for improvement. Competitive analysis revealed that existing B2B e-commerce solutions were designed for tech-savvy urban businesses, not rural store operators.
Designed for legacy systems and simplified the transition from analog to digital. Created a platform that mirrored familiar mental models from the physical catalog while adding digital conveniences like order history, reordering, and real-time inventory. Prioritized simplicity and reliability over feature richness, ensuring the core ordering flow could be completed in minimal steps.
Built interactive prototypes in Figma and tested with actual store owners in their work environments. Iterated based on feedback around navigation patterns, product search, and checkout flows. The final design reduced average order time and improved order accuracy by eliminating manual transcription errors from phone orders.
Digitizing a legacy business? A designer makes the analog-to-digital transition seamless.