Overview:

Problem: To demonstrate my interest in OfferUp, I put together this document to supplement my application and show my thoughts for optimizing the final third of the market place funnel.

Role: Product Manager applicant

Introduction:

To demonstrate my interest in OfferUp, I’ve put together this document to supplement my application and show some of my thoughts for optimizing the final third of the market place funnel.

Mission alignment:

In thinking through this case, I will try to align as much as possible with OfferUp’s mission to be a marketplace on a mission to become the simplest, most trustworthy local buying and selling experience; as well as vision: “We empower people to connect and prosper.”

Framing the checkout funnel:

I focused on the final third of the buyer market place experience, which based on my understanding roughly corresponds to a ‘checkout’ funnel, or the customer journey from the time they select an item they are interested in purchasing up to the completion of the sale.

Based on my own experience and information from the interviews, this funnel looks something like this: the buyer contacts the seller to make sure the item is still available, maybe asks questions about the item, maybe negotiates price, and makes a plan to pick up the item, then pays for the item.

Interviews and findings:

I conducted three customer interviews to learn more about the customer experience and form a basis for thinking about improvements. I held one longer interview with my roommate Grace, and brief interviews with two friends, Kalle and Kalena. All three customers are women in their mid 30s.

All three customers expressed positive feelings overall, saying things like, “the app is way simpler to use than Craigslist” and “the messaging interface feels so user friendly.”

A few pain points emerged from the interviews. Kalena mentioned that she often gets ghosted when arranging a pickup day for an item, or forgets to respond to messages herself; Grace mentioned frustration around having to pay in cash or using the OfferUp payment feature (”I always want to use Venmo or cash, and especially Venmo if the item is expensive. No one wants to set up another payment thing.”); and Grace also mentioned difficulties picking up larger items because her car is small. She has had to pass on items because there is not a simple way for her to move them.

Both Grace and Kalle also discussed issues with receiving items that do not perform as expected, such as clothes not fitting or electronics that don’t work. Grace brought up that she no longer purchases any type of electronics because she’s worried they won’t work. Kalle mentioned that it was difficult to quickly resell items that don’t meet her needs.

In my own experience using OfferUp, I had the most friction around messaging back and forth to arrange a pickup time for items, including being ghosted.

Issue summary:

1. “Ghosting” or delays during messaging

2. Feeling of a lack of payment options

3. Difficulty picking up large items

4. Items not meeting expectations

Solution ideation:

“Ghosting” or delays during messaging:

Ghosting or other delays with messaging is a partially behavioral issue. I feel like we could go in two directions with helping change the behavior: we could be punitive or helpful. I think the helpful route is more in line with OfferUp’s vision of working to “empower people to connect and prosper.”

A simple way to assist could be a ‘nudge’: a notification that reminds a user they have an unread message or a message they haven’t responded to. Gmail has a feature that asks you if you want to respond to emails in your inbox that have been sitting for more than a few days: a similar feature to remind users to respond to messages could be be useful in facilitating the communication in this step.

Potential solution summary:

1. Send notifications to remind sellers about messages they haven’t responded to

Feeling of a lack of payment options:

The feeling of a lack of payment options could be approached in two ways: by making the OfferUp payment feature feel simpler to set up (which aligns with the mission of becoming the simplest buying and selling experience), or by allowing additional payment methods in the app.

The OfferUp payment feature in my opinion is already quite simple, so I think focusing on additional payment methods would be offer more value. Adding Venmo, CashApp, Zelle (if possible), and other services would allow customers to choose a payment method that works best for them. Apps like Lyft and Grubhub have this feature so I would imagine that are APIs available. If we wanted to go this route, we would want to prioritize the different payment options by customer interest.

Difficulty picking up large items:

I think pickup for large items could be approach with features that support the buyer and the seller directly, or that bring in third party services. A ‘willing to deliver’ flag on postings could be useful for buyers to know whether or not they need to arrange pickup, or a feature that would allow an additional fee for the delivery of the item.

Another approach could be to pair the buyer and seller with a third party delivery company that would move the item. At its most simple, this could be a link to the website of a single delivery company. A more complex version of this feature could be a feature in the app that lists different delivery companies as options and schedules the delivery between the buyer, the seller, and the company. Linking the buyer to rental services, such as Zipcar or Uhaul, could be an additional option as well.

Potential solution summary:

1. ‘Willing to deliver’ flag for the listing

2. Add delivery fee to the listing

3. Pairing the buyer and seller with a third party shipping company

4. Zipcar or Uhaul option for the buyer

Prioritizing the potential solutions:

As a next step, I would attempt to gather additional data and interviews to validate the ten options, and prioritize them using product value matrix that compares work to business value. Using the information I have available, a high level value matrix might look something like the following. Depending on metrics, resources and team goals, I would likely want to prioritize ‘Low effort / high value’ or ‘High effort / High value’.

Product value matrix:

Case study links: