Case Study
Designing an instant shipping cost generator for high value goods and collectibles
ARTA Shipping, 2018 - 2021 – Supply Chain/Logistics (B2B2C, SaaS)
Problem Statement
High value goods and collectibles have complex shipping requirements.
Depending on variables like size, material, final destination and desired speed of delivery, these goods may require services like custom packing & crating, import/export documentation and white glove installation. All of which can only be provided by specialized supply chain vendors.
Historically, calculating these specialized shipping costs was an offline activity that took days. This often led to a “cooling period” during the online sales process which resulted in lower conversion for vendors like galleries and auction houses.
Solution
The ARTA product team built a solution that could return pricing in seconds at the Point of Sale, increasing conversion and improving the buyer experience.
My role:
Lead Designer – User Research, UX/UI Design, Prototyping, QA
Team credits:
Kelsey Conophy - Product Management
Joselyn Mujica - Product Management
Craig Holden - Engineering
Jay Choo - Engineering
Dylan Fareed - Engineering
Background & Research
ARTA began its startup journey in the post-sale space, as a specialized shipping broker for galleries, who routinely tender multiple shipping bids to present to their buyers.
We learned, through customer interaction, that one of the biggest pain points was the length of time (typically hours if not days) it took to receive quotes from specialized shipping vendors. This often led to a “cooling period” during the sales process which resulted in lower conversion. ARTA had a lot of data in its platform from sourcing such quotes, and as a product team we hypothesized that we could leverage that data to build an instant quoting tool.
I facilitated user research sessions with ARTA’s vendors and internal logistics team that developed our understanding of the initial product opportunities and limitations, and established some margin thresholds and measurements for success. This resulted in a brief for an MVP (minimum viable product) we could develop and release, quickly, to garner feedback.
A service map of the buying experience for high value goods before ARTA’s instant shipping cost generator
A cross section of user research work
Sketches breaking down the ARTA request intake form and an early version of the instant shipping cost generator UX flow
Designs, Prototypes & Pilots
We launched a quoting tool within 3 months, that we stress tested at the December Art Fairs in Florida, a hotbed of on-site sales.
V1 (MVP) of the instant shipping cost generator–this was limited to US Domestic Road Freight to begin with
Initially the product was limited to handling US domestic shipments only, and filtered the exception cases through to our logistics team. Early feedback was positive and the results were encouraging. We moved forward with development to broaden the service offering to multiple geographies, and aimed to further test the functionality with a series of targeted pilots.
We demonstrated the new pre-sale and point-of-sale shipping cost capabilities that could now be offered “powered by ARTA” via prototypes to secure client participation. This was an early glimpse into the functionality of the future API we would come to build as the original ARTA business model began to pivot toward enterprise-level SaaS.
Screens from a prototype of the instant shipping cost generator, used to secure a live trial with Sotheby’s auction house
An early iteration of the instant shipping cost generator UI, incorporating common carriers and multiple tier rates
We ran pilots with industry leading clients, such as Sotheby’s, Phillips and Artsy during dedicated online sales and auctions.
These pilots provided more data and critical product learnings. For example, discerning buyers still wanted to see multiple shipping options so they could make a choice based on their shipping preferences and budget. Having leaned away from presenting more than one estimate, we changed course and began to include “common carrier” estimates alongside our specialized quotes and started presenting rates in different tiers: ARTA premium, ARTA select and ARTA parcel offering different combinations of services. This level of choice really resonated with our clients and their buyers.
Outcomes
The product learnings from running these pilots enabled a significant company expansion.
ARTA pivoted from offering post-sale services only (shipping management, tracking etc.) and operating on a commission based model, to offering a whole suite of additional point of sale products (a checkout integration for instant shipping quotes and transaction management), with a SaaS based business model.
The customer base and business grew quickly and secured $11m in Series A funding shortly thereafter.
UI Designs for the integrated checkout solution that evolved from the original shipping cost generator
UI Designs for the shipment and integration management dashboard