Building new shipping index

Problem

  • In 2023, one of Shopify Shipping’s goals was to retain and increase label adoption for merchants purchasing at least 50 shipping labels/week. A big pain point for this group was the inability to manage shipments in bulk using our product—merchants often spent 1-2 hours each day doing manual shipping tasks instead of focusing on other parts of their businesses.

  • Interested in streamlining their operations, merchants were steadily churning from our platform for more powerful, flexible, and efficient offerings from competitors. Bulk functionality merchants were most interested in included printing and voiding shipping labels, tracking order delivery status, creating shipping manifests, and scheduling pickups from shipping carriers.

  • As a response to merchant pain points, my product teams planned to iteratively build more functionality and flexibility into Shopify Shipping in the short term. This would support the long-term goal of providing continual support to merchants as they grew their businesses and purchased more shipping labels.

  • Based on this, my plan was to own content design and lead UX on two converging work streams: define the ideal Shopify Shipping “green path”, and design and validate early product iterations of a shipping label index where merchants could work more efficiently in bulk.

Shipping label index, created as one of the first iterations of our product

My role

Research

  • Planned, wrote discussion guide, recruited and interviewed participants, and synthesized findings for a mixed concept test/usability study to validate the creation of a new shipping label-specific index. The research report I created became a source of truth for our multi-year initiative to improve Shopify Shipping.

  • After the team launched the first iteration of the shipping labe index, I conducted a round of unmoderated sessions to get feedback on my vision for scaling the page name and functionality. I also used these sessions to learn more about the concept of batches and how to represent them in the UI.

  • Created, launched, and reported on a survey to understand merchants’ needs around delivery tracking. This uncovered a new line of product development, and established opportunities for building cross-department strategy.

Excerpt from usability/concept test: high-level recommendations which would guide the development of shipping labels index.

Content design

  • Owned all UX writing across all iterations of the shipping label index. This included establishing and documenting new patterns for bulk actions, creating reusable content components for delivery tracking, and identifying new error scenarios and crafting messaging to help merchants recover.

  • Redefined the system of identifiers used to represent parts of an order. I aligned with content designers from the Orders and Fulfillment teams to introduce the concept of “shipment” (a group of fulfillments) and define a “shipping label” as the smallest piece of an order. Aiming to make these new definitions system-wide, I hosted weekly meetings with engineering leaders who were reworking technical systems.

  • Set the ground work for transitioning the “shipping label” index to the “shipment” index. This would scale the value of the page, making key functionality available to merchants doing work outside of Shopify Shipping, and creating new opportunities for acquisition and monetization.

  • Created value propositions to guide marketing’s promotion of the shipping label index across different markets. Crafted help documentation and guidance for support to ensure new features were easy to adopt.

Crafting content for voiding shipping labels in bulk.

General UX

  • Jammed with product designers, engineers, product manager, and support to explore and iteration upon green path designs for Shopify Shipping. Acted as the advocate for UX in team-wide discussions, pushing for prioritizing usability equally to development speed.

  • Presented green path concepts and iterative design steps in formal reviews with UX leadership and relevant stakeholders in order to get early buy-in and build relationships in overlapping product areas.

  • Shared strategy and created connections across teams working on adjacent products (eg. shipping manifests and automated package selection) in order to deliver a cohesive and consistent experience for our merchants.

Exploring information architecture for decoupling shipping labels from orders in green path version of shipment index.

Outcomes

  • Successfully drove a decline in churn from Shopify Shipping with the first release of the shipping label index. We saw a 0.5% increase in shipping label adoption, with over 33% of merchants using the shipping index as a part of their daily workflow. These were all positive signals that our work towards the green path should continue.

  • Created draft of green path artefacts, together with product design, which received buy-in across Shopify Shipping product and design leadership. These would be used to guide future roadmaps and act as a “north star” for maintaining alignment across disciplines and teams.

  • Strengthened previously turbulent relationships with other product teams by sharing relevant insights from research and UX explorations. This allowed us to level-up our collective impact, working together to improve our merchants’ fulfillment processes, instead of building dissonant experiences.