E-Commerce
Marketplace
3mo
Duration
B2B
Platform
5+
Partner tiers tested
ABOUT THE COMPANY
Not On The High Street is a prominent e-commerce marketplace connecting curated partners with customers seeking unique, often personalised products. Partners range from sole traders to large producers, all managing their products through a B2B platform that had grown organically over years with limited design investment.
The B2B platform had grown in complexity for years with little design resource. This project was the first step in changing that and set the foundation for everything that followed.
THE CHALLENGE
The B2B partner platform had grown in complexity over the years with little design resource dedicated to it. This project was part of a wider initiative to revitalise the platform, improving partner relationships, enhancing efficiency, and supporting business growth.
Product upload was chosen as the starting point for good reason:
First journey - it's the first experience for new partners, making a positive impression critical
Simplification - consolidating multiple steps into one streamlined form
Efficiency - reducing the time and effort partners spent adding products
Support reduction - making the process intuitive enough to reduce support requests
Technical understanding - working within the platform's existing technical constraints
MY APPROACH
Our initial hypothesis was that updating the UI and simplifying the product approval steps would allow partners to get products live faster and improve their overall experience.
The existing upload journey lacked clear field explanations, causing confusion and frequent support requests. I believed that adding concise guidance and allowing partners to provide more detail upfront would reduce confusion and speed up approvals.
Discovery:
Interviewed partners across the full spectrum of business size, solo traders to large producers
Reviewed existing research and support ticket patterns
Conducted competitor analysis to understand best-in-class B2B upload experiences
Design and iteration:
Treated each section of the upload form as its own area for focused iteration
Used consistent UI patterns aligned with recent design system updates
Worked closely with engineers to understand technical constraints and add new functionality
Tested internally with the partner management team
Tested externally with partners across multiple rounds
Reviewed and rewrote all copy throughout the form
RESULTS
The initial rollout was delayed, missing the Christmas peak period. While this created some scope creep, it also provided the opportunity to further refine several sections and allowed developers to implement additional functionality that enhanced the experience.
The new UI patterns and improvements became applicable across other sections of the partner platform, creating a reusable design foundation that benefited future projects beyond the original scope.
Once launched, new partners were introduced to the updated form and began using it successfully, a meaningful step forward in improving the partner onboarding experience.
Key outcomes:
New partners onboarded successfully onto the updated journey
UI patterns established became the foundation for platform-wide design consistency
Reduced support requests as partners found the process more intuitive
WHAT I LEARNED
This project taught me the value of building foundations. Not every project delivers a dramatic headline metric, sometimes the most important work is creating the conditions for future success.
The delay that pushed us past Christmas was frustrating, but it gave us time to refine the work properly. Shipping something right is more valuable than shipping something fast that needs immediate fixing.
Working on a B2B platform with years of accumulated complexity also reinforced the importance of deeply understanding technical constraints before designing solutions, close collaboration with engineering from day one made a significant difference to what we were able to deliver.
Ready to work together?
Available for remote contracts, fractional roles, and advisory work.