SESAME BUY
Overview
Sesame Buy is an online retail platform based in Toronto, Canada launched in 2019, offering products to buyers.
Unlike other platforms, Sesame Buy provides services only to its members (group leaders). Whenever Group leaders share a product with a customer and a purchase is made, they will get a commission for that product.
Duration
July 2019 – Present
Team
CEO
3 Developers
1 Marketer
1 Designer
My Role
Research
Visual Design
Prototyping
Design System
User Testing
Background
When the project “Sesame Home” officially ended, our team began to explore what are the next possible start-up project that’s going to work. Therefore, We created Sesame Buy, a shopping platform not only offers products online but also giving out certain ratios of commission for people who share the products.
The whole concept is new and refreshing, so we were quite excited to take the challenges ahead of us. I am extremely fortunate to have part of this journey to have owned a product from an idea into a product. Here are some biggest things that are worthy share with you:
COOL FACTS （2020）
– Over 20,000 Customers Shopped
– Over 5000 Products Uploaded
– More than 300 Group Leaders Joined
– More than 1 Million in Revenue 
How We Started
Started from 2019, China has a group buy trending that changed the way consumers purchase their products. Consumers, often a whole community coordinate their orders to purchase in bulk and receive discounts. Consumers no longer need to go to the supermarket, instead, they can pick fresh groceries up near their homes.
We were excited to foresee the changes in the retail market so we decided to give it a try. After months of exploring, we built up a concept for the Canadian market. We want to build a platform that suits our business goals. As I mentioned above, the business concept is slightly different ⇣
In this case, a group leader has the responsibility to receive goods from the delivery so they can get a commission.
As you can see, group leaders are crucial to this business model.
Therefore, a good group leader has to meet 4 requirements :
1) Flexible schedule to receive goods during the week
2) Have a freezer at home (Yes we do sell frozen products)
3) Ability to use a phone or computer
4) Have a strong sense of responsibility
The Design Process
■ Empathize
Once we decided on the business model, the first stage of design is always to gain an empathic understanding of the clients we are trying to serve.
According to supermarket statistics, around 70% of the primary shopper in a household is Female. Women are more likely to do most shopping. Meanwhile, the average age specifically for female shoppers is relatively higher, is 47 years old. We also believe, the group leaders will be our royalty customers too, as while they shop, they get free delivery & discounted products.
With this background context, we began to narrow the range of our customers. Here are 2 user personas I created for this case.
■ Define
In today’s market, many products that are already offering grocery delivery services. So what can we do to provide extra value to customers & small businesses? In other words, we need to find out what our strengths are. We begin to evaluate the market and user interviews, which after brought us 2 questions.
1) How can we create earning opportunities?
2) How can we create a seller market for small businesses
■ Ideate
Sharing Economy:
Just like Airbnb, a community-based online platform for listing and renting local homes, has created thousands of jobs all over the world. People earn income by listing their places or even just a couch for a night.
We want to create something like Airbnb. But instead of a place to live, we want to utilize the garage that everyone might not be using. This way, a group leader who owns an empty garage, will be able to earn some income by simply store products at their garage. Once people make a successful purchase and choose to pick up at the group leader, they earn the commission!
C2B Model for businesses:
Under this model, the business only needs to fulfill the order after a customer has successfully purchased the item.
To sum up, we identified 3 major points to our products and we would dive into the product design from here.
1) For Group Leaders: Earning can be easy! Actively share products with customers or simply buy products for their own use.
2) For Small Businesses: The platform offers an easy to set up solution for them to upload products they can share.
3) For Customers: Buy as many as they want for 0 delivery fee! Just simply pick the nearest group leader and pick them up later.
To make it simple, I created a product logic flow. Please refer to the picture below:
■ Design Decisions
There is a lot to do but we are pushing towards an MVP in a short period. The goal is to have a usable website with the ability to do the following functions: Product Detail, Purchasing, Shopping Cart, Sign Up / Login, Coupon / Promotion, Banner, Entire Backend (Including Category, Product Upload, Financial Report), and so on.
I designed a few concept pages and set the base tone for the whole project:
Showcase
Learning
Working in a startup sometimes can be difficult. It is a combination of excitement and disappointment in every aspect. I encountered numerous problems while doing this project, and here’s what I will be focusing on in future projects.
– Focus on the User
– Avoid overthinking, use the scientific method to testify ideas
– Document requirements, finding the balance between the word of different stakeholders
– Involve developers’ view on requirements