I just had a zoom with 3 of our larger hubs and am sharing feedback on the above.
Shop navigation
Filter by producer is desired.
Categories - Definately hubs seek the ability to create their own categories. Hubs are very diverse in the product mix they sell. One hub suggested this could be on the enterprise settings screen, along with other business details. There, a hub is presented with a mother list of categories (created by super admin in configuration) and the hub selects a subset of categories. These categories populate the category selection drop down on the producer’s bulk product page. If a producer sells through 2 or more hubs, then each hub’s categories populate the list. (Not discussed - what about producer’s who ‘sell own’ - how do they get categories? What happens when a producer stops selling through a given hub?..)
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Enable multiple categories per product** - Also - hubs are looking for the ability for a producer to attach multiple categories to a product/variant. Often a product fits 2 or more categories like: the product ‘potatoes’ could be in the category ‘root vegetables’ or ‘vegetables’. This could be the most efficient way to give hubs shop flexibility. For example the flower ‘cosmos’ could be attached to categories: ‘flowers’, ‘white flowers’, ‘specials’ This would be possible if a hub, who is given permission to ‘add to order cycle’ could also add new categories to products. (I know its a different way than we see categories today - but it could accomlish some flexibility hubs are looking for)
Properties - Keep properties but perhaps enhance. At present, a property is created by super admin, and the producer can select it for ‘all’ their products or for selected products. This is good. In addition, hubs suggest the creation of ‘dedicated’ hub-selected properties. Where a hub can create, or select from super-admin created, select properties. These are ways to message the shopfront with criteria such as: ‘available on Wednesdays only’, or ‘white products on special this week’. Generally hubs are seeking the ability to customize shops more. (My observation - producers want properties that describe their brand and the product like: organic, no spray…) But hubs want properties to help them sell (like ‘on sale’ or ‘premium products’.) The hubs want to be able to apply properties themselves, across producers, not rely on producers setting properties.
Another suggestion to enable searching was having an alphabet above the search field. So I can select ‘a’ or ‘n’ to jump to those products in the list. Category searching only helps if a hub has lots of categories - and right now, that is not the case.
Another suggestion is to have a place at the top of the shopfront for ‘information about this shop’. Right now, the only place for this is on the enterprise’s ‘home’ tab. But when enterprises have mutliple shops open simultaneously - it means for cumbersome messaging like: If you are buying for pickup at …. then…. If you are buying in our Mother’s Day shop, then……
Timed Shopping or Merging Orders
The single most needed things for these hubs is timed shopping or else the ability to merge orders. This is not a surprise - its the top issue flower hubs first mentioned 3 years ago, and honestly they are getting frustrated that we have not been able to assist with this. Most sales in these stores occur in the first 15 minutes of order cycle opening. Most of these hubs sell products where supply is limited. Buyers scramble to buy the specialized (limited) products first. Buyers experience things being pulled out of their carts before they can complete chekout. So in response, buyers enter the shop, make a quick order for 1 product and checkout. Then they go back in, make a second order to secure more products etc……. This results in frustrated buyers and multiple orders per buyer per order cycle. This means the hub manages more orders than they should have to, and more payments than they should have to. For example in most of these hubs, a buyer places 3-5 orders per order cycle. The solution is NOT a timed checkout. The problem has already occurred before the checkout. We need either timed shopping (timer starts when the customer puts the first item into a cart) OR leave shoppers place multiple orders, and build the ability for the hub to merge orders within the same OC on the back end.)
Grid view
Everyone liks grid view. It should be the default, and only view. No need to keep the list view. Even on mobile - where you really only see 2 variants side by side, this is preferred.
Like the variant ‘pop up’ where you click the primary product, and its variants pop up. Biggest concern is navigation. If I select potatoes and then select 2 kg, I want to go back to exactly where left off, not back to the category again. For example - I’m searching products down the shop list under the category ‘flowers’. I click a product grouping/product called ‘cosmos’. I go to the popup. I select ‘red’ and put it in my cart. I DO NOT want to go back to the top of the ‘flowers’ category and start again. There are hundreds of products in that category and I don’t want to scroll again. I want the pop up to close and I go back to where I left off with my scrolling. (Hubs were very adamant on this point - don’t return to the top of the category again)
Hubs would like the pie chart to be optional. They feel few customers use it and it clutters things unnecessarily. Plus many of these hubs sell both retail and wholesale, and the retail markup is 300%, and they don’t want customers to see that.
Definately interested in the product page being public before an order cycle is ‘live’. (Public might be poor wording because wholesale shops are private to specific customers. But they want these customers to see availability early.) Suggestion would be that as soon as the hub creates an order cycle, a display only shop goes live - like a ‘coming up’ kind of order cycle. No one can purchase in this OC yet becuase it is not open yet. When the OC opening time arrives, this shop goes live and begins taking orders. (Right now wLe use a hack to create a ‘display only’ order cycle where the payment method is inactive. These hubs would like this to be automatic. ie the payment method becomes active at the time of OC opening. But before that, the shop displays)
Hubs also wondered about a ‘sold out’ area in the shop. That is - products that are entered into the order cycle, but become sold out, get automatically listed under a ‘sold out’ property for the duration of that order cycle. Then that property lifts off when the product goes into a new order cycle. Basically they want buyers to know what the missed by shopping too late.
Question re: do variants show in its own square or bundled. Hubs had a hard time imaging these options. (Maybe I couldn’t get the prototypes to work properly) They liked the pop up though - bigger issue is the navigation as outlined above.
Promotion of products was not a big theme for these wholesale hubs. They wouldn’t use product links in social media because they are private shops.
Image Management
Definately want the ability to link an image clearly to a variant in the product group. These hubs use variant lists to sell products by different colour generally (not so much by different sizes/weights). Showing colour is critical for them. Maybe a unique group - but the flower hubs definately need images attached to variants. (Perhaps they need to make each variant a separate product, and what is now the product becomes a category… but this will create hundreds of more categories) Also noting that they were thinking like sellers not product creators. As a producer - for me, i want the easiest way possible to upload images from mobile. These hub managers don’t create the images, their suppliers do that.
Checkout Process
Hubs wonder if its possible to do the checkout steps without separate pages. It feels like a lot of steps to customers.
Hubs say about 2 customers a week end up not placing orders because they don’t complete the checkout. They would like an abandoned cart reminder, by email, send no more than 30 minutes after the cart is abandoned (You were shopping at… and did not complete the checkout. If you intended to make a purchase, do so before the shop closes… - with a link that takes them back to their open cart) They say this is standard in other ecommerce.
Conclusion
Love grid view. Losing orders to abandoned carts. Need variant-focused images. Navigation back to where you left of (not category top) is critcal in shops with hundreds of products.
Discussion went beyond the prototypes. I learned that one of the biggest issue is that these hubs are really looking for more ability to stage products for sale, without relying on what the supplier has entered. They want to add categories or properties that allow shopping by colour, or stem length, or quick sale… They feel their marketing ability is held back by a system that only gives producers the ability to add product categories or properties. Hubs want to use some kind of categorization or properties that help them sell products.
Timed shopping or back office order merging remains their primary issue.