Executive Summary

UncommonGoods faced order processing delays due to server and usability issues, so I redesigned an order fulfillment portal to improve speed and usability. The new interface boosted efficiency, with 81% of vendors reporting a significantly better experience.

Overview

Uncommon Goods is an online retailer that partners with vendors and independent creators to offer personalized products. Unlike standard items, personalized products require a more intricate fulfillment process and greater coordination between vendors and customers.

The vendor portal—originally built for warehouse vendors handling bulk purchase orders of thousands of units—was later adopted by a fast-growing segment of drop ship vendors. These vendors processed highly customized orders one at a time, resulting in more complex and frequent interactions with the system.

During peak holiday seasons, the surge in drop ship volume overwhelmed the portal, leading to severe slowdowns and outages. These stability issues caused significant financial losses for Uncommon Goods and its vendors and highlighted a growing mismatch between the product’s design and its evolving user base.

To address this, I led an initiative to modernize the vendor extranet interface, streamlining workflows to support drop shippers in meeting their fulfillment goals while reducing unnecessary data requests. This was essential as drop ship had become the company’s fastest-growing and most revenue-critical vendor segment.