Current practice
How does a listing reach a buyer?
Understand publishing, intermediaries and existing customer relationships.
Case study 03 / Saleh Abad
Saleh Abadصالحآباد
Bringing wholesale sellers closer to buyers.
Field research into how sellers publish, connect and build confidence—translated into a mobile product concept.
01 / Project overview
Start with how trade already happens.
Saleh Abad explores how wholesale sellers promote products and connect with buyers across physical trade and online channels. Field interviews and a competitor review informed an early mobile concept built around seller channels, discovery and conversation.
Problem
Some sellers depend on an administrator for online visibility; trust remains relationship-based.
Design response
A mobile concept linking seller channels, discovery and product-context chat.
Evidence & stage
Seller interviews, synthesis and original wireframes. A research-led concept, ready for evaluation.
- Project focus
- Seller control, customer discovery and trust in non-face-to-face trade.
- My involvement
- Field interviews with users and mobile wireframe design, as part of a collaborative project.
- Evidence
- Interview response matrix, research synthesis, competitor review and mobile wireframes.
- Case scope
- Research and concept design, through the wireframe stage.
THE DESIGN QUESTION
How might sellers present their goods and start relevant buyer conversations with more control over their online presence?
02 / Existing behavior
An online listing can still depend on a human intermediary.
Some sellers described sending product photos and details to an administrator for publication. Others emphasized buying in person, seeing the goods and knowing who they were dealing with. Digital visibility and confidence in a transaction were different needs.
- 01 · SELLERPrepare product details
Photos, specifications and contact information.
- 02 · HANDOFFSend to an administrator
Publication depends on another person's work.
- 03 · PUBLICATIONAppear in a shared channel
Some responses describe delays or limited control.
- 04 · CONNECTIONReceive buyer interest
Trust and purchase conditions still need to be established.
A synthesis of the administrator-mediated pattern in the interviews; other participants used different sales arrangements.
03 / Field research
Ask about behavior before proposing features.
The interview matrix covers current platform use, experience with digital trade, personal transaction practices and growth ambitions. This brings business habits into the design discussion: who publishes, who buys, how payment works and what sellers want to change.
Trust & trade
What makes a transaction feel safe?
Explore face-to-face preference, familiarity, product inspection and payment practices.
Adoption
What would make a new tool useful?
Consider existing online sales, customer reach and the effort of changing habits.
The responses vary. A seller already trading online and a seller who strongly prefers in-person deals should not be treated as one identical user.
Define the starting audience.
The interviews reveal different levels of digital adoption. Sellers already promoting goods online provide a focused starting audience for exploring direct publishing and customer reach. The next research step is to examine the buyer side of the relationship.
Persona & scenario
Define whose problem the concept addresses.
What the document captures
The persona describes a digitally comfortable shop administrator seeking growth, more publishing control and reliable access. Its scenario connects limited returns from channel promotion with the need to reach relevant customers.
Connection to the design
This gives the seller-channel concept a specific starting audience: people already trying to sell online, rather than every wholesaler.
04 / Research synthesis
Three tensions to carry into the design.
The board groups challenges under access, trust, platform limitations and loyalty. The following synthesis highlights the tensions most relevant to the mobile concept.
01 · Control
Visibility through someone else.
Some sellers send material to an administrator; delays and limited publishing control appear in the responses.
Design implication: explore direct publishing while keeping the effort manageable.
02 · Confidence
A profile is not the same as trust.
Participants describe personal familiarity, seeing products and transaction security as reasons to prefer physical trade.
Design implication: support evaluation and dialogue without treating a profile as a guarantee.
03 · Adoption
Sellers start from different places.
Reported online-sales activity and attitudes toward digital trade vary across the matrix.
Design implication: identify an initial audience instead of assuming universal adoption.
Research themes translated into design implications.
RESEARCH SIGNAL
Some sellers send product material to an administrator.
DESIGN INTERPRETATION
Explore seller-controlled channels.
VISIBLE RESPONSE / NEXT CHECK
Channel creation and product cards; publishing effort still needs testing.
RESEARCH SIGNAL
Sellers describe familiarity and product inspection as sources of confidence.
DESIGN INTERPRETATION
Make seller and product context available before contact.
VISIBLE RESPONSE / NEXT CHECK
Seller profile and product-context chat; payment assurance remains outside the shown solution.
RESEARCH SIGNAL
Participants differ in how much business they conduct online.
DESIGN INTERPRETATION
Evaluate the concept with a defined initial group.
VISIBLE RESPONSE / NEXT CHECK
Start with digitally active sellers; willingness to switch remains an open question.
Needs & solution mapping
Turn scattered concerns into design opportunities.
What the document captures
The synthesis groups concerns into access, trust, platform limitations and loyalty, then connects challenges to needs and possible responses. Administrator dependency sits alongside secure-payment and customer-reach concerns.
Connection to the design
Direct publishing addresses control; discovery addresses visibility. Transaction assurance is a separate need, so a seller profile cannot stand in for a secure-payment solution.
Competitor SWOT · Buskool
Look beyond interface patterns.
What the document captures
The review records straightforward registration, verification and buyer–seller interaction as strengths. It flags the lack of a separate buyer area and restrictions in the free plan, alongside external market risks and opportunities.
Connection to the design
The design question becomes how to support distinct buyer and seller tasks while keeping their conversation connected. The review informed the separation of buyer and seller responsibilities in the architecture.
05 / Scope & trade-offs
Make the first connection clearer.
The wireframes concentrate on channels, seller profiles, discovery and chat. Together, they form a concept for introducing goods and beginning a buyer–seller conversation.
Visible in the concept
Create a channel, present products, explore content, inspect a profile and discuss an item.
Needs beyond this concept
The synthesis identifies secure payment and transaction guarantees as separate workstreams. This concept focuses on product discovery, seller visibility and the first conversation.
The adoption trade-off
An independent product can offer more control, but asks sellers and buyers to move from familiar channels. The value of that switch needs to be clear in the seller’s everyday workflow.
The strongest next step is to test that value with sellers already using digital channels, while comparing the concept with improvements to their existing workflow.
Importance × urgency matrix
Make competing feature ideas visible.
What the document captures
The matrix places channel creation, mobile-number login and communication in the high-importance, high-urgency quadrant. Stories and pinned chats sit in the high-importance, lower-urgency area; live streaming and appearance customization sit lower on both axes.
Connection to the design
The shown wireframes focus on channels, discovery and conversation. The document makes feature importance and urgency explicit, helping keep the first concept focused.
Navigation structure
Give channels and messages clear homes.
What the document captures
The structure separates My messages from My channels, with search, menus and a floating action represented beneath the main branches.
Connection to the design
The wireframes make these recurring destinations visible, so publishing and following up on a conversation are organized as distinct tasks.
06 / Solutions in the wireframes
Show the decision in the interface.
Three connected ideas, illustrated with the original mobile wireframes.
01 · Publishing
A channel the seller can manage.
Some sellers send photos and details to an administrator. The concept gives channel creation and product presentation their own screens.
The setup asks for a channel name, description and image before moving into the seller’s product space.
02 · Discovery
See the goods. Understand the seller.
Explore brings product content together. The seller profile adds a place to review the business and its range before making contact.
The seller page gathers the business description, shareable link and product media in one place.
03 · Conversation
Keep the product in the conversation.
The product card stays visible alongside questions about availability and price, giving buyer and seller a shared reference.
The item provides context when a conversation becomes specific.
07 / The buyer journey
From discovery to a useful conversation.
The proposed buyer journey connects discovery to a product-specific conversation. The buyer and seller architectures show how the same marketplace supports different responsibilities; the wireframes below make the core buyer sequence tangible.
Seller task architecture
Map the publishing side of the marketplace.
What the document captures
The seller map connects entry and login to profile, explore, shop, chat and category search. The shop branch includes adding a shop, publishing a product or announcement and a premium option.
Connection to the design
This maps the responsibilities behind the channel-creation and product-channel screens, and shows where account and commercial features would fit.
Buyer task architecture
Map discovery before contact.
What the document captures
The buyer map separates profile, explore, products, chat and category search. Product information connects to a seller page and product selection; the account branch includes saved products and purchase history.
Connection to the design
The screen sequence below concentrates on a core part of that structure: discover, review the seller and ask about an item.
More wireframes · inbox and channel creation
08 / Outcome & reflection
A direction grounded in seller behavior.
The project translated seller interviews into a focused mobile concept. The synthesis separated three needs—visibility, publishing control and transaction trust—so the design could address the first connection without treating every problem as one feature. The output brings persona work, competitor analysis, prioritization, role-based architecture and six wireframes into one traceable design direction.
What this work makes tangible
A concept for seller channels, discovery and product-related conversation, alongside the needs that remain unresolved.
What should be evaluated next
Independent publishing, the information buyers need before contacting a seller, and the reason either side would switch from existing channels.
My main learning: define the initial seller segment and the reason to change habits before expanding the feature set. A marketplace needs a convincing path to adoption as well as a clear interface.
Next validation tasks
Task: Create a channel and prepare a product listing.
Observe: Where assistance is needed, which information is missing and whether this improves on sending material to an administrator.
Task: Find a relevant item, review its seller and ask about availability.
Observe: Whether the buyer identifies the right seller and item, and what information is still needed before proceeding.
Task: Compare the concept with the participant’s current workflow.
Observe: The concrete benefit or cost of changing channels; avoid treating stated interest as adoption.
Explore the project
Explore the research behind Saleh Abad.
Read the interview matrix, synthesis, competitor analysis and original wireframes.
Open the Miro board ↗Mohi Eliyasi · Saleh Abad research & concept← Back to all work