Lôcô

Marketplace 
for Vietnamese 
hand-crafted products

Role

Co-founder

Lead Designer

Service

UI/UX

Content Strategy

Category

E-commerce

Context

In January 2020, many small business owners in Vietnam were forced to close down their shops due to the pandemic. They tried using Facebook to sell their products online but struggled to reach beyond their network. So, my two friends and I created Loco, a mobile marketplace for Vietnamese handcrafted products.

Goals

To create a marketplace for local handcrafted products in Vietnam, connecting sellers and buyers. Focus on local craftsmanship, celebrating culture, and meeting the demand for unique products.

Problem Space

Market Research

  • Vietnam's e-commerce is dominated by products of unknown origins.
  • E-commerce is booming, especially in toys, hobbies, and DIY.
  • Current shopping experiences are too commercialized, lacking platforms for handcrafted local items with stories to tell.
  • GenZ buyers value brand and product stories, influencing their purchasing decisions.

User Research

We conducted qualitative research with 15 user interviews including 6 sellers and 7 shoppers. We also investigated forums, Instagram and FB groups to reveal shared concerns between buyers and sellers. Then we surveyed 128 participants, both buyers and sellers, to verify six major pain points:

  • Existing e-commerce solutions lack focus on handcrafted and customized products‍
  • Sellers face challenges in engaging with customers receiving feedback
  • Difficulty discovering product stories.
  • Difficult to get quotes and project estimate in a short timeframe
  • The process is ambiguous and shopper often struggle to understand what to expect when buying them
  • Limited access to reliable and affordable shipping options for their handcrafted and customized products, leading to higher shipping costs and delivery uncertainties

Conceptualize

User Personas

Shopper

Alice

The caring gift giver

  • Alice seeks unique gifts but struggles with existing platforms.
  • Frustrated by the communication and pricing process with individual artists.
  • Wants high-quality, unique products and to express her creativity.

Seller

Emily

Artist seeking additional Income

  • Emily is a PR professional passionate about clay art, facing challenges in business expansion.
  • Struggles with marketing, communication, and feedback.
  • Aspires to create beautiful products, engage with the community, and earn extra income.

Product Features

While prioritizing our product features for P0, we initially wanted to stand out among other e-commerce platform by hosting mini competitions so shopper could post a project brief and seller would propose design, price and timeline. However, this required many sellers, which was challenging during the beta phase. So, we focused on high-value discovery features that needed less technology, allowing us to quickly launch a functional product for essential actions while developing more advanced features.

User Flows

Emphasizing Discovery and Messenger options for the MVP.

Design

Branding and Visual Identity

  • Blended classic and modern elements for a timeless design.
  • Used fun geometry and 3D modeling to create an eye-catching landing page.

Wireframe Sketches

I developed a set of sketches that outline the layout and fundamental structure of an interface before incorporating its content, navigation, and visual design elements.

Design Propotype

The final design includes +100 screens covering Landing Page, Onboarding, Sign up, Discovery, Shop Details, Product Details, Payment and Seller Central.

Final Design MVP

Initially, I developed a demoable prototype to showcase the app's look and feel and to prove that the idea can work. The prototype includes core features like the home tab with featured products and categories, seller central and payment process. However, due to the initial lack of sellers and shoppers, we pivoted to show scrollable short videos of product demos with tags, allowing users to navigate to the shop page if they liked what they saw. We also prioritized building the messenger over creating a seller central.

discovery
messenger

This MVP was a lightweight version of the app to help us test the market as soon as possible and identify the best features to build, eased the engineering workload by quickly implementing priority solutions, and ultimately achieve product-market fit.

Result

Lessons Learned

OTHER WORK