Date
2020
rOLE
Product designer
In 2020, I worked on the Wish Local app alongside another senior product designer, focusing on improving merchant experience during a pivotal moment for small businesses. I led the redesign of the merchant dashboard and the Sell on Wish product upload flow – two key areas that helped local stores navigate and adapt to the challenges of the pandemic.
Background
Wish Local is a program launched in 2019 to help small, independent retailers increase foot traffic and grow sales. Participating stores serve as local pickup spots for Wish customers and earn cash bonuses when users collect their packages in-store.
When I joined the project, our initial goal was to increase app engagement and usage among merchants. We conducted in-person visits and interviews with local business owners to better understand how they used the app and where they struggled. These insights laid the foundation for a major dashboard redesign.
However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, our priorities shifted. With stores under lockdown and foot traffic disappearing overnight, we needed to quickly pivot. We decided to double down on Sell on Wish – a feature that allowed approved merchants to upload and sell their own products on the Wish Local app. While the feature already existed, it suffered from a high drop-off rate. Our goal was to turn it into a lifeline for struggling businesses.
For the full project process and design rationale, feel free to reach out 📩
Project 1: Rethinking the dashboard to drive engagement
In my first month at Wish, I joined two other designers on visits to a handful of Wish Local merchants in San Francisco. We wanted to understand how store owners handled Wish packages and how they used the app in their day-to-day work.
The original dashboard prioritized scanning at the cost of everything else. While confirming package pickups was essential, the rest of the experience lacked clarity, structure, and guidance, making it hard for users to discover or engage with any other features.
To address this, I redesigned the home dashboard to help store owners quickly see what matters most:
Surface their daily tasks and earnings front and center
Promote new features like Sell on Wish as a top-level entry point
Make it easier to track shipments and sales at a glance
Final dashboard and more pages
Style guide and design library
New icons
Project 2: Improving the Sell on Wish flow
When the pandemic hit and foot traffic dropped, Sell on Wish became a key way for local businesses to stay afloat. The feature allowed store owners to upload their own products and sell them directly through the Wish app.
But despite strong interest, the actual usage told a different story. Adoption was low, and nearly 70% of merchants dropped off during the upload flow, often before completing their first product listing. Why?
To understand what was going wrong, we took a closer look at the existing flow
After walking through the full upload experience ourselves and observing how merchants interacted with it, we identified several major usability issues. These friction points made the process especially difficult for new or non-technical users, and contributed to the high drop-off rate.
The final design & full flows
