Portfolio
Empowering Direct-Sales Vendors with a Business Management Platform
Revendoo
Overview
Revendoo is a Brazilian startup aiming to bridge the gap between direct-sales vendors and product manufacturers. The goal of this project was to deliver an application to assist direct-sales vendors in managing various aspects of their business, including sales, payments, stock, and client management.
For this project, I adopted IDEO's Human-Centered Design process and tailored it to the specific needs of Revendoo’s target users. The project followed a structured design process, focusing on understanding user needs, defining the problem, ideating solutions, prototyping, and testing.
Project phases
The project was divided in 5 stages:
Empathise
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Emphatise
To understand the users, I conducted interviews and surveys with direct-sales vendors to learn about their business and pain points.
Demographics
Gender and age: 56.7% of direct-sales vendors in Brazil are women (2.3 million women, according to ABEVD). The target audience is primarily aged 25-50,
Income: For most vendors direct sales act as a secondary source of income, raising household income by 28% on average.
Technology Use: All interviewees owned low-cost Android devices such as the Galaxy J4 and LG K10.
Workplace & Clients: Vendors typically sell products in their social circles (workplaces, gatherings with friends and family). The majority of their clients are friends (79%), family (66.9%), or colleagues (51.2%).
Payment Methods: Cash and bank transfers are the most common payment methods. Most vendors cannot afford card readers, despite missing on potential sales.
Personas
Based on the research, I developed a primary persona to guide the design process: The Part-time Saleswoman. This persona typically juggles multiple responsibilities and depends on the extra income from direct sales. Her main struggle is managing her sales effectively without a system, and she relies on her mobile device to support her business activities.
Defining the problem
Background
After extensive research on the leading manufacturers in Brazil and the support they provide to direct-sales vendors, I identified a key gap: Manufacturers do not offer digital tools to assist their representatives in managing the sales process. Salespeople are left to their own devices, often relying on manual methods, such as journals, to track sales, clients, payments, and deliveries.
Pain Points Identified:
No central platform to manage stock, payments, or deliveries.
Vendors depend heavily on their organizational skills.
Sales management methods are fragmented and inconsistent.
Problem Statement: Direct-sales vendors lack a streamlined system to manage their businesses, as manufacturers provide no tools to support them in the sales process.
Proposed solution
To address these pain points, we proposed Revendoo, a mobile solution designed to support vendors throughout the sales process by offering features such as:
Stock management
Client management
Payment and delivery tracking
Importing manufacturers’ catalogs for easy product management
Ideate
Information Architecture
With the insights gathered, I began by sketching a site map and defining the information flow. The main focus of the app is to facilitate sales input, with supporting sections for managing clients, brands, stock, and financial transactions. The flat hierarchy design ensures that users can easily navigate between sections, promoting discoverability and ease of use.
Site Map: The flat hierarchy and simplified structure improve navigation.
User Flow: Every feature was designed to either support or complement the sales process.
Wireframe
I translated the paper sketches into wireframes using Sketch. The home page was designed to have all the main features prioritised by the audience.
Home Screen: The home screen displays the total sales of the month, a graph comparing previous months, and alerts for tasks like deliveries or payments.
Navigation: Key functions are accessible within thumb reach. Catering for users standing in public transport while using the app.
These wireframes emphasized task-based interactions and were designed with mobile usability in mind.
UI & Prototype
After finalizing the wireframes, I created three different design options. All options followed the Material Design Guidelines, ensuring a familiar and intuitive experience for Android users, and were harmonious with Revendoo’s brand color (purple).
Design Variations: I explored different analogous color palettes based on purple to maintain brand cohesion while ensuring that the design elements were visually appealing and easy to use.
Results & Reflections
Revendoo's app successfully bridged the gap between manufacturers and direct-sales vendors by providing a seamless platform for managing business operations. Early user feedback from vendors indicated that the app reduced the time spent on administrative tasks, allowing them to focus more on selling and expanding their business.
Key Learnings:
Contextual inquiry played an essential role in this project. By observing vendors in their natural settings—understanding their motivations, locations, and behaviours—we were able to design an app that fits into their everyday routines and works on their devices.
Designing for low-cost devices requires prioritising simplicity and usability.
Supporting scalability: The flat hierarchy ensures the app can scale as more functionalities are added.
