Rethinking Product Strategy in Russia

Executive educationin homes, in the lab, around the town.

Based on insights gleaned from earlier user research in CZ and RU on a mixed global + local approach to online shopping, it was decided by the business that it was time to rethink the market expansion strategy altogether.

Given my previous multi-year collaboration with leaders on the eBay International Markets team, my familiarity with users in these markets, and my strong agency relationships, I was well placed to lead the next phase of user research in support of market expansion.

Challenge

It was time to make a pivot in product direction. The original concept of a buying/selling platform that would support both local and global goods and transactions, created a degree of technical and cognitive burden outweighing the advantages to both users and the business. Combine these with key dependencies on the core product (eBay.com) and it was clear that a new direction needed to be charted. But how?

Solution

Redesign both the value proposition and the product to underscore and support global only cross border trading.

Developed the research toolkit and build research cadence to ensure research quality and team efficiency.

Managed relationships and engagements with internal product group stakeholders. Partnered with marketing and product leaders to guide product development and refinement, understanding their strategies and needs, discovering roadblocks, and prioritizing research.

Tools

• Usability

• RITE

• Participatory design

• Collaging

• Diary study

• Experimental design

• Delivery process deep dive

• Market Sizing (TAM)

• Stakeholder Immersions

Team

• 4 UX designer

• 1 developer

• 1 project manager

• Marketing leader

• 1 UX

My Role

• Project manager

• Agency liason

• Strategy & Research leader

• Workshop facilitator

• Point of contact
  

Timeline

• Overall: 1 + year

45 Interviews

20 Focus Groups

65 Usability Tests

6 Immersions

8 Iterations

My Research Process

1 Partner

2 Research Phases

3 Learn

4 Share

Multi-phased approach

Usability studies to help measure the impact of engineering and design decisions. And to identify areas of weakness, i.e. Russian address formatting.

Focus groups to test value proposition, reason to believe, intention to use, general look and feel and perceptions of competitors.

Participatory design to learn from our Russian research participants how they visualize key pages and flows.

Deep dive into the delivery process end to end (including customs/border control) for a user receiving goods.

In-home visits with collaging exercise:

Gain a rich, authentic picture of participant’s lives – and from that develop an understanding of what’s important to them as people, and how ‘ecommerce’ and access to global products fits into their world

Experience first-hand how they shop online – what ‘ways’ and devices are meaningful to them and why? How does that change according to their environment and immediate shopping needs?

Explore hidden meanings within ‘native’ categories of shopping – how do users group and define all the different ways/transactional methods/tools they use to shop both online and offline?

Uncover how users think about their mobile devices. How do they feel about shopping/transacting on mobile devices?

Pre-assignment:

"Using words, images from magazines and hand drawn pictures tell me about your best and worst online shopping experiences." This proved to be an excellent icebreaker and a rich source of emotional feedback.

Stakeholder Immersions:

A set of semi-curated activities designed to enable key executive stakeholders from California to become more familiar with shopping in Moscow both on and offline.

• Visit to a large black market shopping mall

• Visit to a municipal post office

• Guided discussion of ATM's and the role they plan in banking

• Q & A with an expert in Russian online shopping---the competitive landscape and key points of differentiation

• In-homes

• Usability studies

• Tour of a luxury shopping mall

Pre in-home exercise

Key Learning

We learned that Russian online shoppers are keen to participate in the same global shopping experience as their American counterparts and that any suggestion that their site would be different (i.e. eBay.ru rather than eBay.com, for example) was cause for disapproval.

The multi-pronged research approach I developed for Czech Republic and then Russia was later adapted to Sweden, Denmark, Lisbon, and Greece with the addition of moderated online shopper panels where attendees were given an opportunity to learn more about the local culture and the role of shopping within it.

In the course of conducting research within these countries, I was able to provide my client with a comprehensive set of recommendations as to which elements of the site experience could be shared across markets and which needed to be unique to the given country. This was viewed as a cost effective and highly efficient way for Engineering, Marketing, and Product to balance local needs with global realities and avoid, as one executive put it: "repeatedly boiling the ocean."

Marketing

Leveraging market intelligence to fine-tune testing protocols, guides, and areas of special focus. For instance, trust and safety issues related to online payment thru PayPal (relatively unfamiliar payment method at the time of the research) needed to be looked at more closely. Research also surfaced insight into preferred social media channels and approaches to PR.

Represented user insights in value proposition research, positioning research, segmentation studies, and pricing.

Product Design

Worked closely with design agency on prioritization of user feedback during quarterly onsite workshops.

Input on design directions (visual identity)---and design language (Material, Fluent, Lightening).

Engineering

Involved in roadmap and feature prioritization discussions. Provided feedback on component re-use, conducted solution validation during usability sessions, and act as voice of the user during technical discussions.

Research

Collaborated closely with local agency researchers to tease out the most salient insights and to translate these into a video rich report intended to engage, enrich, and educate.

Demonstrate and teach others how to apply the research in their particular domain (marketing, comms, product, design, engineering).

Thank you for reading

Interested in a conversation? Feel free to contact me! martha@marthaabird.com

...or just say hello on my social media.