Problem Statement

Owners of high-quality clothing that no longer suits them may hesitate to sell secondhand due to low prices and a complicated selling process. Nowadays, buyers are becoming more accepting of secondhand clothing but are wary of unclear or inaccurate descriptions. Online marketplaces that prioritize transparency and quality can benefit both buyers and sellers, promoting sustainable consumption.

Goal

The goal is that existing secondhand clothing can be reactivated in the market, achieving infinite life and value through circular reuse.

- Buyers can purchase high-quality clothing at lower prices than the original retail price. By buying unique and distinctive clothing, they can showcase their personal style.

- Sellers can solve the problem of accumulated clothing at home and provide sufficient incentives for them to be willing to sell their clothing.

Target Market

Our product has been developed through expert interviews, user research, and competitor analysis, with a focus on serving the high-quality, mid to high-priced market for secondhand apparel. Our platform offers a wide range of clothing options for both men and women, ensuring that our customers can find what they need for any occasion.

Outcome of Solution

A Digital Platform for Secondhand Apparel Transactions

Our platform provides users with a serene and convenient environment for online shopping. We also offer detailed product descriptions, actual sizing measurements, and a rating system, ensuring that our users have a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the condition and quality of the products they are interested in purchasing.

Providing Users with Multiple Ways to Handle Secondhand Apparel that Fully Maximize the Value of the Clothing

We offer three different processing options for secondhand apparel, allowing users to choose how they want to handle their valuable clothing. For selling, we provide a platform for secondhand clothing with a mid to high price point (above $1,500 NTD). For donation and recycling, we accept clothing of any price range.

Providing On-site Pickup and Organization Services, Streamlining the Process of Handling Clothing

We offer three subscription plans that provide different frequencies of clothing pickups. Users can track the status of our staff in real-time and simply pack their secondhand clothing for sale, eliminating the time and cost associated with handling the items themselves

01 Interview

Sustainable fashion has always been a significant issue in society, especially with the recent promotion of SDGs in recent years. In the clothing market, the issue of clothing waste caused by fast fashion's "wear and discard" mentality has been a pressing issue.

However, due to the enormous market size of fast fashion, it's difficult to solve the problem from the root. Therefore, we has decided to focus on the secondhand apparel market, partly because consumers are gradually accepting secondhand clothing and partly because we want to realize the value of clothing reuse.

To understand the potential user perspective and outlook of the secondhand clothing market, we conducted 11 user interviews and 1 expert interview.

02 Competitive Analysis

We conducted a competitive analysis of existing secondhand clothing trading platforms to better understand the market ecology and identify unsatisfied services, in order to target the product's intended market. Through competitive analysis, we identified 2 market angles to pursue:

- All platforms covered the high-end market, but only one covered the low-end clothing market.

- In terms of product offerings, all platforms only provided items for women, with a lack of shoes, bags, and accessories on most platforms.

03 Define Target Market

Based on the multitude of categories and price ranges in the secondhand clothing market, we needed to determine our target market and identify areas with high demand and potential. After synthesizing the results of expert interviews, two phases of user interviews, and competitor analysis, we concluded that low-priced secondhand clothing brands generally have lower quality and prices, resulting in consumers preferring to buy new clothes directly. Additionally, most platforms only offer women's clothing, and the men's market is untapped. Therefore, we decided to target the high-quality, relatively mid-to-high-priced secondhand clothing market and provide clothing for both men and women.

04 Define the Problem & Ideation

After identifying the target market for the product, we has convergenced 4 core product services through Point of View and How Might We statement based on the needs of three potential user personas:

- An integrated online secondhand trading platform.

- A graphical display of detailed and comprehensive product depreciation status.

- Provide Staff that Pickup the secondhand apparel for the user.

- Provide multiple ways to handle secondhand apparel.

05 WireFlow

After defining the core product services, we aims to design an app that provides these services. To facilitate the team visual designer's interface design, I has planned a Wireflow based on the app's functions.

06 Usability Testing

Recruiting 6 participants for usability testing with a lo-fi prototype, we aimed to answer 5 research questions:

- Is the process of buying secondhand clothes smooth to operate?

- Is the process of listing items for sale on the platform smooth to operate?

- Can users easily track their purchase history?

- Is the process of donating or recycling clothes smooth to operate?

- Can users easily track the real-time status of their clothing collection specialist?


Through the usability testing, in addition to obtaining a SUS score of 81.25 (B), which is considered good, we also identified 2 operational issues and made improvements accordingly:

The UI components on the interface are not easy to understand their function due to it's plcement.

In previous version, users had to click on a logo icon at the bottom of the screen to make a reservation for our services. However, usability testing showed that participants found the logo icon's purpose unclear, and it required exploration to discover its function. To address this issue, we moved the service reservation function to the Navigation drawer, making it more intuitive and accessible for users.

The naming convention used is not intuitive enough for users to easily understand the purpose of each feature or function.

During the usability testing, participants found that the terms "My Products," "My Orders," and "Purchase History" were too similar in their noun definitions, which caused confusion for some users. Therefore, our team renamed "My Products" to "My Store" to focus on the products that the user has listed for sale. Additionally, we integrated "Purchase History" into "My Orders" to provide a clearer and more streamlined user experience.

07 Mockup

Self-reflections

This was my first time leading a team through a UX project, which gave me a deeper understanding and familiarity with the UX process. Looking back on the competition, from choosing the topic to the final result, we were constantly challenged by ourselves, mentor or the judges, and the plan was changed and improved multiple times. But I think this is the most valuable part of the competition, as we were not afraid to make mistakes and tried our best to learn from them through a process of trial and error.

I am very grateful for the hard work of each team member during this period, as they spent a lot of time brainstorming and contributing ideas despite their academic workload. I also want to express my appreciation to our mentors who helped guide us back on track whenever we encountered difficulties, enabling us to achieve our final results.