Digital Flea Market – Buy & Sell Mobile App
A tailor-made buy & sell mobile solution for foreigners who live in Japan.
Moving house in Japan is always a nightmare. People have to spend money to pay recycling fees so that they can throw oversized garbage before moving, then spend money again to get some other furniture for their new places after moving.
When I moved out of a dormitory and started living in a building, I got this pain point. I had to buy all the furniture I needed. At the same time, in the same building, I found that lots of furniture and appliances were being thrown, with the eco stickers, waiting for the recycling services to deal with.
That’s why this app was created. For solving this pain points, reducing garbage, getting a better moving experience, and more eco-friendly to the earth for sure.
Competitor Analysis: Overview of Flea Market Services in Japan
Analyzed several popular Flea Market Services in Japan, tried to figure out their strengths and weaknesses.
Mercari : mainly for small size items. 10% transaction fee
Jimoty : mainly for big size items, lots of free items, but usually need to get by oneself. No transaction fee
Rakuten Rakuma : similar to Mercari, but users and items are much fewer. 4.5%~10% transaction fee
PayPay Flea Market : users and items are much fewer, 5% transaction fee
Facebook Marketplace : more friendly to foreigner users in Japan. No transaction fee
Quantitative Research: Created Online Survey
I wanted to know how other foreigners experienced moving house in Japan. So, I designed an online survey with 19 questions, made basic quantitative research, then picked 5 people to do user interview.
Qualitative Research: Conducted User Interviews
I conducted user interviews with 5 foreigners, let them share their moving experiences, describe their moving processes and try several buy and sell apps that they usually use so that I could understand their behaviors and figure out their pain points when they were moving house.
MVP Definition
Summarized the result of user interviews then planned functions and MVP. Since most foreigners in Japan don’t have cars, the most important factor for trading furniture items would be Distance (Location). So I chose Location as MVP of this product. I also decided other functions the product includes, such as User Review System, Comparing Price (next stage), Q&A Messaging, Search and Language Support (currently English only) etc.
User Flow and Wireframes
According to the functions involved, I created wireframes by FigJam.
Created High-fidelity Mockups
I created a design system, including a building component gallery for the app. Iterated user flow and UI as designing mockups.
Prototyping
To prove effect upon app UI and collect opinions from users, I’ve made prototype by ProtoPie (shown by presentation).
Next Stage: A/B Test
To prove effect upon app UI and collect opinions from users, I’m going to hold an A/B test as my next step so that I can optimize my UI design of the mobile app.