Sneaker marketplace

Context

SoleSavy built its community around sneaker culture — members wanted an alternative to the problems they saw in the resale market. Collect was designed as a place for them to buy, sell, and trade their collections, away from bots and anonymous resellers.

We had little time to turn what the agency built into something we felt confident releasing. Beyond missing order states, every transaction type used the same generic e-commerce templates intended for one-way purchases.

To support two-way exchanges, we needed custom templates that could clearly communicate shipments and payments on both sides of a transaction. Those weren't gaps we could leave for a future iteration, they were trust problems waiting to happen.

Research

Competitive analysis

While StockX and GOAT are not true trading platforms, we looked at them first because they set the standard for what our customers knew and expected. But Tradeblock gave us the clearest picture of what logistics a trading platform needed to consider.

Community input

Getting community buy-in was critical to our success — we invited a group of members to form a focus group that could give feedback on behalf of the community, vote on decisions, and beta test the platform ahead of the public launch.

Order status audit

We then created a comprehensive list of every possible order status and the conditions that triggered each one. With that shared understanding, we had the foundation needed to start defining how orders would work on Collect.

Ideation

Order flows

We didn't deviate from familiar e-commerce patterns unless necessary, but supporting two-way exchanges required us to rethink how orders worked. With little precedent to follow, we took our time determining what information each party needed across every scenario.

Policy playbook

Our CX team also needed clear guidance on how to handle every scenario, which led us to develop a policy playbook. After drafting an initial version, we brought in other stakeholders to review, refine, and align on our company policies.

Design

Sign up for SoleSavy

We also saw Collect as a marketing tool for attracting new members, but that meant letting people in without a paid membership. This eventually led us to introduce a new free membership tier, alongside paywalls and transaction fees.

This became an important growth channel — free tier users were generating revenue and we had a clear path to convert them into paid community members.

Shopping for sneakers

We only made minor tweaks to these screens for launch, bringing each in line with the brand guidelines and the design system we were developing.

But after launch, the experience continued to evolve through analytics, user interviews, A/B testing, and a new filtering system — improving how users discovered listings and the language and layout used within them.

Adding shoes

Adding shoes served two purposes — it gave members a way to show off their entire collection, and those shoes could be converted into marketplace listings if and when they decided to sell or trade them.

Similar to the shopping experience, we only needed to apply our brand guidelines and design system components. The existing layouts were intuitive and easy to build on.

Making an offer

Giving members a way to build multi-pair deals under the safety of identity verification was the core of what Collect was about. The design challenge here was fitting every necessary piece of content and functionality into one intuitive screen so users could build, review, and understand an offer without bouncing between steps.

Receiving an offer

Once an offer is sent or received, it appears in the Offered tab — giving users a place to manage every open negotiation. The focus was making each proposal easy to understand through a clear hierarchy of the information recipients needed to consider.

Accepted offers

After an offer is accepted, the order moves into the Confirmed tab — where each user is guided through the final details of their offer. We first make sure every package has a paid shipping label, then guide users through shipping their order.

Shipping an order

Once both shipping labels were paid for, each user was instructed on how to properly prepare and ship their package. By providing clear guidance and automating shipping label generation, users were able to get packages out within hours of a offer being accepted.

Order status

Whether it was a failed transaction, failed delivery, or lost package — we treated fail states with the same priority as the happy path. Those moments were often what determined whether users trusted the platform enough to transact again.

We ensured both parties knew exactly where their order stood and what, if anything, they needed to do — using notifications to proactively communicate status updates tailored to each side of the transaction.

Impact

After beta testing and addressing the issues uncovered by our focus group, we launched Collect to the SoleSavy community and saw strong adoption of the platform. Members quickly began listing sneakers, making offers, and completing transactions, validating that the experience was ready to grow beyond the community.

Public launch

After more iteration, we opened Collect to the public alongside our free membership tier. This created a new acquisition channel where we could monetise users through transaction fees while incentivising them to upgrade. Through continued testing and refinement, we were able to increase upgrade conversions by over 31% following the public launch.

Community led

While we still needed to consider our business goals, the community had a hand in everything we built through focus groups, polls, and interviews. Our sneaker authentication feature reflected that relationship perfectly — originating directly from user feedback and ultimately helping increase our transaction rate by over 24%.