International Paper eCommerce UX
Faced with increased competition from digital distributors, International Paper knew it was time to combine their world-class sales force and supply chain with an innovative e-commerce system that benefitted customers and internal teams.
Initially, International Paper’s e-commerce team asked us to consult with them as they researched a technology vendor for their new e-commerce platform. But, as we started working together, the team realized that in order to choose the right system, we had to start by understanding the experiences they want their users - including internal teams, customers and distributors - to have.
We joined forces for two days of workshops where we identified current problems, outlined business goals and started mapping existing and future user journeys. Then, leveraging their existing research, we set off on four weeks of mad science wireframing and flow-making, thinking through how end users, distributors, and IP’s internal teams would navigate the new e-commerce system.
We took the tasks outlined in the flows and combined them with the team’s business requirements to create a report card - complete with grading rubric - that IP can use as they evaluate potential vendors and technologies. Finally, we worked with the eCommerce team to conceive and build a presentation to that used our work to make the case for IP’s new eCommerce program and addressed new business considerations.
Delivering Tools
We took the tasks outlined in the flows and combined them with the team’s business requirements to create a report card - complete with grading rubric - that IP can use as they evaluate potential vendors and technologies.
Most importantly, we worked with the e-commerce team to conceive and build a strategic direction presentation that they could use to promote the program internally and gain buy-in to kick off the giant corporate initiative.
When we started down this path we weren’t even really sure what it was we were looking for, but Simple Focus helped us take all the information and questions we had floating around our heads and boil it down to what we really needed.
Amanda Morris eCommerce manager, International Paper
