Technology is breaking down traditional commerce and forcing existing industries to build marketplaces. If they aren’t building their own marketplace, they’re offering their products or services on an existing one. The common theme being that they have to innovate and adapt to the way consumers are seeking and purchasing products or services or they will become obsolete.
Marketplaces provide third-party sellers with a platform that they can use to reach their desired consumer and process transactions. Recent technological advancements have drastically changed the way people perceive commerce with the majority of consumers adopting e-commerce first solutions. Marketplaces appeal to consumers because they provide them with the power of choice. Marketplaces have empowered consumers to find everything they need within one easy to use platform.
How do I Create a Powerful Marketplace?
The key to creating a marketplace that takes the e-commerce world by storm is making sure that someone will pay for what you’re building. If consumers aren’t willing to pay for your platform, you’re building a hobby, not a business.
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when building a marketplace is not integrating design thinking into the development process. Design thinking makes it possible for you to dive deep into the minds of your desired consumers so you can really dig deep and make sure you’re creating a valuable product that appeals to their pain points. Leveraging design thinking will make it possible for you to understand users, challenge assumptions and redefine solutions so you can successfully launch your marketplace.
Buy into Design Thinking from the Start
Design thinking is a human centered approach to innovation that combines transformative ideas, viability, and a designer’s desire to understand the consumer or user on a deep level. Design thinking isn’t just an imperative practice that our team at Marketplace Studio integrates into each phase of development, but it’s also a huge competitive advantage that sets your business apart from your competitors which directly impacts your businesses growth and bottom line.
It’s extremely important that you do your own research and buy into the design thinking process from the start. Start out by jotting down notes and forming your own perception of the design thinking process so you can make sure you’re weaving it into each phase of your project. Integrating design thinking into your process from the start will help you save time and money.
A Tried and Tested Approach
When we were building Ruckify, design thinking was part of everything we did. We knew that we were attempting to penetrate a space that many people had tried to innovate in the past and we knew that we had to do something different in order to succeed. We were intuitive and iterative with our entire process and we continued to be meticulous and make iterations based on consumer feedback for about two and a half years.
If we had introduced design thinking from the very beginning, we would have saved tons of time and money. If we had been more methodical, we would have been able to make iterations to a high-fidelity mock rather than the code. We were anxious to write the code and get people using our product, so we didn’t take the time to make iterations based on user’s feedback. We then had to make changes to the code which takes more time, costs more money, and introduces bugs.
Introducing design thinking into your process from the beginning provides you with the time and framework that you need to build a high-fidelity mock that you can use to validate your business idea.
Design Thinking is Our Foundation
We use design thinking as our methodology to grow and expand upon your ideas by empathizing with your intended user. Leveraging design thinking makes it possible for us to create an innovative prototype that we can then use to test and validate your big idea.
Are you Interested in Learning More?
Are you interested in learning more about how our team leverages design thinking? Click here to book a complimentary 30-minute consultation today.
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