Problem Space
Buyers want to secure a great deal. Sellers want serious buyers. Hold Offer was created to bridge these needs and launched in June 2019. Hold Offer, in a sense, is an agreement that a buyer will buy the item from a seller, and the seller will sell that item to that buyer. Buyers can send a Hold Offer request to sellers, and sellers can accept a Hold Offer. Buyers and sellers have 6 days to meet, exchange, and transact. At meet up, the buyer will pull up a unique generated QR code, and the seller will scan the QR code. Once the QR code is scanned, the transaction happens, and the payment will be deposited into the seller's account.
How do buyers and sellers think and feel about this new feature?
Research Method
Surveys
Why? To understand buyers' and sellers' attitudes towards the feature and to gather a large amount of data. Hold Offer was a new feature, and we wanted to learn from our users what they thought about the feature and what their experience with it has been like so far.
Process
I worked closely with the product manager (PM) and my research manager on developing and conducting the surveys. I made sure we were aligned on what the goal of the survey was and what we wanted to learn from our users. I partnered with business operations to collect buyer and seller user lists for the surveys. I randomized the lists to get a sample of users to whom the survey would be sent.
Two surveys were conducted one month apart. The first survey was launched in July and the second in August. The July survey covered the use of Hold Offer in June when the feature was launched to 95% of the country. The August survey covered the use of Hold Offer in July when the feature became officially live to the entire country.
There were two types of surveys: one for buyers, one for sellers. Buyers were asked about their recent purchase while sellers were asked about their recent sales.
Example questions:
What prompted you to send/accept a Hold Offer?
How likely are you to use Hold Offer again?
Logistics
Survey platforms: Qualtrics & SurveyMonkey
Email platform: Braze
Analysis
Quantitative and qualitative analyses were done for the surveys.
Quantitative analysis included calculating averages, counts, count ifs, NPS scores, and trends across different areas. All quantitative analyses were done on Google Sheets.
Content and thematic analysis were done on the qualitative data from the open ended responses. Through content and thematic analysis, various themes popped up regarding buyers’ and sellers’ experiences of Hold Offer.
These themes were used to code each open ended response.
Findings
Through analysis and synthesis of the data, there were a number of findings for both buyers and sellers and their Hold Offer experiences.
Below are the high level findings:
Buyers ultimately like Hold Offer because they’re able to secure a great deal on an item they want and they’re able to show sellers they’re highly serious about buying. However, buyers dislike that sellers either do not respond or accept their Hold Offer request or sellers flake after accepting. Flake includes selling the item to someone else or cancelling the transaction.
Sellers like Hold Offer because they have a committed buyer for the item they’re selling. However, there are a number of things sellers dislike about Hold Offer. Overall, there is a lack of seller value with this feature. Sellers dislike the fee they’re charged from the transaction. There are still flaky buyers. Buyers send Hold Offers, but either don’t respond, don’t meet up, or cancel. Additionally, payment takes too long to be deposited into their account.
Recommendations
Based on the findings, actionable recommendations were provided to the team to improve the feature.
There needs to be better education for buyers and sellers on what the feature is and how it works. Some buyers and sellers stated they had to figure out how it works on their own which made it frustrating for them.
Strong value props need to be identified to entice sellers to use Hold Offer from beginning to end of the transaction. Some sellers only accept Hold Offers, but then request cash to avoid paying fees or deposits taking too long. How can we entice them to use it all the way through?
There needs to be consequences for flaky buyers and sellers. It doesn’t need to be a fee penalty, but something that makes the Hold Offer have a lot more weight.
Currently on the app, there is a feature called Fast deposit that allows sellers to opt in to get their payment within 24 hours by paying a small fee. This feature was developed after Shipping was launched, so sellers who have used shipping are familiar with this option. However, sellers who have never shipped but have used/are using Hold Offer are not aware of it, so this feature needs to be re-highlighted to them.
Sellers’ items should be re-listed and promoted when a Hold Offer transaction falls through. When a Hold Offer ends up not happening, it’s frustrating to sellers because they have wasted their time, lost other potential buyers, and their item is no longer at the top. The least we can do is offer to re-list and promote their item for them to regain traction.
Lastly, buyers want the choice to send the Hold Offer. To make a Hold Offer, buyers tap “Make offer” and are given the option to send a Hold request. For buyers who are used to tapping “Make offer” to send an unofficial offer to sellers, they feel that they are being forced into using the feature. They want to opt in instead of being forced into it, especially if they have to learn how to use it on their own.
Impact
I am proud of this survey project because of the impact it made for the team and for the feature.
The surveys conducted are a baseline for future surveys on this feature. Comparisons between surveys can be done to see if any significant changes in experiences, ease of use, etc. have occurred. We can also look at changes in NPS scores or averages of the likelihood to use Hold Offer again.
The surveys defined next steps for improvement of the feature.
Lastly, I developed buyer and seller user journeys for Hold Offer based on the quantitative and qualitative survey data as well as user generated metrics from the Looker dashboard created for Hold Offer.
