Revamping Rakuten's Fulfillment Network
Role
Product Designer
Duration
12 months
Tools
Figma · Maze · Notion
Team
3 designers · 6 engineers
Reinventing logistics at Rakuten Fulfillment Network: full project walkthrough
01 — Context
Rakuten Fulfillment Network is Rakuten France's logistics service allowing merchants to store products in warehouses, with order management and delivery fully handled. The service lacked ergonomics and fluidity, failed to meet merchants' real needs and contributed to high churn and low acquisition rates.
My role: rethink the end-to-end experience for merchants, starting from their real needs.
"40% errors on logistics operations, compensated by the sales teams."
— Initial brief, Rakuten France
02 — Discovery
We conducted a user research phase with internal stakeholders (commercial teams, logistics partners, product and engineering) as well as merchants to understand their workflows, needs and pain points around stock and order management.
Insight 01
Poor cost visibility
Lack of visibility into fulfillment costs, making it difficult to track profitability.
Insight 02
Low returns traceability
Lack of traceability for returned orders, limiting effective inventory management.
Insight 03
Lost commercial opportunities
Lost sales during restocking periods due to long replenishment lead times.
Insight 04
Lack of stock activity visibility
Difficulty understanding the history and detail of stock movements, forcing merchants to search for information themselves.
03 — Delivery
How might we design a fulfillment experience that requires minimal action from merchants, while bringing them transparency and reassurance at every step?
I facilitated collaborative workshops with the teams to redefine user journeys, focusing on clarifying key moments and unifying the experience across the platform.
User flow of the new inbound stock journey
After 3 iteration cycles and 2 rounds of testing with merchants, we delivered the unified experience progressively, in several batches.
+20%
Feature usage
+15%
Logistics service adoption
04 — Learnings
User journeys are never perfect. They must accommodate technical and business constraints.
Between API limitations, legacy systems, and sometimes diverging needs between merchants, sales teams and operations, design becomes an exercise in compromise.
Projet suivant →
Building Rakuten's Claims Management Service
Curious minds make the best collaborators.
Let's explore, question and design solutions together.
Let's talk →+33 7 45 52 34 39
elaine.jouffroy@gmail.com