Inventory Manager
Empowering Small Independent DealershipsFacebook Marketplace is a great place for consumers to buy and sell a wide range of products but most auto dealership businesses spend the bulk of their time on their business page(s). We wanted to meet them where they’re at and create a one stop shop so they can manage their inventory directly from their business page.
Marketplace Motors | 2020 – PRESENT
On the Motors team I focus on the buyer and seller experiences for C2C and B2C commerce. This includes core experience improvements and also recently launching a 0 to 1 inventory manager feature.
On the Motors team I focus on the buyer and seller experiences for C2C and B2C commerce. This includes core experience improvements and also recently launching a 0 to 1 inventory manager feature.
Meet them where they’re at
THE PROBLEM
Small, independent auto dealerships currently don’t have an easy way to manage their Marketplace inventory from their business page(s). Additionally 3rd party tool providers can be cumbersome to use and create additional overhead cost.
OUR OPPORTUNITY
Build a set of features that allow independent auto dealerships to create, manage and advertise inventory directly from their Facebook dealer page.
WHY WE CARE
Most small - medium sized dealerships lack the software, budget or just aren’t tech-savvy enough to utilize advanced business tools that Facebook offers.
Competitors currently focus on larger, more structured Dealerships so we have the opportunity to deliver a purposeful experience to underserved independent dealerships.
50%
Of used cars sold in the U.S. (via Marketplace) are under $10K
1/3
Of used car transactions are by small independent dealers
Of used cars sold in the U.S. (via Marketplace) are under $10K
1/3
Of used car transactions are by small independent dealers
Create, View, Manage
Through an Alpha launch research study, we interviewed and learned from small dealership business owners about listing management pain points and what tools helped them work more effeciently.
Our new surface provided easy access to those key functions necessary to manage Marketplace Motors listings.
Through an Alpha launch research study, we interviewed and learned from small dealership business owners about listing management pain points and what tools helped them work more effeciently.
Our new surface provided easy access to those key functions necessary to manage Marketplace Motors listings.
Creation is key
Our strategy in growing transactions is to first focus on growing Marketplace selection by making it easy to create listings.
WEB UPLOAD
If a small dealership has an existing inventory partner or their own business website with their listings, they can input the listing URL to auto-populate data and photos into a Marketplace listing composer. This feature was one of the most aniticipated among participants in our research sessions.
Home, sweet home
VEHICLES SHOWROOM
VEHICLES SHOWROOMWhile we mainly focused on admin side tools we also wanted to create a digital showroom so that interested viewers could browse and filter a dealership’s entire catalog in one place. We achieved this by adding a “vehicles” tab to the businesses home page and modeled it after the Marketplace browsing interface for consistency.
QUICK LISTING
We also enabled an easy way to access a listing composer by adding a “vehicle” option to the create menu bar on a dealership’s home page. Surfacing this on the landing page has boosted listing creation significantly.
Just getting started...
We still have several other opportunities to explore especially around educating small businesses the power of marketing but our new tools are serving as a foundation. They’ve been well received by the auto industry and have started to show promising results.
Digital Showroom
Creation from Pages
Providing a new surface for interested buyers to browse has led to an increase in ‘listing interactions’ while helping the dealership promote it’s ‘brand’.
Creation from Pages
Allowing vehicle listings to be created from Pages has led to an increase in overall inventory.
All of the dealership owners that participated in our early Alpha test have voiced they would continue using our seller tool and provided a 4.5/5 ease of use rating.
Motors Foundation
While driving Inventory Management work I was also focused on a few other smaller projects affecting the core experience.
C02 EFFECIENCY METER
Newer vehicles sold in Germany are now required by law to show the C02 output rating. This official rating is quickly being adopted by other European countries so it was crucial to meet this demand or risk losing all newer car inventory on Marketplace.
I partnered with our Satellite Product team and developed a component that adhered to the strict E.E.U.U. visual guidelines while trying to improve accessibility.
This new component will also be able to scale to other energy effeciency ratings (global) for newer electrical appliances.
