For this situation, pop-up sliders immediately came to mind. Not only do they feel smoother than loading a whole new page, but they also prevent the issue of losing your spot in your search since the page never actually changes. This uncovered two new options for uninterested buyers — they could either seamlessly slide to another item using buttons or keyboard, or simply exit the slider and resume their search from their original place. Smoother than my moves on the dance floor. A potential con of sliders is being oversaturated and feeling too busy. As a result, I removed the related items and articles sections, as well as the comments section. I would keep the related items because of how it promotes quick and relevant discovery, but it’s behavior seems inconsistent (doesn’t appear on every item page).

Let’s return back to the buyers who are more interested in the item. There are a few options presented to these users, such as purchasing, offering, or asking a question. I thought about factors that would make an interested buyer change their mind. One common worry is that of scams.

Scams

With all the benefits of the advent of online shopping, came a new conundrum. Since the process is virtual, theres no way to see the item in person. In the case of clothes shopping, this carries the risk that an item may not fit. It may also look a bit different from the pictures since you didn’t get to closely inspect it in person. It is an inherit risk that people generally understand about online shopping now.

However, there are more sinister cases to worry about:

What happens if the item is a knock-off?

What if the seller doesn’t even ship the item?

Since Grailed utilizes Paypal, users have buyer and seller protection. If something goes wrong, users would have to go through a strenuous process of opening a case through Paypal. The worst part is that there is no guarantee the case will be resolved in their favor. Although there is no way to completely stop these events from happening, it would be more pleasant for users to not have to deal with this in the first place. Users should be empowered to use Grailed to buy and sell clothes, not deterred.

Buying an item despite the mentioned risks is a symbol of trust. Before online shopping, you would walk up to a seller, give them a solid handshake and call them a “jolly good chap” or something along those lines(???). It’s easier to establish that sense of trust because you are interacting with them face to face, but that changes when all you see is a screen. Instead, the internet has relied on word of mouth, or as it is commonly known, feedback.

Currently, feedback feels like background noise on Grailed.

To leave feedback, you have to go directly to the page of the item. No where else does Grailed suggest leaving feedback. Not even in the successful transaction email they send the buyer. There is no meaningful incentive to ever leave feedback, leading to potentially huge losses in feedback. The power of suggestion can be a powerful tool. When Medium started suggesting tags before publishing, the amount of posts that were tagged skyrocketed from 36% to 82%. Having more feedback being left could result in scammers getting caught faster, more accurate buyer/seller ratings, and most importantly, a larger sense of trust in the community.

The way I approached this problem is by making unresolved feedback more visible. The only way to see items you’ve purchased or sold are through either your messages, or on your history page. You then have to click on the item to check if you left feedback on it. To oppose this, I created visible markers to signify purchases not yet reviewed. I chose to focus this onto the History page, rather than the Messages section.

The reason I excluded messages is because there could be a lot of messages with different buyers and sellers that didn’t result in actual purchases. Thus successful purchases could get lost in messages and cause confusion. Instead, history could function as the main hub to leave feedback. It could further attract this attention by having a dynamic counter next to it with the number of unresolved feedback.