ChemPoint Online Ordering Portal

Helping Customers by Improving Inventory Availability

Project Overview

ChemPoint, a leading B2B distributor of specialty chemicals, offers an online ordering platform to streamline purchasing. However, order completion rates were low, and customer support inquiries were high, indicating friction in the process.

Goals:

  • Identify why customers abandon their carts.

  • Analyze decision making in the ordering process

  • Find opportunities for self-service solutions

My Role:

Senior UX Designer

Timeline:

May 2018 October 2018

Team & Collaboration:

  • Defined UX strategy with product managers.

  • Facilitated stakeholder workshops to validate design directions.

  • Partnered with engineering to ensure smooth implementation.

  • Standardized UI components with the design team.

  • Led usability research to measure impact.

Research & Insights

I reviewed 150+ customer feedback reports and support calls to understand why customers weren’t completing orders. The data revealed frequent order-related inquiries. I also contacted customer service managers to identify recurring order delays and fulfillment challenges.

Problem Identified:

  • Customers hesitated at checkout when they weren’t sure if items were in stock, leading to abandoned orders and increased support calls.

Design Exploration

The original ordering experience (Cart → Shipping → Handling → Checkout) left customers unsure about stock availability, leading to hesitation and increased support calls.

Whiteboard shipment exploration with stakeholders.

Updating the Navigation and Order Flow

To reduce uncertainty, we redesigned the flow by adding an Availability step before checkout. This allowed customers to:

  • See stock availability before checkout

  • Select fulfillment options based on availability

  • Manage backorders without contacting customer support

Sketching the new availability screen within the ordering process.

New Fulfillment Options

By combining availability and fulfillment into a single step, customers could make informed shipping decisions upfront:

  • Ship in Full, wait for full availability before shipping.

  • Split Shipment, receive available items first.

  • Ship as Available, ship products as they arrive.

Refining Solution

After exploring different approaches, we refined the design to ensure inventory availability and fulfillment options were clear and easy to use.

Old vs New Navigation

New Shipping Screen Design

Designed to simplify decision-making, the new Shipping Screen allows users to:

  • Select freight terms and requested ship date.

  • Choose shipping preferences before inventory is checked.

New Availability Screen Design

Once the user selects their shipping preference, the system pulls inventory data to confirm stock levels so users can see exact stock levels, customers can now:

  • See exact stock levels before checkout.

  • Adjust fulfillment choices based on product availability.

Key Takeaways & Challenges

Challenges and Constraints

  • Limiting engineering resources led us to simplify the solution by prioritizing an order-wide shipping selection, while differing per-product control for future iterations.

  • The need was to quickly deliver a high-impact, low-effort solution that could be implemented without extending development timelines.

Key Takeaways

  • While working on this project, I identified inconsistencies in UI components across the ordering platform.

  • This opened the door to auditing components and rolling out a consistent design system, ensuring a cohesive user experience across future product iterations.


Next Steps

  • Monitor order completion rates post-launch to measure impact.

  • Explore per-product shipping preferences as a future feature enhancement.

  • Conduct a UI audit to standardize components and create a consistent design system for future improvements.