SuppLink
A B2B mobile app that connects retail shop owners directly with their suppliers, giving them real-time stock and pricing, direct ordering, and full visibility on every delivery.
Process
UX Strategy, UX Research, UI Design, Information Architecture, User Testing
Role
Sole Designer
Tools
Figma, Miro, FigJam
Timeline
3 months, 2024
/ Context
I worked in this industry. I saw the losses. Then I designed the fix.
Shop owners reordered items they'd already received because the first call went unconfirmed. Supplier staff wrote orders by hand and still got them wrong by delivery. The loss was quiet, repetitive, and happened every week.
THE PROBLEM
Every order ran through a phone call and papernotes that could be misheard, missed, or forgotten. There is no shared record, no real-time visibility and no accountability when something went wrong.
How might we give retailers and suppliers real-time visibility into every order and stock update without adding complexity to their existing workflow?
/ Target Audience
Shop owners were guessing. Suppliers were missing details. Marketing staff were miscommunicating.
Unconfirmed call
Wrong order with outdated price
/ Research
This wasn't research from a distance. The problem sits on both sides of every bad order.
I spoke with shop owners and suppliers separately so neither side could soften what they said in front of the other.
How often does an order go wrong?
What do people do when it does?
Who takes the blame?
Four problems came up in almost every shop owner conversation.
Order Mistakes
Orders placed incorrectly due to miscommunication.
Delivery Delays
Deliveries arriving late without any pre-notifications.
Lack of Real-Time Updates
No way to check stock or pricing without calling first.
Financial Loss and Broken Trust
Financial losses that quietly eroded margins over time.
Suppliers were dealing with the same chaos from the other side.
Marketing Staff Mistakes
One wrong order and it was the supplier's relationship.
Orders Recorded by Hand
Orders were recorded by hand in notebooks.
No Real-time Price Updates
Every price change meant calling each retailer individually.
Interview Insight
/ Key Insights
Three patterns emerged that shaped every design decision.
The phone call is the product.
Every workaround was just another substitute call. The solution had to eliminate the dependency, not improve around it.
Verbal orders are risks.
Verbal orders were the root of most delivery issues. Every order needed a confirmed record the moment it was placed.
Contact reach is limited.
Suppliers could only reach retailers their marketing staff had physically visited. Both sides needed a shared network.
/ Creating Personas
Two personas, built from real conversations.
Corner-store Chaw Chaw
Small Convenience Store Owner
“Sometimes I don’t even know if my order went through until the delivery shows up or doesn’t.”
Pain Points
Workarounds
Prices often changes without notice.
Keeps a notebook of past prices and calls multiple suppliers.
Orders get delayed or missed, and there’s no proper confirmation.
Follows up with voice calls or sends reminder messages after every order.
Difficult to find new or alternative products when existing ones go out of stock.
Asks around in her small business group chats or waits for supplier reps to visit.
Local Supplier Ko Min
Beverage Distributor
"I always worry that one wrong delivery could damage the trust I’ve built with my customers."
Pain Points
Workarounds
Orders come from too many channels and are hard to keep track of.
Writes down manually on his notebooks.
Retailers often miss price updates or stock changes.
Sends updates manually through group messages or one-on-one chats.
Incorrect items are delivered to retailers.
Tries to confirm each order with a follow-up call
/ Competitor Analysis
Every existing app still made retailers manage each supplier separately.
Every app I tested added a step, company approval, before a single order could go through. None allowed ordering from multiple suppliers in one session.
The gap no one had filled. Every other app solved half the problem. SuppLink connects retailers to all their suppliers in one place with live pricing, direct ordering, and no approval gate.
/ Sketching & Wireframing
Paper sketching surfaced two decisions that shaped the entire app structure.
Early sketches had a "new order" button on every screen. On paper it became clear that shop owners always start from a supplier, not a blank form so the flow begins from the supplier catalog, not a cart.
Connecting a shop to a supplier was initially a multi-screen search flow. Sketching revealed that a single outlet code was faster, more trustworthy and it mirrors how suppliers already identify their clients.
Once the paper sketches confirmed the flow structure, I moved to wireframes to refine and validate the information hierarchy before making any visual design decisions.
/ Information Architecture
Mapping the full IA to make sure no important flow was missing.
/ User Flow
A full journey from shop registration to tracking order status.
How might Chaw Chaw track her order to Ko Min is confirmed, correct, and on its way without calling to confirm or follow-up?
/ Solution approach
A unique outlet code is the single key to connecting retailers and suppliers.
Shop Owner Chaw Chaw
Register shop and receive outlet code
She registers her shop and receives a unique outlet code which is her key to connecting with any supplier on the platform.
A direct connection to supplier without needing to wait saleperson to add.
Shop Owner Chaw Chaw
Enter outlet code and connect instantly
She enters her outlet code to connect with Supplier Ko Min. A green checkmark means the connection succeeds, and she can start ordering.
Outcomes
Supplier Ko Min
A new retailer joins his network without in-person visit.
The connection outreach limitation is solved.
Browse every connected supplier and see which products are available.
Shop Owner Chaw Chaw
Explore suppliers and see their listed items
She explores any suppliers and checks their full product catalog with real-time live stock and pricing without needing call.
Outcomes
Supplier Ko Min
No salesperson needs to visit Chaw Chaw's shop to show what's in stock this week.
Place different orders from multiple suppliers at the same time.
Shop Owner Chaw Chaw
Order several item lists in one row
She orders from several connected suppliers in a single session, without switching apps or making separate calls for each one.
Check the item detail, and there is no more guessing what's in the box.
Shop Owner Chaw Chaw
Check every detail before order
She checks descriptions, images, prices, and unit sizes before adding anything to her cart.
Outcomes
Supplier Ko Min
Incorrect orders and manual price notification calls are reduced.
He receives every order exactly as the retailers are placed.
He no longer faces verbal order mistakes or handwritten note guessing.
Every order status is visible in real-time.
Shop Owner Chaw Chaw
Track the order delivery
Once an order is placed, she tracks it in real time to see whether they are in progress, cancelled, or delivered.
Outcomes
Supplier Ko Min
Delivery disputes and delayed notifications fall away.
Every status update builds the trust between Ko Min and Chaw Chaw.
The question is "Did it work?"
/ Measurable Metric
I ran usability testing with 8 participants: 5 retail shop owners and 3 supplier marketing staffs.
Recruiting wasn't a challenge for me. I already worked alongside marketing staff, shop owners, and suppliers daily. Every task was observed without guidance, and I tracked error rate, task completion, SUS score, and NPS.
NPS of 7.7
strong likelihood of recommendation
6 out of 8
satisfied with the order flow and connection experience
Average SUS 79.5
rates as "good" usability
100%
completed with zero drop-offs.
/ Business Value
Impact on business.
For Shop Owners
Real-time stock and pricing means no more calling around to check availability.
A direct connection to suppliers means orders go through without a middleman.
And full order tracking means Chaw Chaw always knows whether her delivery is coming before it shows up or doesn't.
For Supplier
Pricing updates go out automatically, no more calling every retailer individually.
Orders arrive directly through the platform, removing the manual notebook entirely.
And a growing connected dealer network means more sales without more staff.
Testing confirmed the core flow worked and revealed three opportunities to make it stronger.
/ Iterative design approach
Moving the cart to the top bar where users naturally look, has eliminated the confusion immediately.
Hard to navigate "Add To Cart"
Participants couldn't find their cart after adding items. I had placed it in the menu bar, assuming it was a natural location, but when they were mid-browsing, they never looked there.
Before
After
Added supplier-grouped inline browsing selection dropdown in the product browsing page, immediately reducing an extra 3 steps of clicking.
Browsing products shouldn't require navigating to a supplier first.
The existing flow required 3 steps: find supplier, tap in, then browse. When participants already knew what they wanted, it felt like unnecessary work. What they actually wanted was supplier products grouped directly on the browsing page without breaking their flow.
Before
Step 1: Go inside Suppliers.
Step 2: Tap Supplier.
Step 3: Browse items.
The decision on whether I should do only one screen or both?
Option 1
Remove product browsing from the supplier screen entirely.
Option 2
Keep option 1 and surface supplier products inline on the browsing page.
I decided to go with option 2. Why? Retailers who know which supplier they want can go directly to that supplier's page. Retailers who are just browsing can see supplier-grouped products without leaving the main flow.
After
Tap Products.
Directly choose which supplier to order from.
A supplier label above each item group stopped questioning the breakdown and moved through checkout without hesitation.
There is no way to tell which item group belongs to which suppliers.
The order summary listed every item clearly but showed no supplier context. During testing, participants with orders from multiple suppliers couldn't tell which items came from which supplier.
Before
After
A supplier label on every product card dropped browsing hestitation.
The supplier behind each product was invisible.
Items from different suppliers appeared in the same product listing with no indication of where each item came from. Participants making price comparisons couldn't evaluate their options confidently and the source name directly affects both pricing expectations and delivery trust.
Before
After
/ Takeaways
What I've learned
Industry experience gave me a head start with sharper questions and faster insights. But that same familiarity created blind spots. I assumed what was obvious to me was obvious to users. Usability testing reminded me that knowing a problem and designing for someone else who has it are two different skills.
What I'd do differently
I spent more time validating the retailer flow than the supplier side. In a real cycle, I'd have run a dedicated supplier-only session. A dual-user platform needs equal validation on both sides.
What comes next
Version 2 would add push notifications for price changes. Retailers currently have no alert when a price they care about shifts. I'd also explore a lightweight analytics view for suppliers: knowing which products get browsed but not ordered is valuable catalog data.
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