Integrating Instant Messaging into Yahoo Taiwan Store
Providing a tailored instant messaging experience for both B2B sellers and buyers, enabling seamless communication and improving transaction efficiency.
Overview
This project addressed communication pain points between buyers and sellers on Yahoo Taiwan Store’s e-commerce platform, serving the local market in Taiwan.
I designed a unified instant messaging experience for both the consumer-facing App and Web versions, as well as a customer service interface and backend management tools for B2B sellers.
The solution improved communication efficiency and helped increase order conversion rates.
My Role
- Collaborated with researchers and operations teams on merchant interviews to capture needs and pain points, translating insights into actionable design requirements and prototypes.
- Performed competitive analysis and defined the product strategy for the instant messaging system.
- Designed IA, user flow, and visual spec for both the buyer-facing (App & Web) and seller-facing web management platform experiences.
- Refined the overall IM system design to ensure a consistent UX across all Yahoo platforms.
Goal
- Provide a complete and convenient customer service tool on the e-commerce platform to help sellers respond to buyer inquiries more efficiently.
- Enable buyers to initiate conversations more easily, increasing inquiry rates and improving purchase intent.
- In the future, integrate a more advanced automated messaging feature into other Yahoo products.
Merchant User Interviews
In the early stage of this project, I collaborated with researchers, the operations team, and product managers to interview 11 merchants of varying business models and scales.
The goal was to understand each store’s customer service workflows and the communication challenges they face with consumers throughout the pre-sale and post-sale journey.
Online Interviews with Merchants and Key Findings Summary
User Pain Points
Buyer Side
- Existing platform communication tools are insufficient to meet their needs.
- Unpredictable response times and long waiting periods reduce satisfaction.
- Communication channels are scattered, making it harder to track conversations.
Merchant Side
- Frequently need to answer repetitive questions from buyers.
- Require additional steps to verify consumer identity, order details, and product information, which slows down response time.
Design Solutions
Buyer Side
- Make the communication entry point highly visible across the shopping journey, enabling quick access to contact sellers.
- Ensure a responsive messaging flow with status indicators and expectations for reply time to increase buyer confidence.
Merchant Side
- Provide an integrated web management platform that displays real-time customer profiles and order details to speed up support.
- Offer pre-defined templates and quick-reply tools to reduce repetitive responses and improve efficiency.
User Journey & Entry Points
Mapped potential issues and pain points across different touchpoints in the shopping journey, categorizing them into primary and secondary scenarios. These findings informed the design of entry points and features, ensuring that each stage of the journey provided clear opportunities for users to engage with sellers effectively.
Mapping consumer steps and touchpoints throughout the shopping journey.
Defining IM entry points at buyer touchpoints where communication with sellers may be needed, and establishing IM touchpoints for the seller side.
Design Solutions
Buyer Side
- Make the communication entry point highly visible across the shopping journey, enabling quick access to contact sellers.
- Ensure a responsive messaging flow with status indicators and expectations for reply time to increase buyer confidence.
Merchant Side
- Provide an integrated web management platform that displays real-time customer profiles and order details to speed up support.
- Offer pre-defined templates and quick-reply tools to reduce repetitive responses and improve efficiency.
Displays buyer and order information within the chat window, helping sellers quickly identify the buyer and respond more efficiently.
Provides sellers with a feature to set FAQs displayed in the chatroom, allowing buyers to find answers and reducing repetitive questions for sellers.
Provides sellers with the ability to set time-based auto-reply messages, preventing unexpected waiting times from impacting brand perception.
Enables sellers to create predefined quick messages for common responses, improving reply speed and efficiency.
Visual Spec Delivery
Provided detailed visual design specifications and interaction flows for each module and page, defining guidelines for both web and mobile during the development phase.
Impact
One month after launch, key performance indicators were tracked to measure merchant adoption, user engagement, and overall business impact.
76
Loved by Users, with a High NPS Score
82.4%
Adopted by the Majority of Merchants
5K+
Messages Exchanged Between Buyers and Sellers
1.6%
DAU Showing Steady Growth
© 2025 Mason Chang.
Integrating Instant Messaging into Yahoo Taiwan Store
Providing a tailored instant messaging experience for both B2B sellers and buyers, enabling seamless communication and improving transaction efficiency.
Overview
This project addressed communication pain points between buyers and sellers on Yahoo Taiwan Store’s e-commerce platform, serving the local market in Taiwan.
I designed a unified instant messaging experience for both the consumer-facing App and Web versions, as well as a customer service interface and backend management tools for B2B sellers.
The solution improved communication efficiency and helped increase order conversion rates.
My Role
- Collaborated with researchers and operations teams on merchant interviews to capture needs and pain points, translating insights into actionable design requirements and prototypes.
- Performed competitive analysis and defined the product strategy for the instant messaging system.
- Designed IA, user flow, and visual spec for both the buyer-facing (App & Web) and seller-facing web management platform experiences.
- Refined the overall IM system design to ensure a consistent UX across all Yahoo platforms.
Goal
- Provide a complete and convenient customer service tool on the e-commerce platform to help sellers respond to buyer inquiries more efficiently.
- Enable buyers to initiate conversations more easily, increasing inquiry rates and improving purchase intent.
- In the future, integrate a more advanced automated messaging feature into other Yahoo products.
Merchant User Interviews
In the early stage of this project, I collaborated with researchers, the operations team, and product managers to interview 11 merchants of varying business models and scales.
The goal was to understand each store’s customer service workflows and the communication challenges they face with consumers throughout the pre-sale and post-sale journey.
Online Interviews with Merchants and Key Findings Summary
User Pain Points
Buyer Side
- Existing platform communication tools are insufficient to meet their needs.
- Unpredictable response times and long waiting periods reduce satisfaction.
- Communication channels are scattered, making it harder to track conversations.
Merchant Side
- Frequently need to answer repetitive questions from buyers.
- Require additional steps to verify consumer identity, order details, and product information, which slows down response time.
Design Solutions
Buyer Side
- Make the communication entry point highly visible across the shopping journey, enabling quick access to contact sellers.
- Ensure a responsive messaging flow with status indicators and expectations for reply time to increase buyer confidence.
Merchant Side
- Provide an integrated web management platform that displays real-time customer profiles and order details to speed up support.
- Offer pre-defined templates and quick-reply tools to reduce repetitive responses and improve efficiency.
User Journey & Entry Points
Mapped potential issues and pain points across different touchpoints in the shopping journey, categorizing them into primary and secondary scenarios. These findings informed the design of entry points and features, ensuring that each stage of the journey provided clear opportunities for users to engage with sellers effectively.
Mapping consumer steps and touchpoints throughout the shopping journey.
Defining IM entry points at buyer touchpoints where communication with sellers may be needed, and establishing IM touchpoints for the seller side.
Design Solutions
Buyer Side
- Make the communication entry point highly visible across the shopping journey, enabling quick access to contact sellers.
- Ensure a responsive messaging flow with status indicators and expectations for reply time to increase buyer confidence.
Merchant Side
- Provide an integrated web management platform that displays real-time customer profiles and order details to speed up support.
- Offer pre-defined templates and quick-reply tools to reduce repetitive responses and improve efficiency.
Displays buyer and order information within the chat window, helping sellers quickly identify the buyer and respond more efficiently.
Provides sellers with a feature to set FAQs displayed in the chatroom, allowing buyers to find answers and reducing repetitive questions for sellers.
Provides sellers with the ability to set time-based auto-reply messages, preventing unexpected waiting times from impacting brand perception.
Enables sellers to create predefined quick messages for common responses, improving reply speed and efficiency.
Visual Spec Delivery
Provided detailed visual design specifications and interaction flows for each module and page, defining guidelines for both web and mobile during the development phase.
Impact
One month after launch, key performance indicators were tracked to measure merchant adoption, user engagement, and overall business impact.
76
Loved by Users, with a High NPS Score
82.4%
Adopted by the Majority of Merchants
5K+
Messages Exchanged Between Buyers and Sellers
1.6%
DAU Showing Steady Growth
© 2025 Mason Chang. All Rights Reserved.
Integrating Instant Messaging into Yahoo Taiwan Store
Providing a tailored instant messaging experience for both B2B sellers and buyers, enabling seamless communication and improving transaction efficiency.
Overview
This project addressed communication pain points between buyers and sellers on Yahoo Taiwan Store’s e-commerce platform, serving the local market in Taiwan.
I designed a unified instant messaging experience for both the consumer-facing App and Web versions, as well as a customer service interface and backend management tools for B2B sellers.
The solution improved communication efficiency and helped increase order conversion rates.
My Role
- Collaborated with researchers and operations teams on merchant interviews to capture needs and pain points, translating insights into actionable design requirements and prototypes.
- Performed competitive analysis and defined the product strategy for the instant messaging system.
- Designed IA, user flow, and visual spec for both the buyer-facing (App & Web) and seller-facing web management platform experiences.
- Refined the overall IM system design to ensure a consistent UX across all Yahoo platforms.
Goal
- Provide a complete and convenient customer service tool on the e-commerce platform to help sellers respond to buyer inquiries more efficiently.
- Enable buyers to initiate conversations more easily, increasing inquiry rates and improving purchase intent.
- In the future, integrate a more advanced automated messaging feature into other Yahoo products.
Merchant User Interviews
In the early stage of this project, I collaborated with researchers, the operations team, and product managers to interview 11 merchants of varying business models and scales.
The goal was to understand each store’s customer service workflows and the communication challenges they face with consumers throughout the pre-sale and post-sale journey.
Online Interviews with Merchants and Key Findings Summary
User Pain Points
Buyer Side
- Existing platform communication tools are insufficient to meet their needs.
- Unpredictable response times and long waiting periods reduce satisfaction.
- Communication channels are scattered, making it harder to track conversations.
Merchant Side
- Frequently need to answer repetitive questions from buyers.
- Require additional steps to verify consumer identity, order details, and product information, which slows down response time.
Design Solutions
Buyer Side
- Make the communication entry point highly visible across the shopping journey, enabling quick access to contact sellers.
- Ensure a responsive messaging flow with status indicators and expectations for reply time to increase buyer confidence.
Merchant Side
- Provide an integrated web management platform that displays real-time customer profiles and order details to speed up support.
- Offer pre-defined templates and quick-reply tools to reduce repetitive responses and improve efficiency.
User Journey & Entry Points
Mapped potential issues and pain points across different touchpoints in the shopping journey, categorizing them into primary and secondary scenarios. These findings informed the design of entry points and features, ensuring that each stage of the journey provided clear opportunities for users to engage with sellers effectively.
Mapping consumer steps and touchpoints throughout the shopping journey.
Defining IM entry points at buyer touchpoints where communication with sellers may be needed, and establishing IM touchpoints for the seller side.
Design Solutions
Buyer Side
- Make the communication entry point highly visible across the shopping journey, enabling quick access to contact sellers.
- Ensure a responsive messaging flow with status indicators and expectations for reply time to increase buyer confidence.
Merchant Side
- Provide an integrated web management platform that displays real-time customer profiles and order details to speed up support.
- Offer pre-defined templates and quick-reply tools to reduce repetitive responses and improve efficiency.
Displays buyer and order information within the chat window, helping sellers quickly identify the buyer and respond more efficiently.
Provides sellers with a feature to set FAQs displayed in the chatroom, allowing buyers to find answers and reducing repetitive questions for sellers.
Provides sellers with the ability to set time-based auto-reply messages, preventing unexpected waiting times from impacting brand perception.
Enables sellers to create predefined quick messages for common responses, improving reply speed and efficiency.
Visual Spec Delivery
Provided detailed visual design specifications and interaction flows for each module and page, defining guidelines for both web and mobile during the development phase.
Impact
One month after launch, key performance indicators were tracked to measure merchant adoption, user engagement, and overall business impact.
76
Loved by Users, with a High NPS Score
82.4%
Adopted by the Majority of Merchants
5K+
Messages Exchanged Between Buyers and Sellers
1.6%
DAU Showing Steady Growth
© 2025 Mason Chang. All Rights Reserved.