Chief Designer of Mobile — Mobile Design & Product Initiatives
At DHgate, I was brought in to build and lead the mobile design team and drive the redesign of the core mobile app, focusing on improving buyer engagement and mobile GMV.
Key contributions included:
Leading the revamp of the flagship mobile app to improve engagement and mobile purchasing flows
Launching new mobile product initiatives including Socialshops, Cooby, and Diane’s Home
Driving product experimentation and A/B testing across key mobile surfaces
Integrating features such as seller stores, coupons, and streamlined checkout to support mobile commerce growth
The work required coordinating closely with Product, Mobile Operations, Editorial, and Partnerships teams to align product initiatives with DHgate’s broader marketplace strategy.
Revamping DHgate’s Mobile App & Launching New Commerce Products
Expanding Mobile Commerce Beyond Browsing
DHgate operated one of the world’s largest wholesale marketplaces with a mature desktop platform, while early mobile products were limited to simple product browsing with minimal purchasing functionality.
Key commerce capabilities such as seller storefronts, coupons, recommendations, and promotional campaigns had not yet been implemented on mobile. As a result, the platform supported discovery but did not meaningfully support purchasing behavior, returning buyers, or GMV growth.
To drive mobile expansion, the app needed to move beyond product browsing and support full commerce workflows while enabling experimentation to continuously optimize the experience.
$64.1M
Total Mobile GMV
(2015)
117%
Mobile GMV Growth
(2015)
386%
App GMV Growth
(2015)
73%
Mobile Web GMV Growth
(2015)
Reducing Checkout Friction with One Step Buy
Shortening the Path to Purchase
Multi-step checkout flows introduced unnecessary friction, particularly for returning users who had already made purchasing decisions. The gap between intent and completion slowed conversion and reduced the likelihood of repeated transactions.
Purchases Could Be Completed With a Single Action
One Step Buy enabled users to finalize orders in one step, eliminating intermediate checkout screens and reducing cognitive and operational overhead. This shift aligned the mobile experience with buyer intent and made completing a purchase significantly faster.
One Step Buy feature enabled with simple user settings and integrated into the product page.
Strengthening Buyer–Seller Relationships with Seller Stores
Purchasing Was Transactional and Hard to Repeat
On mobile, purchases were typically one-off events. Buyers had no reliable way to return to sellers they trusted, forcing them to rediscover products through search or promotions. This added friction, reduced retention, and made repeat purchasing unlikely, even for satisfied buyers.
Buying From Preferred Sellers Became Easy and Habit-Forming
Seller Stores gave buyers a direct path back to the merchants they trusted. This supported relationship-based purchasing, made re-engagement intentional rather than accidental, and paired naturally with seller coupons and promotions. The result was stronger seller loyalty, increased repeat purchasing, and healthier long-term mobile engagement.
Seller Stores tab added to the navigation, enabling users to browse seller storefronts.
Driving Repeat Purchasing with Mobile Coupons
Incentives Were Not Integrated Into the Mobile Purchase Flow
Mobile purchases were typically isolated to single sessions, with limited mechanisms to encourage buyers to return or make incremental purchases. Desktop had established seller loyalty behaviors through storefronts and promotions, but those patterns had not yet translated into the mobile ecosystem. As a result, incentives had low visibility and did not influence purchasing behavior on mobile.
Coupons Encouraged Buyers to Return and Continue Purchasing
Integrating both general platform coupons and seller-specific coupons into the mobile experience created a natural incentive for repeat purchasing. These coupons could be claimed and applied directly during checkout, reinforcing seller relationships and reducing the cost barrier for incremental purchases. This made mobile commerce feel more continuous rather than transactional.
New “My Coupons” section in the app, with coupons surfaced across search results, product pages, and the cart to maximize redemption opportunities.
Platform Partnerships & Enablement
Supporting Marketplace Extensions Through Partnerships
In support of DHgate’s broader platform strategy, I collaborated with the Strategic Partnerships team on the Shopify integration, which enabled Shopify merchants to populate their stores with products from DHgate’s supplier network. While the integration itself was owned by another team, our mobile design group contributed supporting assets, including a motion graphics walkthrough video used to explain the integration and onboard users.
This work reinforced the importance of clear communication and tooling when extending complex marketplaces into external platforms.
Shopify–DHgate integration explainer video demonstrating how easily DHgate products can be added to a Shopify store.
Exploring New Product Opportunities
Social Commerce Platform
Socialshops was a web-first social commerce platform that allowed influencers to create customized storefronts populated with products from DHgate merchants. As lead product manager and designer, I defined the roadmap, prioritized features, and guided the product from concept to launch.
The ecosystem included:
Influencer-facing storefronts
Internal operations and merchandising tools
Merchant management workflows
Field demos and direct user feedback shaped early iterations and helped validate feature direction.
Influencer portal dashboard allowing users to track sales analytics and customize their digital storefronts.
Influencer portal featuring tile and list views for browsing and selecting new products to add to influencer storefronts.
Operations portal for managing influencers and their respective orders.
Operations portal for managing merchant product listings and newly uploaded products.
Experimenting with Engagement Models
Spinning Out Vertical Categories Into Standalone Apps
We explored whether vertical categories could outperform the general marketplace as standalone apps with their own engagement and purchase models. Cooby used mobile discovery, voting mechanics, and a crowdfunding-style “wish” model, while Diane’s Home tested tablet-first browsing for home décor. Engagement increased, but only some interaction models translated into purchase intent, clarifying what had commercial viability versus what was engagement-only.
Diane’s Home was a tablet app that showcased home décor within styled rooms, organized by room type and design style.
Cooby app evolved from endless product scrolling, to a “Hot or Not” swipe interaction and eventually to a crowd-funding experience.
Results & Impact
Driving Conversion, Retention, and GMV Through Mobile
Improved mobile conversion and checkout efficiency
Increased adoption of simplified purchase flows
Strong engagement with seller stores and coupon systems
Successful launch of multiple mobile products and experiments
Clear data-driven insights into scalable vs non-scalable models
Learnings & Reflections
Designing at marketplace scale requires constant validation. Not every experiment succeeds, but disciplined testing and fast iteration make it possible to distinguish meaningful growth drivers from surface-level engagement. Strengthening core commerce flows proved more impactful than novelty alone.