Responsive from the start
The portal needed to work properly outside a desk setup, especially for customers managing orders around busy shop routines.
Flagship project
Warburtons Trade Portal
Making weekly trade ordering easier for busy customers.
- Role
- User Experience Consultant, NTT DATA Business Solutions
- Duration
- About 2 months
- Team
- Me as the sole UX designer, 2 UI designers and a creative manager
- Client
- Warburtons (NTT DATA)
- Platform
- B2B trade portal
- Focus
- Repeat ordering, order visibility, product discovery, customer service reduction
Overview
Warburtons had an existing trade portal for customers such as local shops who needed to manage regular orders. The portal was not being used as much as the business wanted, which meant a large number of weekly orders were still being placed through customer service calls.
My role was to help redesign the portal so customers could manage orders more easily themselves, while giving Warburtons a better platform for customer relationships, product discovery and potential order growth.
The challenge
- 01The existing portal was old, difficult to use and not responsive.
- 02Customers were expected to manage ordering from desktop or laptop, which did not reflect how busy shop owners and staff worked day to day.
- 03Setting up new orders or editing existing orders was difficult.
- 04Navigation was poor and search was old and ineffective.
- 05Customers often defaulted to calling customer service because the portal created too much friction.
- 06The business wanted to reduce support calls, improve customer relationships and create more opportunity for upsell and increased average order value.
The core problem
The issue was not just that the portal looked dated. The bigger problem was that it made a regular business task harder than it needed to be.
What needed to change
Clearer, more useful interface
The UI needed to feel cleaner, more modern and more aligned with Warburtons while keeping the weekly ordering task front and centre.
Better product presentation
Product images and supporting content needed to do more of the work, helping customers understand what they could order.
Quicker ordering
Repeat ordering, editing and checking upcoming deliveries needed to feel much easier than calling customer service.
Key decisions
Design around changing the standing order, not browsing
Repeat ordering was the core of the business. Most customers already had standing orders, but changing one, or adding one-off and seasonal items to a delivery, meant calling customer service. So the portal was built around that moment: see what's coming, change quantities in place, add extra items, and know exactly how long is left to make changes before each delivery.
Sell a little more without slowing anyone down
Warburtons also wanted the portal to promote more of the range. Promotions and range content sit on the dashboard and product pages rather than inside the ordering flow, so they're visible without getting between a shop owner and a finished order.
Designed, then simplified: returns
My first returns design had customers specify exactly what they were sending back: which items, from which order, with a reason code for each. Warburtons' logistics had no way to process returns at that level, and the extra detail added little value for them. To the business, a return was just a return. So the final design simply records what's coming back, such as five loaves, without tying each one to an order or asking for a reason. Detail the operation can't use is just extra work for the customer.
Redesigning the dashboard
The dashboard needed to answer the obvious questions first: what is coming, what is on order and what needs attention?
The dashboard focused on the information customers needed most when checking their account.
Customers could quickly see the next delivery, what was on order for that delivery, orders for the week and key account or order information.
The aim was to give customers confidence without forcing them to dig through the portal.
The dashboard also gave Warburtons a clearer place to surface important account information and product opportunities.
Wireframe: open and completed orders, with time left to edit.
Final design: colour-coded countdowns show how long is left to change each delivery.
Improving the ordering workflow
For trade customers, ordering is a repeat business task. The design needed to make that task faster and more reliable.
The ordering system was redesigned so users could quickly create new orders or adapt existing ones.
Repeat ordering was treated as the core behaviour because trade customers were often managing regular weekly supply, not browsing casually.
Editing and managing regular orders needed to feel direct, predictable and low-effort.
Familiar ecommerce patterns helped make the experience easier to understand.
The responsive design meant customers could use the portal in more realistic shop and work environments.
Wireframe: regular orders grouped by product type, filtered by delivery day.
Final design: search, filter and edit quantities in one place.
Product discovery and ecommerce thinking
The portal also needed to help customers understand the range, not just repeat the same order every week.
Dedicated product pages
Customers needed better pages for understanding products, not just a list of items to add to an order.
Improved product imagery
Better product images and marketing content helped the portal feel more useful and more commercially active.
Browse, compare and add
Using ecommerce patterns made products easier to browse, compare and add to regular orders.
Support commercial goals without getting in the way
The product experience needed to support upsell and promotional goods while still respecting the customer's main job: getting the order sorted.
Outcome
The redesign helped shift more customers toward self-service ordering by making the experience easier, more responsive and more reliable to use day to day. It reduced dependency on customer support while also creating stronger opportunities for product visibility and promotions.
Measured outcomes
- The redesigned portal achieved a 350% increase in new customer sign-ups.
- There was a 95% reduction in calls to the customer service team for order placement.
- Sales of promotional goods saw a noticeable increase.
- The success of the work led the client to commission additional internal process improvement work from the team.
Reflection
B2B ecommerce often comes down to making regular tasks easier. The users were not browsing for fun; they were running shops and trying to manage orders around busy working days.
The redesign focused on making the portal more useful in that real context: clearer order visibility, easier repeat ordering, better product information and a responsive experience that did not assume everyone was sat at a desk.
Like what you see? Let's talk.
Email me at davidedwardsjones@googlemail.com, or get in touch through the contact page.