CARSALES

Business Area

Carsales is Australia’s leading online platform connecting car buyers and sellers. I worked with designers across two areas, Strategic Partnerships and Digital Retailing.

My Role

Lead Product Designer
(Strategic Partnerships/Digital Retailing)

In my role at Carsales I worked with a team of designers across the Strategist Partnerships and Digital Retailing areas of the business. Additionally, I was responsible for liaising with Product Design Leads in other areas of the business, as well as being the primary Product Design contact for Carsales Head of Strategic Design to ensure that ongoing projects aligned with the greater business vision.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

The Strategic Partnerships division of Carsales is focused on identifying and capitalising on opportunities to build tools to allow car manufacturers, major dealership chains, and accessories companies to promote their products in line with their individual brand identities and marketing strategies, within the Carsales ecosystem.

Identifying Opportunities

My role included researching industry trends and meeting with key partners to workshop concepts for initiatives including:

  • Brand-specific vehicle showrooms

  • Sandboxed CMS tools for 3rd party customisation

  • Platform agnostic lead-generation tools

  • Promotion of manufacturer-specific programs such as warranties and Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles

  • Customised media placements

Prioritising and Prototyping

These concepts would then be prioritised for desirability, profitability, and financial feasibility.

Those calculated to be most viable would be further explored and developed into visual concepts and prototypes and tested with both partners and end users before going into design production.

DIGITAL RETAILING

The Digital Retailing department was tasked with analysing the car buying journey and identifying areas that relied on manual processes and providing digital enhancements and alternatives, both from the perspective of buyers and sellers, particularly dealerships using Carsales selling, lead management and inventory tools.

Identifying Opportunities

This process often included analysing site data and interviewing both buyers and sellers to identify friction points for users for activities such as:

  • Confirming vehicles in stock at dealerships

  • Arranging vehicle inspections

  • Booking test drives

  • Recording “deal summaries” of agreed terms

  • Reserving and placing deposits on vehicles

Prototyping and Testing

Prototypes of these features would then be developed and tested with users, before being launched as pilot programs with a subset of dealers within Carsales “Select” category of vehicles, before being rolled out across the full vehicle range.