Tech4You NZ - B2B Wholesale Platform
TECH4YOU NZ
B2B COMMERCE
2025
01 PROJECT SUMMARY
Wholesale customers needed answers faster than manual communication could provide.
Tech4You's trade customers relied on staff to confirm stock, pricing, order progress and service status. I designed a connected B2B portal spanning inventory, trade pricing, ordering, invoicing, repairs, LCD buyback and account servicing.
What I designed: a desktop-first wholesale operations workspace with responsive patterns for repeat purchasing and service tasks.
02 PROBLEM
The friction was not a missing screen. It was a missing system.
Routine wholesale work was scattered across calls, email threads and staff lookups. Customers could not confidently answer basic questions such as “is it available?”, “what is my trade price?”, “where is my order?” or “what is happening with my repair?” without involving the team.
03 MY ROLE
I had to design the customer experience and make sense of the operation behind it.
I led discovery, workflow definition, information architecture, interaction design and prototype validation. Working closely with retail and operational staff, I translated day-to-day service behaviour into reusable product patterns rather than designing isolated screens.
04 OUTCOMES
The shift was from “ask us” to “see it and act”.
Clearer ordering Connected discovery, stock visibility, trade pricing and ordering into one journey. | Better visibility Made inventory, order, invoice and service status visible where customer decisions happen. | Scalable foundation Created reusable interaction patterns for future wholesale modules and operational services. |
05 INTENT
Make the portal useful enough that routine wholesale work no longer needed a staff translator.
The goal was not simply to put a catalogue online. The product had to reduce uncertainty across the wholesale relationship, from product discovery and fulfilment through finance, repairs and account administration.
06 CHALLENGES
B2B convenience sits on top of messy operational truth.
• One relationship, many workflows. Inventory, ordering, invoicing, repairs, buyback and account administration all intersected.
• Trust had to be visible. Stock, reservations and trade pricing needed to feel current enough for customers to act without phoning.
• Density without spreadsheet fatigue. Repeat users needed fast scanning across operational tables, filters and statuses.
• Growth without fragmentation. Every new module needed to feel part of the same product grammar, not a bolted-on tool.
07 APPROACH
Research stayed close to the work, not the workshop wall.
I focused qualitative discovery on where information broke down, who was being asked to fill the gaps, and which repeated questions were strong candidates for self-service.
In-person shadowing Observed retail and operational work as stock, repairs and customer requests moved through the business. | Contextual inquiry Walked through live tasks with staff and probed why information was checked, copied or reconfirmed. | Stakeholder interviews Aligned commercial, service and operational expectations before locking product boundaries. |
Task walkthroughs Reconstructed inventory lookup, order follow-up and service journeys end to end. | Process mapping Converted hand-offs and hidden dependencies into clearer customer-facing states. | Prototype walkthroughs Validated hierarchy, language and workflow logic with the people closest to the work. |
08 KEY WORK / SOLUTIONS
The catalogue was only one piece of the puzzle. The real product was operational visibility.
01 Inventory that answers before the customer asks
I prioritised SKU, stock, reserved quantity, available quantity, status and trade price so buyers could decide quickly. Product detail then turned a lookup into an ordering action.
02 Orders designed as a lifecycle
Checkout was not treated as the finish line. Processing, picking, shipping and delivery states carried the experience forward, with tracking and line-item detail available from the same flow.
03 Finance without the invoice-email scavenger hunt
Invoices surfaced outstanding balance, overdue risk, paid activity and account credit, supported by clear status filters and downloadable records.
04 Service workflows using the same interaction grammar
Repair jobs and LCD buyback reused search, status, detail and action patterns so service workflows felt native to the portal rather than separate back-office tools.
05 Account servicing belongs inside the product
Company profile, users, addresses, billing, notifications and security were brought into the same workspace, turning another set of admin requests into self-service.
09 TRANSFORMATION
The redesign changed where routine wholesale work happens.
BEFORE • MANUAL DEPENDENCY | AFTER • SELF-SERVICE VISIBILITY |
Customers relied on calls, messages and staff lookups to confirm stock, trade pricing, order progress and service status. | The portal made routine wholesale information visible and actionable across inventory, orders, invoices, repairs, buyback and account servicing. |
Evidence note: No production analytics were available for this case study, so outcomes are described as workflow and capability improvements rather than invented performance metrics.
10 LEARNINGS
Good B2B UX often means removing the need to ask for information that should already be visible.
• Observe the operation, not just the interface. Shadowing exposed dependencies and service behaviour that a feature list would have hidden.
• Design for certainty. Stock, price and status are not decoration. They are confidence signals that let customers act.
• Build the interaction grammar early. Consistent search, tables, statuses, details and actions made it easier for the product to expand without feeling stitched together.
Op: One workspace, multiple moments of wholesale work.
7 connected modules | 1 shared wholesale workspace | 3 core outcome themes |
Inventory: stock, reservations, availability and trade price in one scan.
 Orders: lifecycle status and tracking. |  Invoices: account state, balances and payment risk. |
 Repair jobs |  LCD buyback |  Account servicing |
