Ari Salomon | StubHub Sell Mobile

Selling Mobile Tickets

iOS and Android ticket sales

The problem: Within the StubHub mobile applications, their is functionality for a user to sell their tickets. The process of selling tickets on StubHub’s iOS and Android OS platforms was extremely problematic. It’s issues included, inefficient pricing tools, poor visual experience, lack of PDF upload capability and a convoluted user experience.

The old inefficient design cost the company millions. These costs were associated to poor conversion from a mobile app, increased customer service calls, incorrect pricing information, poor reviews in app stores, and a common distrust in our seller base. Nearly all our sellers sold through the website. Additionally, if you had a PDF ticket, you could only upload through the desktop website. This frustrated users and this designer!

My task was to create a functional process for our new sales flow that priced our tickets correctly. My other responsibility was to create wireframes and testable prototypes for sellers to go through. These prototypes, wireframes, and designs were tested and used by a visual designer visual side of the process. Additionally, I was tasked with building our Price Guidance tool which assisted sellers in pricing their tickets confidently.

Below are some of the legacy (old) designs that sellers saw when they used the StubHub application:

The Goal

To create a user experience that could take a seller from start to finish. Our new selling experience would allow users to easily create a listing, describe the details of their tickets, price their tickets correctly, and even upload PDF tickets directly from their phones.

The Process

We began the process by wireframing and brainstorming the steps for selling a ticket. A variety of layout were created and reviewed by our product team, development team, and by our designers. It was my role to then create wireframes that would eventually become prototypes for testing.

Price Guidance

Simultaneously we began to work on a price recommendation tool that would give a recommendation range, a recommended price, and the ability to look at similar listings as well as all listings for that event. Wireframes, mockups and prototypes were built incorporating our new selling tool within our old sales flow. We began to test this process on current sellers in our usability lab.

PDF Upload process

Because so much of our ticket inventory are PDF tickets. I prototyped and tested PDF upload process that was leveraged to further create the visual designs for our application.

The Process

The price guidance tool was finished early. Because it was completed before the rest of the new sell process, it could be tested within our current sell process and, if needed, improved upon.

My prototypes, research, and wireframes were handed off to our visual design team who took over the project. These prototypes were altered a bit as a new visual design was being created. To be honest, I did not agree with the new visual design that would be created. It was not consistent with the rest of our current application. None the less, I did feel it would increase seller conversion even if it was inconsistent with the visual design of the rest of the application.

The PDF upload process was put on hold as the technical limitations of the application did not allow for a true PDF upload process. After months of pushback, we eventually got the development resources needed to complete this process.

The Result

The overall result was ian increase in conversion. This means that sellers began to sell their tickets through our mobile application more often. The PDF upload process also increased the number of tickets being uploaded.

Finally our price guidance tool was well received. Trust in our apps pricing ability increased, our net promoter score increased and the reviews associated with the selling process improved as well.

Presentation