I mapped the existing ways people purchase foreign products and identified five primary channels: local retailers, global e-commerce, purchase agents, direct purchases from overseas stores, and friends or family.Comparing these options across price, product availability, trust, and flexibility helped reveal where existing solutions fall short and where Genie could provide a differentiated experience.

I interviewed eight people who had purchased foreign products at least three times in the past year. The goal was to understand what drives their purchases, how they choose between different shopping channels, and where they encounter friction.These conversations helped uncover the behaviors, motivations, and pain points that would shape Genie’s core product experience.

The research revealed two primary user groups with very different motivations. One group seeks products from their home country while living abroad, driven by familiarity and cultural preferences. The other actively seeks region-specific products tied to personal interests, such as K-pop, anime, or fashion. Identifying these two groups helped clarify who Genie could serve and the different needs the experience would need to support.

Research showed that people default to established e-commerce platforms when products are widely available, even if they cost more. Convenience and reliability often outweigh price.

Genie becomes more valuable when traditional channels fall short—especially for niche, limited-edition, or region-specific products that are difficult to purchase internationally. This insight helped sharpen the product’s value proposition around access rather than price.

Defining the core experience across shoppers and travelers

With the product direction established, I mapped the end-to-end experience to define how shoppers and travelers would interact across the platform.

The system map established the product’s core structure, while the user flow connected the key stages of the experience—from onboarding and matching to negotiation, payment, and delivery. This gave the team a shared framework for aligning on the product before moving into detailed interaction design.

ocusing the first phase on the shopper matching experience

Because Genie serves both shoppers and travelers, designing the entire marketplace at once would introduce unnecessary complexity. For the first phase, we prioritized the shopper-side matching experience—the critical path from creating a shopping request to finding and connecting with the right traveler.This allowed us to validate the platform’s core value proposition before expanding into the broader marketplace experience.

I translated the shopper matching flow into a low-fidelity prototype and tested it with five shoppers, focusing on whether they could easily create a request, evaluate potential travelers, and initiate a match.At the same time, I interviewed three people with experience purchasing products for others while traveling. Although the traveler experience wasn’t part of this phase, understanding what would motivate travelers to participate was critical to validating the viability of the marketplace.