Retail & Negotiation AI B2B
End-to-end design & MVP
Conlego is a US-based consulting firm supporting restocking operations for biggest U.S. retail chains such as Walmart, Costco, Giant Eagle with over $100 billion in cost of goods negotiated creating over $7 Billion in value.
Client
Conlego, US
Services
Product Design Design Systems Prototyping Usability Testing Collaboration with Developers
Industries
Negotiations & Retailers
Date
2023
🚀 Business Need
Conlego’s employees primarily relied on Excel spreadsheets to support retailers with the restocking process for their stores, using several additional tools to visualize, process, and calculate data. However, as Conlego looked to scale, they faced a major limitation: their workflows were heavily manual and dependent on spreadsheet formulas. This made it difficult to grow without significantly increasing headcount. Conlego decided to automate their workflows and build a scalable SaaS product. They aimed to create a smart, data-driven platform to help large retailers like Walmart and Costco negotiate better prices on grocery products across the U.S. The app needed to analyse pricing and product data from multiple food manufacturers, enabling smarter restocking decisions and generating significant cost savings for Retailers — often in the millions.
🧐 Challenges
For a large-scale project like this — which involved both designing and developing the application — the first priority was defining the MVP version and its core functionalities in a way that would support future scalability and upcoming milestones. Another major challenge was the limited timeline. The client wanted to receive and start testing the MVP with real users within just a few months. Lastly, one of the biggest challenges — and also the core functionality of the product — was visually presenting a large volume of data in a spreadsheet-style table. The goal was to create something similar to Excel in terms of functionality, but with a cleaner, more modern, and user-friendly design.
👩🏻 My Role
As the Product Designer on the Portager project, I was responsible for end-to-end product design process:
Defining the MVP scope in collaboration with the Product Team to ensure the foundation was scalable and aligned with business milestones
Leading early-stage discovery, helping identify the MVP scope, core user needs, and technical constraints in close collaboration with the tech team
Creating a scalable Design System based on Atomic Design principles to ensure consistency and speed throughout the product lifecycle
Customising UI components for the Mantine framework, working closely with developers to ensure seamless front-end integration
Designing user flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity prototypes in Figma, covering complex spreadsheet data, messaging and data input designs
Presenting design concepts and prototypes to the client, incorporating stakeholder feedback into iterative improvements
Preparing detailed design specifications and conducting design handoffs with the development team
Supporting QA and development during the build phase to ensure accurate implementation
Running usability testing sessions post-MVP to validate design decisions and identify friction points
Iterating on the product by designing enhancements like advanced filtering, role-based permissions, and an improved messaging system based on user feedback
💼 MVP
This was a full end-to-end product cycle, where me and my product team took the project from initial concept through to delivery of a fully functional software product.
Following the initial meetings with the client, me and my product collaborated closely with them to define the MVP scope. We agreed on a 4–6 month timeline to complete both design and development.
I started off the project by building a scalable Design System (Atomic Design based). To support a faster development process, I aligned closely with the engineering team and customised UI components to work seamlessly with the Mantine framework — our chosen front-end stack.
The outcome was Portager — a collaborative negotiation platform designed to serve retailers, food producers, and admins. The MVP supported large, spreadsheet-style data tables, data imports, inline comments, visualisations like charts and graphs, and built-in messaging between retailers and food producers.
✅ Final Product
After launching the MVP, we conducted usability testing with real users. Based on the feedback and evolving business needs, we planned and delivered the next set of key features: advanced spreadsheet filtering, expanded admin capabilities, a more flexible multi-user access system (growing from 3 to 5 roles), and an improved messaging system between retailers and food producers.