Buyer App — Globalfair
A native-feel cross-border buyer experience for a US-based building-materials marketplace.
The brief.
Cross-border procurement is paperwork dressed up as commerce. The buyer app strips that down to a flow that feels like ordering coffee — and quietly handles tariffs, lead times, and freight under the hood.
US buyers wanted Indian manufacturing without the complexity. The old web flow had 14 steps, three logins, and a PDF. We needed mobile-first, single-thread, no surprises.
Talking to real users.
- ✦Remote interviews (US buyers)
- ✦Journey mapping
- ✦Prototype testing on-site
- ✦Field visits to warehouses
11 US procurement buyers · 4 warehouse managers · 3 freight partners
4 weeks discovery + 3 rounds of prototype testing
"If I can't quote it in one screen, I go back to email."
"Half my day the Wi-Fi is a suggestion. The app has to survive that."
- Insight 01
Buyers price in trust
Every hidden fee killed a returning order. Transparent totals were table-stakes.
- Insight 02
Offline-first isn't optional
Any friction at scan-time got the app deleted. Queue-and-sync saved retention.
- Insight 03
Four steps is the ceiling
Above four form steps, completion collapsed. We rebuilt to fit under it.
How it came together.
- 01
Mapped the buyer's decision moments — not the company's process — and designed around those.
- 02
Hid complexity in defaults: smart freight, smart tariffs, smart timelines, all overridable.
- 03
Designed an offline-first state model for spotty warehouse Wi-Fi.
- 04
Native components only, no cross-platform shortcuts — it had to feel local on both OSes.
Inside the work.
