creating the buzzfeed shopping x amazon chrome extension
(aka the ‘double dipper’)
How can we increase the revenue we earn from Amazon sales commissions leveraging our current editorial work flow and BuzzFeed Tech?
My role: Lead Product Designer, Group Lead (Revenue Tech)
Team: Product Manager, Staff Software Engineers (2)
Stakeholders: Affiliate team, Editorial (Shopping)
Tools: Figma, Jira, Google Docs, Looker
Year: 2023
Final mock of Double Dipper Google Chrome Extension
context and goals
In Q1 2023, the newly-formed Revenue Tech team at BuzzFeed was tasked with creating a tech solution that enabled our editorial team to easily identify Amazon products that have double the earning potential.
How was this possible? Due to our relationship with 3rd party affiliate programs (aggregators) that allow us to collect an additional commission on the product sales from our Shopping content.
Here’s a link to a Shopping post on BuzzFeed
We decided that a Google Chrome extension would be the best way to seamlessly weave this new product selection process into the editorial workflow.
Here’s a summary of the cash flow →
One product sales generates double the revenue - hence the name - Double Dipper.
design approach + team alignment
After meeting with our stakeholders I began to explore ways we could visualize all of the sales data of Amazon products. Editorial stakeholders confirmed that the Product Name, Price, Rating and Number of Reviews were all important metrics for deciding on whether to feature a product or not.
I brought these options to design critique and feedback was positive for both the text and photo-focused concepts. I decided that a user review would be helpful to evaluate some of the assumptions I had made.
Before sharing these concepts with our users I ran an async feasibility check with our engineering lead to confirm we would be able to deliver these ideas.
Click this link to view the Figma prototype designed for user review
Finalizing visual specs for the product highlight, using insights from BuzzFeed Shopping writers to align on an approach.
design review + prioritizing edge cases
The user review was illuminating. It gave me direction and showed me where visual emphasis needed to be. Editors were less concerned with the look of the modal and wanted to make sure that the product highlight visual was bold and stood out among the crowded Amazon UI.
To maintain the pacing of the project, I explored different directions of the product highlight and also began to move into high fidelity with the modal design, incorporating the unique branding of BuzzFeed Shopping.
aligning with the buzzfeed shopping brand
In order to main visual consistency between the BuzzFeed Shopping consumer brand and our tech tooling we decided to reuse the color palette created for the Commerce experience.
Our team thought that using the fun pastels in a tool for work could also support user joy and delight. It was our way of showing our editorial colleagues that we care about the type of work experience they are having.
Using the Shopping branding guidelines to derive visuals that would help Shopping writers feel connected to the tech and content.
final specs
business impact
The Double Dipper Chrome extension is projected to increase Affiliate revenue by over $200,000 this year growing from $800,000 to 1 million. Implementing product research into the editorial work flow is a new stream of revenue that has already begun to be replicated by other publishers on the market.
reflections
This project was both challenging and rewarding. Commerce was a new field of work for both myself and the product manager on this project. Spending time to get to know and understand our stakeholders was tremendously helpful for the design process. I was able to apply a new visual branding to my work and dive into a new industry sector as well.
