CHINA DOMINANT E-COMMERICE LOCALIZATION

Alipay Online-to-Offline Campaign

Alipay is the leading payment solution, which reaches 1 billion users globally. Expanding Alipay usages outside of China becomes one of the top globalization initiatives across Ant Financial and Alibaba Group.

Started from the offline mobile payment solutions, Alipay quickly transformed itself to be a digital lifestyle platform to users and an online marketing integration solution to merchants. How to build a smooth end-to-end Online to Offline experience becomes the key to the business.

As Head of UX, lead our in-house design team, set up the UX strategy and localization design direction; also responsible to launch key initiatives across the United States and Canada.

Alipay Online-to-Offline campaign is one of the first initiatives that drive completely by the regional local team.

Lead UX: Yanwen Hu

Team: 1 Researcher + 1 UX Designer + 2 Junior Creative Designers

Stakeholders:

SVP of Alibaba Globalization

Head of North America, Alibaba Group & Ant Financial

Alipay USA and Canada country managers

Collaboration Teams:

HQ Design Team

HQ & USA Product Teams

HQ & USA Development Teams

USA & Canada Marketing and BD Teams

WHAT BUSINESS KNOWS

From Market Research and Data

• Define global regions

• Logins, daily active users; merchant acquisition numbers, daily active merchants; transactions

WHAT BUSINESS DOES NOT KNOW

USERS

LOCATIONS

Commercial Area

• Define 5 key commercial areas/shopping districts

• Local teams cannot influence HQ. All regions are treated the same

How did we execute it?

User Journey Analysis: Pier 39

Tourist Footprint

Group Tour v.s. Self-planned Trip

Online UX Improvement

• App User Flow Analysis

• New Pier 39 proposal (with/without promotion)

• Outcome:

  • User side: performance up

  • Merchant side: much easier to acquire merchants & management

  • Standard template: had reuse for other commercial areas

  • Zero development: mainly utilize current product and CMS capabilities

Offline Execution

• Strong branding recognition partner with Pier 39 management

• Alipay promo signage on site

• Outcome:

  • Transaction number has grew tremendously

  • Pier 39 has become one of Alipay success case studies

Alipay Global Travel Platform Redesign Proposal

Pitched to Local Stakeholders and HQ Product

• The particularity of North America region: greater city area

• Pier 39 as a case study: 2 rounds of onsite user research

• Local highlights that cannot not be covered by the current product

• Redesign proposal: City - Commercial Area - Merchant storefront - Content template

Global Product Adaption: SPOI

Pitched to Head of Alipay Global Platform with local product team. Led the design with HQ design’s support

• Find a global scenario: Outlets

• Build a local case: NY Woodbury, partner with Simon Property

• Define the pain points: current product cannot satisfy our users, and how can solve the problems

• Demo UX Strategy: shortcut, LBS, coupon, KA brands, Outlets guide

• Build reusable feature: LBS with the curated list

San Diego City Campaign

• “Global Fun” as company’s 2019 global initiative

• North America: top 4 tourism cities, top 4 local cities

  • San Diego, Las Vegas, Saipan, Hawaii

  • San Diego Travel Department + Brand USA

• What UX did to help biz achieves the goal:

  • Why Alipay users come to San Diego?

    • not well known to Chinese tourists

    • day-trip from LA

    • mainly family with kids

  • UX defined 4 commercial areas, then BD followed those doing merchant acquisition

  • UX prioritized the merchants from the list based on users’ paths

  • Collaboration with Fliggy and Brand USA

Global Alipay Travel Platform Redesign

• Head of North America pitched the direction to SVP of Alibaba Globalization, then the whole Alipay Travel redesign is followed this design direction

Las Vegas Holiday Campaign

• The largest Alipay local campaign

• Cross-Business Units support: Alipay, Fliggy, Tmall

• Campaign was covered the strip

Understand the city, users and merchants

• The largest Alipay local campaign

• Cross-Business Units support: Alipay, Fliggy, Tmall

• Campaign was covered the strip

Online & Offline UX Strategy

1. Gain users recognition: offline

   • Increase Alipay brand exposure in high traffic areas

   • Highlight the benefits

2. Generate users needs: online

   • All traffic comes to one campaign page

   • Increase users engagement, e.g. lottery feature

   • Create the content strategy to promote merchants differently (level S, A, B)

3. Capture users needs: offline

   • Make Alipay signage obvious at the stores to re-emphasize Alipay’s promotion

   • Make the payment succeed through merchant training and machine QA

   • Banner on the app payment confirmation page trigger users to browse more on Alipay travel platform

Store Payment Journey

• Can this store accept Alipay?

  • Offline: Merchants Materials -> Recognition

• Can I find the coupons?

  • Online: Alipay platform

• Can I use Alipay to pay successfully?

  • Offline: Merchants Payment Solutions -> Acquirer Device Issues

CAMPAIGN CREATIVE

• Alipay & Fliggy brand recognition

• Offline display: billboards, roll-up posters, limo cars, CES bags

• Online: Las Vegas city page relaunch, promo page, lottery page

CROSS-ORG COLLABORATION

How to build UX voice then influence biz

• UX should understand business from their standpoints

• Small wins: help them to achieve their goals

• Guide business by providing what they don’t know