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Onboarding for Merchants

Context #

Joining as a merchant is one of the most important moments in Groupon’s ecosystem, and when I arrived, the experience wasn’t set up to support that moment well. The onboarding journey had grown messy over time. Steps were scattered, context was missing, and merchants struggled to understand where they were or what was required of them. Teams across the company felt the impact, and merchants often stalled before getting everything they needed in place.

Approach #

I took this on as an opportunity to rebuild the foundation properly by mapping the entire journey end to end, surfacing pain points that had been accepted as “just how it works,” and aligning stakeholders on what a healthy onboarding lifecycle should look like.

Working closely with Sales, Customer Support, Engineering, Marketing and Analytics, we reshaped the experience into a clear, predictable and supportive path that met both merchant needs and operational realities.

Outcome #

The result was a more scalable and measurable onboarding foundation. Close collaboration with Sales, Customer Support, Engineering, Marketing and Analytics shaped a solution that balanced user needs with operational realities.

While I cannot share specific performance figures, the first months after launch showed substantial improvements in completion, engagement during setup, adoption of connected tools, and time to activation, along with significantly stronger qualitative feedback from merchants.

Takeaways #

A critical takeaway for me was establishing proper tracking. The teams had been operating without a reliable view of the journey, which made decision-making reactive. By putting the right measurement in place, we created visibility for the first time. This meant we could identify friction points, understand behaviour, and iterate with purpose instead of guesswork.

Working on this taught me the value of designing with the full ecosystem in mind including internal operations, communication strategies, third-party systems, and support pathways. Stepping into chaos isn’t new for me. Designing systems that turn complexity into clarity is where I’m most at home and this project was a perfect example of that.