Adjusto
A marketplace concept where transparent price reductions help sellers and buyers meet at the right moment.
Secondhand platforms often leave sellers waiting and buyers hesitating. Sellers want to sell quickly, while buyers often delay purchases hoping for lower prices, creating uncertainty on both sides. Starting from a research project on reducing waste during moving, we explored how a marketplace could make this timing more transparent and fair. Our research revealed a recurring pattern: sellers gradually lower their expectations over time, while buyers become more willing to pay as urgency increases. I helped shape the concept and interaction logic of Adjusto, a marketplace where sellers define price stages that automatically decrease over time while buyers can purchase immediately or join upcoming price levels. The project resulted in a high fidelity prototype demonstrating the full marketplace flow.
Role
Innovation & UX Designer
Context
Student project supported by Swiss Post
Timeline
14 weeks in 2024
Team
Me, Dario Foti, Chiara Tremml
Outcome
Concept & High Fidelity Prototype
Currently in progress …
This 14 week UX project at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts was supported by the innovation unit of Swiss Post. They introduced the overarching topic "Less Waste" as a strategic starting point and invited us to explore how digital services could help reduce unnecessary disposal of usable items in everyday life. The brief intentionally allowed concepts beyond Swiss Post's core services, including independent ventures or partnerships, reflecting Swiss Post's work with associated companies and joint ventures.
We began by exploring the broad theme of "Less Waste" through initial framing exercises, mapping situations in everyday life where usable items end up discarded. During this exploration, the context of moving homes quickly emerged as a promising direction. Moves often create time pressure and logistical complexity, leading many people to throw out items that are still usable simply because selling or giving them away feels too time consuming. This observation gave us a concrete problem space and a first direction for deeper research.
Initial project goal
«How might we make it easier for people moving house to sell unwanted items in time, so they don't end up discarded?»
To understand how usable items become waste during a move, we combined desk research with qualitative user workshops. The desk research gave us an overview of existing secondhand platforms, typical moving behaviours, and the demographic most affected. Building on this, we ran nine workshops using an open card sorting format along a timeline of the moving process, where participants mapped their experiences of selling, buying, and disposing of items while we gathered context through guided discussions. From the results we synthesised four personas and focused on two primary ones, Markus (seller persona) and Ladina (buyer persona), along with user journey maps that made the time based dynamics of both sides visible.
We expected many participants to act as both seller and buyer during a move. The research showed otherwise. Most people were clearly on one side of the exchange, with different constraints and different motivations depending on their role.
As the moving date approached, sellers became increasingly willing to lower their price just to get items out in time. Buyers with a growing need became increasingly willing to pay more as their urgency rose.
When we mapped both sides over time, sellers' falling expectations and buyers' rising willingness met somewhere in between. This intersection became the anchor for the product concept.
