Case Study
Mobile Shipping Experience for Ad-Hoc Customers
A mobile-first shipping solution enabling drop-off customers to create shipments without printing labels or commercial invoices — reducing friction at the point of drop-off and expanding the addressable customer segment across 14 APAC markets.
My Role
Product Manager
Team
PM, UX Designer, Engineering, Legal, Operations
Scope
APAC — 14 markets
Timeline
12 months end-to-end
The Design Process
From Empathy to Evaluation
Every decision in this project was grounded in a structured design process — moving from deep user research through to validated, scaled outcomes.
Mystery shopping, stakeholder interviews, competitive benchmarking
Pain point mapping, data flow diagram, journey mapping
Solution architecture, 5-step flow, cross-team alignment
10-screen mobile app, guest login, visual progress bar
Pilot markets, adoption metrics, APAC rollout
01 / Empathize
Understanding the Drop-Off Reality
Before designing anything, we needed to understand the real friction points for ad-hoc customers — those who ship occasionally and arrive at a drop-off point without a pre-printed label or invoice. We ran three parallel research streams.
01
Mystery Shopping
Conducted mystery shopping exercises across multiple WSC (World Service Centre) locations to observe the actual drop-off experience firsthand — capturing where customers stalled, what questions they asked, and where staff intervention was required.
02
Stakeholder Interviews
Structured interviews with Operations, Customer Service, Legal, IT, and Sales to map internal constraints — particularly around customs compliance, AWB generation, and legal requirements for commercial invoices in cross-border shipments.
03
Competitive Benchmarking
Analysed how competitor carriers handled walk-in, label-free drop-off — identifying the gap between what customers expected from a modern shipping experience and what the existing process delivered.
02 / Define
Mapping the Problem Space
Research surfaced a clear cluster of pain points — all centred on the same root cause: the existing process assumed customers had already completed all pre-shipment steps before arriving. Most ad-hoc customers had not.
No label, no shipment
Customers arriving without a pre-printed label were turned away or required to use a staff terminal — creating queues and frustration at peak times.
Commercial invoice friction
Cross-border shipments legally require a commercial invoice. Ad-hoc customers rarely had one, and the process for generating one on-site was manual and time-consuming.
Staff dependency
Every step of the drop-off process required staff intervention — from AWB generation to payment processing — making the experience unscalable as volume grew.
No self-service option
Unlike e-commerce platforms, there was no way for a customer to complete the entire shipment creation flow independently on their own device before arriving.
Internal Data Flow — Coordinated with Engineering and Operations
We worked with internal engineering, operations, and customs teams to map out the complete data flow — from the moment a customer scans a QR code to the moment a label and commercial invoice are printed at the WSC station. This diagram was a critical alignment artefact across 6 teams.
Internal data flow — FSM Lite to iClear to ACCS — coordinated with Engineering, Operations and Customs
High-Level Journey Mapping — Before Development
Before any development began, we mapped the end-to-end customer journey at a high level — identifying the 6 key moments in the drop-off experience and the digital interventions that would address each pain point.
6-step solution flow — customer at WSC / station and station agent responsibilities
03 / Ideate
Designing the Solution Architecture
The core design challenge was to enable a complete shipment creation flow on a mobile device — including customs compliance — without requiring a customer account, a printer, or staff assistance.
01
Guest Login via OTP
Removed the account creation barrier entirely. Customers authenticate with a phone number and one-time password — no username, no password, no account required. This single decision unlocked the entire ad-hoc customer segment.
02
5-Step Visual Flow
Compressed the entire shipment creation process into 5 steps with a persistent visual progress bar. Each step was designed to be completable in under 60 seconds on a mobile device — even for first-time users.
03
QR Code as the Handoff
Instead of printing a label at home, the customer presents a QR code on their phone at the drop-off counter. The station agent scans it to retrieve shipment data, generate the AWB, and print the label and commercial invoice on-site.
04
Automated Commercial Invoice
The commodity declaration step in the app automatically generates a compliant commercial invoice — eliminating the need for customers to prepare one separately and ensuring customs compliance without staff intervention.
04 / Prototype
Building the 10-Screen Mobile Experience
The prototype covered the complete end-to-end flow — from region selection and authentication through to shipment confirmation and QR code presentation. Every screen was designed for one-handed mobile use, with visual affordances replacing text-heavy inputs wherever possible.
All 10 Screens — Annotated
Region Select
Localized entry point for each market — users select their country before anything else, ensuring correct pricing, service options, and regulatory compliance.
SSO Login
Social login (Facebook) for frictionless onboarding — returning customers skip manual credential entry entirely.
Guest Login
Phone number + OTP for non-account users — no account creation required to complete a shipment.
OTP Security
One-time password verification ensures a valid contact number is captured before shipment creation begins.
Visual Progress
Step-by-step progress bar keeps users oriented throughout the 5-step flow — reducing abandonment from uncertainty.
Address Dropdown
Smart dropdowns reduce manual address entry errors — critical for customs accuracy in cross-border shipments.
Visual Packaging
Icon-led box selection removes ambiguity — customers pick their packaging type visually rather than from a text list.
Service Selection
Cost and transit time shown side-by-side — customers make an informed service choice without leaving the app.
Visual Items
Document vs. parcel distinction made visual — reducing mis-declaration and customs delays.
Detailed Breakdown
Category dropdowns guide accurate commodity declaration — a legal requirement for international shipments.
05 / Test
From Pilot to APAC Rollout
Validation was structured to de-risk each stage before committing to the next — starting with a limited pilot in a single market, measuring adoption and operational impact, then scaling progressively across the region.
High-Fidelity Prototype Testing
Tested with real ad-hoc customers at a WSC location before any development began. Observed the full flow from QR scan to label print — capturing friction points, confusion moments, and time-on-task data.
Iteration Based on Feedback
Two key changes emerged from testing: the guest login step needed to be optional for customers who already had an account, and the commodity declaration screen needed visual examples of document vs. parcel to reduce mis-declaration.
Pilot Market Launch
Launched in a single APAC market with a controlled rollout — monitoring adoption rate, average shipment creation time, staff intervention rate, and CSAT scores against the baseline paper-based process.
Cross-Market Adaptation
Pilot results validated the core flow. Adapted the solution for market-specific requirements (currency, language, customs rules) and rolled out progressively across 14 APAC markets.
APAC Standard
Following successful multi-market rollout, the mobile drop-off flow became the regional standard — integrated into the main shipping platform and supported by a dedicated operations training programme.
06 / Results
Outcomes and Impact
The mobile shipping solution delivered measurable improvements across customer experience, operational efficiency, and business growth — validating the hypothesis that removing the label-printing barrier would unlock a significant new customer segment.
92%
Customer Adoption Rate
Among targeted ad-hoc drop-off segment
5 Steps
End-to-End Shipment Creation
Down from a multi-day, multi-touchpoint process
14
APAC Markets
Rolled out across the full region
0
Labels Required at Home
Entirely eliminated for drop-off customers
Key Learnings
Remove the first barrier, not all of them
The single highest-impact decision was making guest login via OTP the default — not account creation. Removing that one barrier unlocked the entire ad-hoc segment. Sometimes the most powerful design decision is the one that removes a step entirely.
The QR code is a trust artefact, not just a technical solution
Customers were initially uncertain about handing over a phone screen instead of a printed label. The QR confirmation screen needed to feel authoritative — reference number, shipment summary, and a clear instruction. Design had to earn trust at the point of handoff.
Cross-team data flow alignment is the real product work
The visible product was a 10-screen app. The invisible product was the data pipeline connecting FSM Lite, iClear, and ACCS in real time. Getting engineering, customs, and operations to agree on that pipeline was as complex as any UX challenge on the project.
Priscilla Karen Yau 2026