Background
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Project Overview
e-metals.net is a Japanese B2B/B2C ecommerce platform for metal and non-metal industrial materials. When I joined the company, the team was replacing an old ecommerce system with a new storefront, admin system, and supplier management workflow after three years of development without a dedicated UI/UX designer.
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My Role
Product Design Lead and the only UI/UX designer in the company. I led the redesign of the core purchase path, including homepage, product listing, product detail, cart, and quotation request flow.
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Launch
New storefront launched in early March 2026. GA4 impact data below covers May 5 - June 1, 2026.
Impact Data
228 key conversions from 562 active users on /cart.
Total revenue recorded from the redesigned purchase path.
Average engagement time on product pages, compared with 38s on homepage.
form_start and form_submit events stayed nearly equal.
GA4 screenshots are intentionally softened in the portfolio view to protect operational details while keeping the business signals visible.
Why These Areas
The platform is large, so I intentionally focused this case study on the flows with the highest complexity and measurable business value.
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1Product specification search
Metal materials require decisions across material, thickness, shape, size, and cutting conditions. The product page needed to reduce noise without hiding advanced options.
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2Dual cart and quotation path
B2B buyers may purchase directly or request a quotation for non-standard needs. The cart had to support both paths without forcing users into the wrong decision model.
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3Scalable account experience
The ongoing My Page redesign extends the same UI kit into purchase history and order detail pages, proving the system can scale beyond the first launch.
Storefront Entry
Turning a large material catalog into task-based entry points
The homepage needed to serve both professional buyers who know exactly what material they need and less specialized users who start from shape or service type. I structured the first screen around three discovery paths, then kept the visual language consistent across desktop and mobile so users can enter the catalog without learning a new navigation model.
Product Detail
Designing a clearer decision path for industrial product variations
The product detail page supports multiple states within the same material, including cut-to-size, fixed-size, finished goods, and end-material products. I reorganized the page around a product-type switch, product imagery, purchase unit, dimensional inputs, and product description so buyers understand the decision before entering values.
Dimensional constraints, range suggestions, and disabled states stay close to the input fields, keeping error prevention at the decision point.
Product type before specification input
Placing product-type tabs above the configuration area helps users choose the correct buying mode before reading detailed specs or entering dimensions.
Error prevention at field level
Range hints, disabled controls, and visible constraints reduce trial-and-error for high-variance industrial dimensions.
Purchase and quotation readiness
The page supports both direct purchase and quotation evaluation without forcing users to leave the product context too early.
Basic / Advanced mode for deeper specification control
The next product detail iteration will introduce a Basic / Advanced mode to further reduce cognitive load. Common purchase tasks stay lightweight, while expert users can open advanced settings for special processing conditions, edge cases, and more granular specification inputs.
Cart & Inquiry Flow
Designing for two buying modes in one cart
Industrial e-commerce rarely follows a single, straight checkout path. Depending on spec-standardization and backend supplier data, buyers are split into two distinct pipelines right after the Product Detail Page (PDP).
To eliminate cognitive chaos, I designed a decoupled dual-channel infrastructure: e-commerce products with instant prices are routed to the Standard Shopping Cart, while non-standard customized cutting items are channeled to a dedicated Quotation Request Cart. Both pipelines function independently with optimized submit flows, preventing users from mixing transactional checkouts with long-tail approval requests.
Clarified purchase readiness
Users can thoroughly review high-purity material specs, custom cut processing dimensions, and volume thresholds at the PDP milestone, ensuring data accuracy before routing to their respective cart pipelines.
State-aware actions
By isolating purchasable items from quote-required rows via conditional rendering, the interface dynamically activates separate submit pipelines. This hard-coded layout segregation effectively eliminates wrong-path decisions before users enter either the cart or the inquiry wizard.
Design System
One designer, a large system, and a need for repeatable quality
As the only UI/UX designer, I built a storefront UI kit in Figma with an 8pt grid, semantic spacing roles, component states, color tokens, and typography guidance. This reduced ambiguity with engineers and created a foundation for the ongoing My Page redesign.
Roadmap
Continuous improvement after launch
The March 2026 release was not the end of the redesign. Some pages are still being refined, and the team is gradually replacing legacy UI patterns with a more consistent, user-centered storefront experience.
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1Storefront flow refinement
Continue improving product discovery, product detail evaluation, cart confirmation, and quotation request flows so users can move across the purchase journey with fewer interruptions.
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2My Page redesign
Extend the storefront UI kit into purchase history and order detail pages, creating a clearer account experience for returning buyers.
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3Admin SaaS expansion
Backend management and supplier-side product registration are being developed as separate case studies, covering operational workflows, data maintenance, and scalable governance.
Qualitative Feedback
先日貴社HPを拝見させて頂きました。HPのリニューアルおめでとうございます。以前も拝見しやすかったですが、更に魅力的なHPだと思いました。また、発注も以前より簡単になったと感じました。次回の発注が待ち遠しく思っております。
Customer feedback shared with the sales team after launchTakeaways
This project taught me that product design in a real business rarely starts from a blank canvas. The value came from finding a realistic entry point inside an already complex system, improving the highest-friction purchase moments, and proving the impact with both behavior data and customer feedback.
- Business impact: cart conversion reached 40.5% and generated ¥6.24M in tracked revenue during the measured period.
- UX impact: product pages supported deeper evaluation instead of shallow browsing.
- Team impact: the UI kit and self-check process created a scalable design foundation for My Page and future system expansion.