JOOR, Payment Monetization Senior Product Manager

📌  Summary

• Executed a comprehensive turnaround of JOOR Pay, an underperforming embedded payments solution (35% churn, <80% success rate), by identifying and solving for critical workflow misalignments missed in the initial launch.
• Conducted extensive user research/testing (30+ interviews) and collaborated with stakeholders to translate key pain points into targeted enhancements like order filters, customizable payment requests, and partial payment/due date options.
• Successfully shifted entrenched user behaviors and achieved +44% YoY brand adoption growth, $12M+ processed GMV, -64% reduction in payment completion time, +90% transaction success rate (up from 80%), and dramatically improved customer satisfaction with 100% of users reporting higher satisfaction

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⚠️  Problem

In 2021, JOOR set a strategic goal to diversify beyond its SaaS subscription model and capitalize on the $5.7B in wholesale orders processed annually on the platform. JOOR Pay launched in Q3 2021, an embedded payment solution aimed at streamlining wholesale order collections.

However, poor alignment between JOOR Pay’s initial features and user payment workflows led to low adoption. Over 40% of JOOR Pay brands found the solution insufficient for their payment workflows, transaction success rate hovered at 80%, and churn rate even reached 35%.

🎯  Business & Product Objectives

• Increase adoption, revenue, and customer satisfaction of on-platform payment monetization via JOOR Pay
• Optimize retention funnel and churn prevention within the checkout and payment transaction workflow
• Stabilize JOOR Pay technical performance (incl. uptime & transaction success rate)

🔬  Research Methods

• Conducted 30+ interviews across prospective, existing, and churned JOOR Pay users. Created 7 unique user personas, 17 interview snapshots, and 5 customer journeys.
• Closely collaborated with internal stakeholders (customer success, product support, account managers, sales) to identify common barriers and clearly understand customer pain points.

🌎  Target Demographic

• Chose APAC/NA brands (GMV tiers 3-5) that finalize orders on JOOR as the primary audience due to their high transaction volume ($362.4MM opportunity across 336 brands) and lower complexity in regulatory compliance (EU was excluded due to strict and complex e-commerce legislation).
• GMV tiers 1-2 are less likely to transact on JOOR due to the large size of their business and existing payment solutions.
• AOV TTM = $6.1K, Unique SMB Retailers w/ AOV ≤ $5K = 79.3K

😣  User Paint Points & Opportunity Areas

• Difficulty Finding and Managing Orders by Payment Status
• Users struggle identifying orders by payment status, making it challenging to effectively manage payment activities and order tracking.
• ”I can’t find the orders I need to action on.”
• ”I can’t easily action on orders for payment.”
• "I don’t know which orders have outstanding payments.”
• “I can’t find orders of a certain payment status.”
• Limited Personalization and Customization in Payment Requests
• Users find it difficult to customize and send payment requests aligned with their specific business workflows and processes.
• ”I can’t follow-up on orders how I want too.”

• Lack of Partial Payment or Due Dates
• Users lack the tools to request partial/installment payments or clearly specify due dates consistent with the negotiated business terms.
• “I can’t request for just the net agreement or security deposit.”
• “I need to set a due date to get my retailers to pay on time.”
• Unclear Error Handling and Troubleshooting
• Users are frustrated due to unclear transactional errors and difficulties in troubleshooting payment failures without external assistance.
• ”I don’t know why the transaction failed.”

🔑  Solutions

1. Navigation, Filters, and Order Actions
• Opportunity: As a JOOR Pay user, I struggle to find which orders need follow-up for payment and cannot easily find payment history around an order because I cannot filter orders by payment status.
• Desired Outcome: Enable easy identification of orders requiring payment follow-up, improving order management efficiency.
• Solutions: (SOW - 3 sprints)
• Ability to filter orders by payment status, retailer, last notified, & more.
• Order actions to send payment link and change payment status.
• Consolidation of payment activity into one area (internal + external).
• Accessibility to payments page via main navigation bar.

2. Customized Payment Requests (Emails, Copy Link, BCC)
• Opportunity: As a JOOR Pay user, I am unable to personalize and send out payment requests in a way that fits my existing workflow.
• Desired Outcome: Empower JOOR Pay users to more flexibly personalize and integrate payment requests into existing workflows, enhancing customer experience, communication efficiency, and adoption.
• Solutions: (SOW - 4 sprints)
• Personalize the subject line and message on the payment request email. This email can be previewed and sent directly on the platform.
• Send payment requests to multiple recipients with BCC directly on the platform.
• Create unique payment URLS per order that can be sent through any preferred means of communication outside of the platform.
• Track the total number of times payment requests have been sent as well as the last follow-up date.

3. Partial Payment Amounts & Due Dates
• Opportunity: As a JOOR Pay user, I need to request partial payment amounts and due dates for the retailer according to agreed upon terms (ex. deposits, net terms).
• Desired Outcome: Enable brands to precisely manage partial and installment-style payments aligned with negotiated terms, ensuring greater payment accuracy, flexibility, and adherence to established payment timelines.
• Solutions: (SOW - 4 sprints)
• Request only a partial amount of the total balance for scenarios like deposits or partial shipments.
• Restricts retailers from paying any amount other than what the brand has requested for the total balance.
• Specify due dates on a payment request email and invoice. Changes “Issued Date” on the invoice to a status value from the first day any payment was requested

4. Error Messaging & Security Vulnerability
• Opportunity: As a JOOR Pay user, I encounter errors that disrupt my workflow and require outside assistance to resolve.
• Desired Outcome: Minimize workflow disruptions and dependence on external assistance by providing transparent, actionable error messaging and ensuring platform security and performance reliability.
• Solutions: (SOW - 4 sprints)
• Clear error messaging when transactions fail
• Storing credentials safely
• Downtime Tracking: Alerts to JOOR when Reach goes down
• Pendo Tagging: Tracking Usage

🚀  GTM Deliverables

• Internal Documentation (for customer-facing teams readiness)
• Help Center Articles (to reduce user confusion and support tickets)
• On-Platform Announcement (to boost immediate awareness/adoption)
• GTM Training Video (ensuring internal clarity & aligned messaging)
• Product Demo Video (simplified user onboarding experience)
• Dedicated Marketing Email (targeted communication increasing adoption among selected demographic)

• Revenue & Adoption Growth
• Brand Adoption: +44% YOY increase, with 160 Total Active JOOR Pay Brands (+98 in 2023)
• Total paid GMV: Over $12M+ executed via JOOR Pay
• Retailer-Initiated Transactions: Increased by +13%
• Operational Efficiency
• Invoice to Payment Completion: Reduced duration by -64%
• Invoice Processing Efficiency: Improved by 84% reduction in processing time per invoice
• Time Savings per Brand: Over 200 average hours saved annually
• Marketing Funnel & JOOR Pay Sign-Ups
• JOOR Pay Sign Up Page: Increased page visitors via by 107%

• Platform Reliability & Performance Improvements
• Transaction Success Rate: Exceeded 90% (+6% improvement from baseline)
• Uptime: Achieved 99.99% (improved from 4.5%, assuring product stability)
• Customer Satisfaction
• Overall Satisfaction: 100% were "More Satisfied" or "Much More Satisfied" (80% goal)
• Likelihood to Reuse JOOR Pay: 86% respondents indicated "More Likely" or "Much More Likely" for next order (50% goal)

🚧  Challenges

Navigating Top-Down Decisions and Technical Debt to Realize User Value

• Initial product direction driven primarily by leadership assumptions about market opportunity (high GMV transaction volumes) underestimated entrenched user behaviors and incumbent solutions. Coupled with JOOR's limited ability to rapidly iterate due to legacy technical infrastructure, early adoption fell short of executive expectations.
• Addressing this challenge required transparent discussions around user research insights, realistic adoption timelines, and a gradual, iterative approach to building genuine user value.

💡  Learnings

Shifting Deeply Ingrained User Payment Habits with Lightweight Improvements

• While entrenched user behaviors (such as inexpensive ACH transfers) and seasonal constraints initially seemed daunting, delivering value through small, targeted enhancements proved highly effective.
• Embracing tightly scoped features that could be quickly validated and easily adopted, allowed us to build momentum gradually, demonstrating that even minor improvements can significantly influence user habits and adoption over time. While initial enhancements didn't fully shift behaviors overnight, they established a robust foundation to progressively demonstrate JOOR Pay’s expanded value proposition.