WholesaleXpress is a Canadian marketplace focused on live auto auctions, where car dealers buy and sell used vehicles.

For 2 years, I worked as the sole sr. product designer and led a full redesign of the platform (web, mobile app, internal tools, and core workflows), but this case study is about the mobile side. We rebuilt the app from the ground up to make it easier for dealers to sign up, list cars, buy/sell, bid, and manage inventory right from the lot.

Today, the mobile app is the main way dealers interact with the marketplace 24/7.

Dealers couldn’t list cars in the app — everything had to be done elsewhere or through the sales team. There wasn’t any proper sign-up or onboarding, so new dealers were added manually by sales, which slowed everything down and didn’t scale.

The mobile and desktop products also felt like two different worlds: navigation, layouts, and basic flows didn’t match, so switching between them was confusing.

On top of that, listings often didn’t have enough details to make a confident buying decision, which hurt trust and bidding activity.

Let dealers list cars directly in the mobile app.

Improve the experience with auctions.

Add a proper sign-up and onboarding flow so dealers can join by yourself.

Bring mobile and desktop closer together so the experience feels consistent.

Give buyers enough vehicle info to make confident decisions and bid faster.

Talked to dealers to understand how they source cars, list them, buy/sell, and what slows them down.

Mapped the full flow from "looking for an inventory to sell/buy" to "download my bill of sale".

Created mobile sign-up and onboarding so dealers can join on their own.

Designed a new self-listing flow with integrated VIN search and guided steps, including added structured photos and condition capture to reduce mistakes.

Made mobile and desktop feel consistent so switching is easy.

Enhanced the experience with auctions and bunch of other secondary flows.

Worked with engineers to ship fast + keep quality high.

Established and contributed to a design system to keep updates consistent and easy to scale.

Made live auctions easier to follow and quicker to bid in, which led to ~40% more active dealers and faster bidding overall.

Built the first self-registration flow, growing verified sign-ups by 180% and cutting onboarding time.

Enabled dealers to list cars on their own, which doubled inventory, cut time-to-market from days to hours, and most manual work went away.

Made switching between mobile and desktop feel almost seamless.

Overall, the redesign gave the marketplace a second wind: dealer trust came back, adoption grew fast, and the improved UX became part of the story that helped secure fresh funding during the 2024 management buyout.

First of all, dealers had very low tolerance for typing, so we made VIN-first workflow, where automation was critical. Also, as we figured out later on, trust mattered, so grading tags and clear bid history increased confidence in vehicle condition.

There’s still plenty to explore, like smarter pricing tools, more guidance, better grading, but the foundation is solid now, and new features can move faster. The best part was hearing dealers say the app finally "gets out of the way" and just helps them do their job.