designwithvcn

Vendly

Type

Website

Category

Website & Management System

The Problem

Selling happens over DMs, and it shows

A customer likes something, then has to ask what it costs. Then if it's in stock. Then what colors it comes in. By the third message back and forth, most people have already moved on to a shop that just tells them the price upfront

The "proper" alternatives ask too much just to try

Shopify and WooCommerce exist, but setting one up means weeks of fighting with themes before a single sale happens. For a vendor who just wants to see if selling online works for them, that's a lot to commit to on a maybe.

Payment gateways hold your money hostage

Even after a store's built, funds sit with the gateway for days before a vendor can actually use them. Ghanaian vendors run their business day to day, not around someone else's payout schedule.

Vendly's Goal

Vendly's goal is straightforward: give Ghanaian vendors a real storefront without the cost, the wait, or the technical learning curve. "DM for price," fee-skimming payment gateways, weeks lost setting up a Shopify store — none of that is unique to one seller. It's what selling on Instagram and WhatsApp looks like every day, in Accra, in Kumasi, everywhere in between. Vendly exists to fix that, so any vendor can have a proper shop live in minutes, and keep what they earn without anyone else holding onto it first.

Design process

This process involves understanding user needs and business goals, conducting research, creating wireframes and visual designs, testing with users, iterating based on feedback, and collaborating with development teams to deliver an intuitive, user-centered product.

Step

Understand

User Research

User Interview

Competitve Analysis

Step

Define

User Personas

Empathy Map

User Journey

Step

Ideate

User Flow

Information Architecture

Step

Design

Wireframe

Hi-Fi Designs

Prototype

Step

Test

Feedbacks

Conclusion

Future Concept

Meet the users

Real people, real problems. These personas shaped every decision

made in designing Nabataa

Business Owner

Abena Osei

Customer/ Shopper

Kwabena Mensah

Design Approach & Proposed Solution

A look at the thinking behind Vendly, the real problem that shaped it, who it was built for, and the solution laid out before any screen got designed.

Defining the Problem

Space

The problem came from watching how vendors actually sell in Ghana: through WhatsApp DMs and Instagram comments, answering the same "how much" and "is this available" over and over, watching interested customers go quiet mid-conversation and never come back.

Two users mattered here: the vendor with no real storefront, and the customer with no easy way to browse or buy without messaging first. Whatever got built had to work for both of them.

Design principles

established for Vendly

Zero friction to launch

A vendor with no technical background had to be able to go from sign-up to a live, sellable storefront in under 5 minutes.

Familiar, not foreign, checkout

The buying experience couldn't ask customers to learn something new, it had to work the way they already order, through WhatsApp, just without the back-and-forth.

Nothing standing between the vendor and their money

No payment gateway holding funds. No fee eating into a sale. The vendor decides how and when they get paid.

What this led to

These principles ran through every decision after that — how the storefront gets built, how an order arrives formatted in WhatsApp, how invisible the tech stays to the vendor using it. None of it was for show. Every choice traced back to one thing: helping a vendor close a sale before the customer loses interest.

Vendly didn't start as a software idea. It started with a question — what would selling online actually look like if it worked the way vendors already sell? The product is the answer.

User Task flow

A step-by-step look at how users move through Nabata from entry point to goal,

with no unnecessary detours.

Customer's user flow

From browsing storefront, selecting a product to placing your order on whatsapp

Vendor's user flow

From creating an account, setting up your store and making your first sale

Low Fidelity Wireframes

A closer look at the screens that define how Nabata works from first tap to final transaction.

Shopper & Seller Screens

The Create account & Dashboard interface

Shopper's Screens

The Store & Product details interface

Vendor's Dashboard

An overview of the entire seller's operation

Featured Screens

A closer look at the screens that define how Igree works from first tap to final transaction.

Shopper's Interface

Placing an order

This section walks users through Placing an order on Vendly

Vendor's Interface

Setting up a Storefront

This section walks the user through setting up a storefront on Vendly

Vendor's Interface

Vendor's Dashboard

This section walks through the Vendor's dashboard on Vendly

Vendly's Impact on

Ghanaian Businesses

& Customers

Vendors

Selling stops eating up hours that should go into the actual business. A storefront that used to take weeks of setup now takes minutes. Orders show up formatted, not buried under a pile of DMs, and no fee sits between a sale and the money reaching the vendor. "DM for price" turns into a real shop that's open around the clock.

Shoppers

Buying stops requiring three messages before anyone tells you the price. Prices, stock, and details are right there, an order goes out in a couple of taps, and there's a real record of it instead of a DM thread to scroll back through. Buying from a small vendor starts to feel just as easy as buying from a big store.