cubotoo is a corporate start-up of HG Commerciale, a building materials trading company that has operated in the Swiss market for 125 years. cubotoo enables direct transactions between manufacturers and construction companies via a B2B marketplace. This sales model allows users to bypass middlemen and buy building materials directly from the manufacturers on the cubotoo marketplace.

The company entrusted us with a web application redesign, including designing the interface, mockups, and shopping flow. Together, we created an advanced B2B marketplace with optimized UX and intuitive navigation at the level of the best B2C platforms.

The Brainhub team consisted of two UX designers, a Business Analyst, a Project Manager, and a Front-end developer. We worked closely with the client's back-end developer team during the project. After a year of cooperation, the new application was ready. Thanks to the innovative approach to product design, cubotoo's marketplace was awarded a bronze medal in the Best of Swiss Web in the Digital Commerce category in 2024.

Challenges

cubotoo wanted to offer its customers a new shopping experience through a modern, intuitive marketplace, but getting users to change their habits was a real challenge.

The complexity of the business

The marketplace application must be flexible and responsive to support multi-vendor sales and shipments from different warehouses. cubotoo needed to design an intuitive interface for sellers, buyers, and the internal admin team to make managing the app convenient.

Specifics of the B2B sector

Until recently, the foundation of B2B sales was the face-to-face relationship between seller and buyer. Facing the digital transformation, the B2C sector adapted relatively quickly to the new online sales model, while B2B sales still clung to the old and gold offline experience.

Reflecting on business relations in digital reality

cubotoo targets two types of users: building contractor companies and building and construction materials manufacturers. Their business relationships involve multiple operations and large-scale orders. The key to designing the application was to simplify the purchase management process, coordinate deliveries from different warehouses at the right time and place, and allow the parties to negotiate prices, track orders, and ask questions.

Solution

Product discovery and close partnership

Creating a good product is not only about technical know-how; it is about understanding the industry and the people you’re designing for. Our team worked closely with cubotoo's product owner to understand customers' needs, expectations, and struggles. We also gained insights from the interviews the cubotoo team gathered from their target audience.

We suggested the best solutions tailored to cubotoo’s business and shared our design and UX expertise with them. The Brainhub UX and Business Analysis teams even ran branding workshops to help the client refine their product vision.

Seamless navigation

A sales platform's complexity doesn’t have to mean a complicated interface. One of the greatest accomplishments of the cubotoo project was seamless navigation and excellent UX. We designed and implemented separate panels for three user groups: buyers, sellers, and administrators. We also focused on the back office level, as adding new products, entities, and inventory information requires the involvement of Cubotoo's internal team.

Improved user experience

Users of the app have been given access to several features that make interaction with the marketplace much easier, such as:

Adding products to the shopping cart from the listing view.
Access to technical specifications and downloadable documents (instruction manual, warranty, certificates, etc.) on each product page.
Ability to compare offers of the same products from different producers.
User account with order status and history, with the ability to repeat previous purchases.

Products assigned to the projects

The manufacturer often has multiple warehouses, many points of distribution, and even separate brands with different profiles and assortments. The construction companies have many construction projects with different delivery locations, and each project can have different invoice addresses due to subsidiary companies. We introduced custom projects, such as location or specific attributes in the shopping cart, to make it easier for cubotoo users to manage their orders.

Order status overview

Manufacturers selling their products on cubotoo handle multiple orders simultaneously from customers all over Switzerland. We’ve implemented the Live Basket feature to help them control order processing. In the overview, the manufacturer can check the buyer's data (customer name, company name, and contact information), the status of the order (ordering, waiting for the response, in delivery, delivered, archived), and the order revenue. The clear table view allows manufacturers to manage orders easily and segment them by project.

Advanced filtering

The products offered at cubotoo are described in great detail and have numerous properties and attributes. We’ve introduced advanced search filtering to make it easier for users to find what they need. cubotoo clients can filter products by price, manufacturer, product properties such as color, size, and material, and additional custom attributes specific to the product type, such as water resistance or certification.

Users also have advanced filtering available in the overview panel, which is particularly useful for those responsible for making purchases.

Negotiating prices via chat

Despite the digital transformation, the B2B market still has a strong in-person sales tradition. Sometimes, even the best-designed buyer path can't replace a brief conversation with a human being. The challenge for B2B e-commerce companies, therefore, is not only to create the perfect digital product but also to address the needs and habits of their customers. cubotoo users have a chat room with sellers to negotiate prices and inquire about order details.

cubotoo - excellent user experience in the first place

Digital transformation is a matter of modern technology and, above all, of forming new habits and experiences. During the project for cubotoo, we faced the challenge of designing a modern B2B construction marketplace. Thanks to the close cooperation with cubotoo's team, we could use our expertise optimally, meeting the users' expectations.

The application we developed is a modern, advanced, yet intuitive, and easy-to-use sales platform. It simplifies daily transactions for manufacturers and contractors, allowing them to bypass middlemen. The excellent UX and innovative approach allowed the cubotoo team to take third place in the Best of Swiss web competition in the Digital Commerce category. We are very proud to be part of this success.