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Olist
·
2022
Learning Before Scaling: Olist's First Month in Mexico
Product Strategy
Research
Roadmap Priorization
International Expansion
Context
In 2021, Olist began its expansion into Mexico. At the time, the country was experiencing rapid growth in technology and startups, particularly in e-commerce and financial services.
We had little knowledge of the local culture, merchant behavior, regulatory requirements, marketplace requirements, or logistics operations. The challenge went far beyond translating the platform, and we needed to quickly understand how the market actually worked.
Strategy
Rather than investing in building a fully featured platform, we chose to reduce the risk of expansion through rapid validation cycles. The initial operation was designed to validate business hypotheses before optimizing processes.
We needed to answer a few fundamental questions:
Which documents were required?
Which product categories had the greatest potential?
How did cultural factors influence product adoption?
What should our market positioning be?
Which operational processes should evolve into product features?
My role
Led Product Design for Olist's expansion into Mexico.
Planned and conducted research to reduce business uncertainty.
Defined and iterated on acquisition and operational flows.
Structured discovery activities to inform product decisions.
Partnered closely with Product, Engineering, Customer Success, and Marketing.
Our first priority was understanding how Mexican merchants began their journey with Olist. That's why we started with the acquisition flow.
Acquisition flow
To attract our first customers, we intentionally designed a simple, iterative acquisition flow.
Web onboarding flow
Initial mobile onboarding flow
Acquisition flow testing session with a Mexican merchant
Initially, the interface was translated by non-native Spanish speakers. Through user interviews, we learned that subtle language nuances increased merchants' distrust of Olist. As a result, we introduced content reviews by a native Mexican copywriter before continuing to expand the acquisition flow.
The acquisition flow became our primary tool for understanding the behavior of our first merchants.
Metrics
Acquisition flow completion rate and qualified lead volume.
Lead location (city/region) to prioritize expansion into new cities.
Product categories available across our merchant base.
Time to submit required documents and drop-off rate.
Early Market Insights
Ongoing interviews with our first customers revealed that some assumptions that worked well in Brazil didn't hold true in Mexico. One of our biggest insights was that trust played a much more significant role throughout the online buying and selling journey.
Trust as a Decision-Making Factor
Merchants and customers exchanged significantly more messages before, during, and after a purchase.
Physical stores played an important role in the buying journey, as customers wanted to see both the products and the store in person before making a purchase.
Small language mistakes reduced trust, making the platform feel unprofessional—or, in some cases, even fraudulent.
E-commerce Maturity
Educational content for online sellers was still scarce.
Regulations and administrative processes were more flexible and less strictly enforced.
Operational processes were less standardized.
Operating Manually to Learn Faster
Since our business model in Mexico had not yet been validated and our marketplace integrations were still incomplete, we intentionally started with manual operational processes supported by the Customer Success team.
We built a basic order management screen that didn't yet handle every scenario or display all incoming orders. Order tracking relied on spreadsheets, while WhatsApp became the primary channel for pre-sales conversations, new order notifications, listing reviews, and inventory updates.
As we learned more about merchants' needs and operational challenges, the order management experience gradually evolved.
Order tracking
Order detail
Operational metrics
Operational efficiency: We tracked the time spent by the Customer Success team on manual processes.
Merchant autonomy: We measured how many tasks merchants could complete through the platform without relying on Customer Support.
Product catalog quality: We monitored the quality of product listings and their fit with our business model, since more products generally translated into more sales.
Quantity and quality of listed products.
Average selling price (ASP): prioritizing higher-value product categories.
Inventory depth: reducing the risk of stockouts and improving campaign execution.
Sales potential: estimated based on Olist's historical knowledge from the Brazilian market.
Turning Insights into a Roadmap
Our goal was never to maintain a manual operation. Instead, this initial phase served as an experiment to understand what truly needed to be automated.
User research, operational metrics, and the day-to-day work of the Customer Success team informed our roadmap priorities, allowing us to invest in new features only when we understood their impact on the business.
Results
Business outcomes
More than 40 active merchants in the first month of operations.
A fully functioning operation supported by a lean team.
Strategic Outcomes
Defined the initial onboarding and documentation criteria.
Identified priority product categories for expansion.
Established early directions for communication and market positioning in Mexico.
Defined the first roadmap priorities based on evidence gathered during the initial operation.
Personal Takeaway
At the time, I didn't speak Spanish, so I conducted user interviews with the support of Google Translate (this project predates the widespread use of AI tools). The experience reinforced that empathy, active listening, and preparation often matter more than complete fluency in a language.
It also broadened my perspective on product design and sparked a lasting interest in building products for different markets across Latin America.
2026 Gabriela Pinheiro
Curitiba, Brasil