One of my main priorities when designing chat for a second-hand marketplace has been to foster trustworthy communication between users. While most users have good intentions, it’s essential to inform them about potential risks and provide quick, accessible ways to report suspicious activity.

User profile in chat offers a quick overview of a user’s activity on the marketplace, such as location, membership duration, and recent transactions, so users have relevant context when starting a conversation. While “one-click purchase” is popular in e-commerce, research shows that marketplace users still value seeing seller information (whether private or professional) and prefer to chat to negotiate prices. A brief profile preview supports quicker decision-making and helps build trust between users.

Moderation is a critical area for any platform that hosts user-generated content. To ensure content is legal and safe, especially in the context of fraud prevention, we implemented both pre- and post-moderation features. These are particularly important when users share sensitive information such as personal details, phone numbers, or IBANs. For example, if a user shares their phone number, we display a warning highlighting the risks of sharing personal data online. Similarly, when a seller includes an IBAN for a bank transfer, we trigger alerts and offer users the option to report suspicious activity.

Private and professional sellers are key users in online marketplaces. They generate inventory and invest in premium features to reach broader audiences and sell more efficiently. With this user segment in mind, I’ve designed automated features to simplify their daily workflows.

System Messages automatically send predefined messages within conversations and have been used for a range of purposes, including fraud prevention, transactional updates, product recommendations or marketing campaigns. I’ve worked closely with stakeholders to shape this feature around their needs, using data analysis to iterate and optimise these automated messages to boost related marketplace KPIs.

Automated Replies have been a long-standing request from both private and professional sellers. I designed this feature to allow sellers to customise their responses, setting their tone of voice, preferred reply hours, or activating an "out of office" message. Since ghosting is a common issue in second-hand marketplaces, automated replies have helped reduce friction and maintain communication flow.

Alongside the release of new features, I’ve consistently dedicated time during design cycles to usability improvements in Messaging. Today’s users expect familiar chat behaviours, intuitive navigation, consistency, efficiency, and clear error handling. When I took on the role of UX Lead, many standard features found in modern chat platforms, such as forwarding messages, blocking/reporting users, or sending emojis, were not yet implemented.

A key example is the "block and report" feature, which reflects strong cross-domain collaboration with the moderation team. Together, we designed a seamless in-chat experience that allows users to report and block others, with reports automatically passed to moderation agents through their own internal tools. These reports are then used to help identify and flag potential scammers.

Another user base of the Messaging product is our internal stakeholders. As the service supports multiple tenants, across different brands, countries, languages, and user behaviours, each has its own unique needs. To support them effectively, I designed a set of backoffice tools that enable self-serve functionality for key tasks.

For example, we developed a WYSIWYG editor that allows tenants to upload and customise email templates for different chat-related events, such as receiving a new message or completing an online transaction. Another tool was a dedicated messaging management console that enables tenants to configure aspects of the chat experience such as setting up system messages, blocking or unblocking users or checking local configurations.

These tools have significantly improved delivery efficiency by offloading routine tasks from the messaging product team, while giving marketplaces greater autonomy to tailor the experience to their local needs.