Harvex
A case study
The challenge
Trading with multiple buyers in a different time zone is complex. Whilst a trade can be agreed in principle via Whatsapp, this needs to be followed up with multiple emails and document exchanges.
Enabling a new kind of trade
Historically, the sellers on the Harvex platform have worked with their buyers to agree prices and arrange logistics using a combination of Whatsapp, Wechat, email and phone calls. The process was outdated, time consuming and made aligning product supply and customer needs too cumbersome to manage.
What the Harvex team envisioned was a platform with multiple sellers who could offer their products to a collective group of buyers without having to incur significant overhead costs, effectively bring wholesale markets into the digital age.
Technological adaptability is the key
Harvex believed a digital platform could be a transformative option in a landscape where pandemic conditions demanded creative new options. Nui and Harvex forged a partnership with this shared vision of change as a starting point.
The journey started with a series of cross-party workshops, which identified a list of critical success factors that would ensure an improved customer journey:
- Multiple buyers and sellers had to be able to work together in a way that allowed both collaboration and competition
- A solution which provided a traditional market on a global scale
- A secure platform where approved participants could seamlessly trade
- Buyer access to real price data
- Quality assurance for all traded products
- Multiple trades needed to be consolidated into single shipping options Once agreed upon, these requirements were hardwired into the development roadmap.
Moving towards a multi-seller solution
Nui have developed numerous types of offerings: From single producer solutions, to multiple buyer-seller solutions, but they didn’t have anything in the portfolio that exactly matched what Harvex were looking for. In order to meet Harvex’s needs, Nui would need to rethink their previous designs.
After extensive conversations with Harvex, the project team landed on a multi-seller solution, where buyers can quickly browse through offerings from multiple sellers.
This would effectively create a market where both buyers and sellers benefitted. Buyers would be the primary drivers of purchasing activity, while sellers would obtain a live snapshot of what is working in the market.
"Since its inception, Harvex has worked closely with Nui to develop a truly unique digital experience for B2B onion trading. Whilst the technology side speaks for itself, the partnership between Nui and Harvex is where the true benefit is derived. By providing an adaptable and supportive team Nui have played a critical role in helping Harvex to develop to where it is today. Thank you."
Keys to success
Two things proved indispensable to the success of the Harvex platform development.
Customer centric
The key stakeholders at Harvex built an in-depth view of prospective user needs. They examined both sides of the trading equation and fed their findings into the design process.
Adaptability
Even though some of the Harvex requirements were new to Nui, the foundational building blocks were already in place with their existing technology. As the core elements of the code were adaptable and modular, reshaping their existing product to fit Harvex’s needs was a relatively seamless process.
The outcome
Onions have been traded online on the Harvex platform since early 2021. The Harvex platform simplifies the sales process for both buyers and sellers, and gives buyers access to a year round supply in one place.
