Behind the screens
How I built a community marketplace for sharing rewards
Long story short
01The problem
Most rewards expired unused
Shoppers earned 10% back in credits, but most went unused, so many traded them on Facebook instead.
02What I did
A marketplace to share credits
A community pool inside Catch where shoppers donate and claim credits without leaving the app.
03The outcome
+38%
of credits saved from expiring, and 18% more new purchases.
Prototype
Data-backed wins
+38%
Credits saved from expiring
+18%
New purchases sparked
12%
Of credits donated to the pool
The full story
Skip to final designs ↓Timeline
6 weeks
Team · 4 people
- Design me
- PM 1
- Engineering 2
From observation to opportunity
We combined market research, user feedback, and testing to see how people used credits in and outside of Catch.
What's not working
Low stickiness
Credits don't pull users back to brands.
Few connections
Users may not know others on Catch to share with.
Credit abuse
Users tend to hoard credits to spend as little as possible.
The silver lining
Big appetite
Users share credits on social platforms like Facebook.
Feel-good factor
Giving credits is rewarding on its own.
Promo spark
Quick promos boost engagement, showing marketplace potential.
Our bet
Let shoppers pass on the credits they won’t use, so rewards bring people back instead of expiring.
Make credits easy to claim
Let users easily browse and grab credits.
Increase engagement
Use promo-like techniques to drive frequent returns.
Expand sharing
Encourage donations to keep the credit pool full.
Prevent abuse
Implement guardrails to ensure credits create real brand value.
The concept phase
Based on the insights gathered and the goals we set, I developed a variety of concepts to test with real users and gauge impact and desirability.
Concept 1
One-to-one swap
A gamified marketplace where users trade credits, with time limits driving quick actions.
Concept 2
Shape-shift into Flex
A system where users swap unwanted credits for Flex credits, enabling broader engagement.
Concept 3
The Catch pool
A marketplace where users donate or grab credits, fostering community engagement.
The tradeoffs
User testing revealed strong preferences, but also surfaced conflicts between what users want and what’s sustainable for the business.
Popular but unsustainable
Concept 2, Shape-shift into Flex, was loved by users, but it breaks our core promise to partner brands: driving repeat business.
Proven power of urgency
Users pushed back on time limits, but past promos show urgency drives strong engagement.
Best of all worlds
We built a hybrid combining the most effective elements from all three concepts.
One pool, three ways to use it
At the final stage, I combined user insights, technical limitations, and business goals into one clear direction. The result: a product that met our shared objectives.
Now users can…
1 - Easily browse and grab credits
Credits are now featured prominently on the homepage, with multiple entry points to ensure users can easily find and access them.
2 - Give back to the community
Inspired by user feedback that ‘doing good feels good,’ we made credit sharing rewarding while helping the business keep a healthy credit pool.
3 - Buy more. Spend less
We introduced time-sensitive features to encourage repeat visits, while also setting up guardrails to prevent fraud and abuse.
What we learned along the way
Learn technical constraints early
Earlier visibility would have helped us avoid testing ideas that weren’t feasible and focus on concepts within scope.
Define the MVP and phases clearly
It could have saved time by validating simpler hackathon ideas earlier and gauging user appetite faster.
Users are resourceful
They’ll find ways to maximize credits while minimizing spend. Ongoing monitoring and layered guardrails keep usage healthy and protect our value to partners.
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