ghost

Building Ghost's
operational core

Turning post-sale fragmentation into a single source of truth
As Senior Product Designer: I led the end-to-end platform strategy integrating three key systems across Operations, Finance, Sales, Buyers, and Sellers. I designed data-dense internal tools for 8+ roles and self-service flows for buyers, all within existing architecture and API constraints.

When the Platform Stops at the Sale

Ghost's B2B commerce platform captured deals but everything after (freight coordination, payment collection, order fulfillment) was handed off to third party tools, creating fragmented workflows for Operations and Finance, and degraded experiences for buyers and sellers.

Platform Impact

⚡️ Operational Efficiency

✔️ 75% reduction in manual freight work

✔️ 8 → 1 tools consolidated

✔️ 20hr per deal efficiency gain (35hrs → 15hrs)

💰 Business Value

✔️ 9-figure annual order value (AOV) supported

✔️ 24% → 96% payments adoption

✔️ 68% faster time-to-payment

👥 User Experience

✔️ 8+ user roles supported

✔️ Real-time shipment visibility unlocked

✔️ Automated buyer/seller communication triggers

🏗️ Platform Foundation

✔️ Unification for single source of truth

✔️ Audit-ready documentation

✔️ Cross-system data flows and triggers

Architecture Before Products

Ultimately it was about mapping the foundation before designing the tools. The problem wasn't just inefficiency, it was invisibility. We lacked a complete picture of order status, shipment tracking, and total costs.

❌ Operations worked between 5+ tools daily, requesting quotes, spending hours on status emails

❌ Operations worked between 5+ tools daily, requesting quotes,
spending hours on status emails

❌ Buyers & sellers had limited shipment visibility, response wait times, zero self-service

❌ Buyers & sellers had limited shipment visibility,
response wait times, zero self-service

❌ The business had no audit trail, hidden labor costs, disparate data

Rather than jump to feature work, I audited third-party tools, ran interviews across 8 user roles, and shadowed Ops and Finance through complete workflows.

Rather than jump to feature work, I audited third-party tools, ran interviews across 8 user roles, and shadowed Ops and Finance through complete workflows.

I mapped the disconnected flows across key steps, creating a modified service blueprint to identify opportunities and constraints.

I mapped the disconnected flows across key steps, creating a modified service blueprint to identify opportunities and constraints.

FOUNDATIONAL GOALS

  • Account for two distinct experiences (data-dense admin, streamlined buyer)

  • Share underlying data architecture

  • Build with modular components to fit existing patterns

System 1: Bringing Shipments On Platform

Off-platform booking was manual, slow, and prone to delays.

❌ Bloated shipping times caused by operational strain

❌ Bloated shipping times caused by operational strain

❌ Buyer frustration due to lack of transparency

❌ Buyer frustration due to lack of transparency

OPERATIONS EXPERIENCE

Key to our approach was integrating with BlueGrace's API (third party freight provider).

I designed a feature-rich dashboard where Ops could:

  • Generate and refresh quotes

  • Book and modify shipments

  • Track in real-time

Ghost is a private platform, any data shown has been sanitized or approximated

BUYER EXPERIENCE

I enhanced buyer touchpoints:

  • Quote review

  • Carrier selection

  • Real-time tracking

  • Automated notifications

AI-POWERED VALIDATION

AI tools accelerated iteration. I validated multi-leg freight logic with stakeholders using interactive prototype, and paired with eng on data modeling to tighten the feedback loop and launch our shipping calculator faster.

FREIGHT IMPACT

✅ Support for nine-figure AOV

✅ 75% reduction in manual work

✅ Replacement of 3P tools

System 2: Making Payments Work For Everyone

On-platform payments had launched but only 24% of buyers used them. Most deal cycles were lengthened because Finance intervention was required.

150

150

150

Deals audited

35+

35+

35+

Handsoffs per deal

76%

76%

76%

Deals with manual
Finance intervention

40%

40%

40%

Deals delayed
awaiting payment

LEGACY PAYMENTS

❌ Rigid installment structure

❌ Rigid installment structure

❌ ~35hrs/deal manual coordination

❌ ~35hrs/deal manual coordination

Our two-installment system couldn't serve growing clientele (solo shops to Fortune 500s) threatening retention.

ADMIN EXPERIENCE

I accounted for pain points across users and built for:

  • Flexible installment tooling

  • Clear admin dashboard hierarchy

  • Requiring payment terms at offer acceptance (correlated to deal quality)

  • Finance approval gates

BUYER EXPERIENCE

I optimized the buyer interface for a primary action and progressive disclosure.

PAYMENTS IMPACT

✅ 24% adoption to 96%

✅ 1,000 monthly hours saved (=6 FTE)

✅ Zero failures in first month of launch ($47M)

✅ Shortened deal lifecycle

System 3: Supporting Split Shipments

The highest-value buyers often required orders split across multiple POs, multiple shipments, and unique payment allocations, things the platform didn't support. Without it, enterprise growth was at risk.

❌ Platform supported one, narrow use case

❌ Platform supported one, narrow use case

❌ Split orders required workarounds

❌ Split orders required workarounds

APPROACH

Pairing with Ops and Finance, I captured flexible use cases we'd need to support.

Working with a significantly reduced engineering team, we ran design and a functional proof-of-concept (POC) in parallel to first stress-test the underlying data model.

A key design challenge was what to show and what to withhold. The POC surfaced everything including underlying calculations.

Based on my Ops workflow audit I designed around immediate actions, with secondary information accessible but out of the way.

AI-powered order reconciliation was driven by our integration with TableFlow, tailored for Ghost.

ADMIN EXPERIENCE

I designed for:

  • Scalability for data-density

  • Content hierarchy and clear signals for data conflicts

  • Split PO management

  • Editable shipping details

Note: Further work and implementation on this project was paused due to organizational changes

Reflections

🎨 Operational design is product design

The most impactful decisions weren't UI but working with partners to optimize workflows.

🧠 Platform thinking over feature work

Approaching from a foundational perspective, looking beyond incremental tools drove value.

🛠️ Workarounds informed the requirements

Understanding how our stakeholders used third party tools informed platform functionality.

🤖 Prototype to align, not just to validate

AI-assisted prototyping enabled higher velocity, as well as shared understanding and buy-in.