Rebate Management

Rebates are funds that Tiki's retail business leveraged to lower product prices and boost sales. Using rebate is like making a bet, and over-utilization had caused tens of billion VND in losses to Tiki's operating costs.

Our tech team developed a tool to help better estimate/predict and manage the rebate budget, however, due to poor design, the team in charge did not adopt our product.

This project is an example of how Usability, especially Learnability, in complex operational systems is crucial for effective operations, and ultimately, for driving positive business outcomes.

Challenge

Users did not adopt our product, which causes risks to Tiki's operating cost due to budget over-utilization.

My role

  • User researcher

  • Product Designer

DELIVERABLES

  • Identify the causes through user interview.

  • Then redesign the product to achieve better usability and adoption.

result

  • The submitting rebate process was completely transitioned to our tool.

  • Budget over-utilization was reduced from tens to only few billions VND.

Rebates—a risky bet

  • Tiki has a retail business where they buy products from suppliers, store them in Tiki's warehouse, and sell them on the Tiki marketplace under the name Tiki Trading.

  • A rebate is a discount from suppliers for purchasing in bulk or meeting specific conditions (e.g., buying 1,000 units for a 10% discount or getting VND 500,000 off per item when purchasing specifically A, B, and C)

  • Tiki often uses rebates to lower product prices on its platform and stay competitive. However, to receive the rebate, Tiki must meet certain conditions in the contract. Therefore in order to offer competitive prices, Tiki has to use its own funds for promotions before receiving the rebate.


(Shopee is our biggest e-commerce competitor)


As you can see, this solution carries risks:

  • If the rebate amounts are overestimated, Tiki may face losses if the selling prices plus rebate amount are less than the cost of acquiring the products.

  • Conversely, if the rebate amounts are underestimated, Tiki will miss opportunities to invest more in promotions.


To mitigate risks, rebate approval has two layers:

  1. The Procurement team secures contracts and reports expected rebates.

  2. The Finance team, who provides the company’s money (before the supplier actually disburses it), double check to ensure the reported rebate matches contractual terms. Only after this approval can the Procurement team use the rebate amount for promotions.

Adoption problem

At that time, our Retail IQ team has provided the Procurement team with a tool (designed by you-know-who) that:

  • Allowed the Procurement team to input rebate conditions, making it easier for the Finance team to verify them against contracts.

  • Once approved, the tool automatically tracked whether conditions were met, reducing the need for initial predictions and allowing the Procurement team to adjust expectations as conditions (sales, revenue, etc.) changed in real-time.

However, three months after launch, the Procurement team still relied on the previous method—manually tracking eligibility and sending reports to the Finance team—leading to continued over-utilization issues (tens of billions of VND).

Identify the causes through user interviews

I met some representatives from the Procurement team to discuss the issue. It appeared that the team found the tool hard to use, the interface was unclear and sometimes confusing. They felt like it takes too much effort to figure out, so they’d pretty much given up on it. I summarized the findings into following main problems.

1. Bad information structure

Input fields related to each other or that should be grouped for ease of use are scattered throughout the interface. Information is also arranged carelessly on the UI without hierarchy. Some information may also be unnecessary and could be removed to simplify the process.

  • This leads to poor learnability, as users struggle to understand what information to input and how it corresponds to the contract.

  • It also causes low efficiency, with users having to navigate back and forth between the tool and the contract to find relevant information, sometimes leading to incorrect data input or rejection by the system.

2. Lack of visibility of system status

When there are errors and the system rejects the inputted data, the messages were vague and lacked specific guidance on where the error occurred or how to fix it. This leaves users stuck and unable to proceed. Examples below.

The improved design

Improvements in information presentation

  • Existing data was restructured or re-grouped for better learnability.

  • Additional information was added for better clarity.

  • Important alerts were made more prominent for better efficiency.

  • The rebate amount summary was visualized using a stacked chart for more meaningful insights.

The new design
Improvements in the Rebate Listing page
Improvements in the Create Rebate page
Improvements in Error Handling

Possible error cases and corresponding error messages were also defined. I created a guideline on how to display these error messages for the tech team to follow.

A document handoff to our dev team
Error feedback
Later on we also added a new functionality for the Procurement team to easier track their Rebate Budget utilization

Result

✔ Within a month, the rebate approval process fully transitioned to our tool.

✔ Budget over-utilization dropped from tens of billions of VND to just a few billion.

✔ Approval speed was increased—confirmed by Procurement & Finance team.

✔ As part of a larger initiative to stabilize Tiki Trading’s profit post-COVID, this project directly improved financial control and helped maintain profitability.

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