DCBP: E-Commerce · Used Car Selling App
Intro
Project Overview
Project: DCBP - Used car selling app
Project Type: Side initiative under the DCBP ecosystem
Role: UI/UX Designer → Product Lead
Team: CEO, CTO, Graphic Designers, Front-End Developers
Timeline: 2016–2017
Platform: Mobile App (iOS/Android)
Industry: Automotive, Logistics, FinTech
TL;DR
The DCBP Seller Mobile app helps individuals sell their used cars in under 90 seconds - completely online, with zero haggling or hassle. Instead of dealing with flaky buyers or predatory dealers, users receive an instant offer and enjoy a frictionless pickup and payout process. I led the design and product direction for this mobile experience.
Scaling Supply Before Demand Hits
While building the core platform, we saw a recurring challenge: sourcing enough quality inventory to meet anticipated global demand.
The company was beginning to expand internationally, starting with the US, but the process of attracting new sellers was slow and manual.
Without a scalable way to bring in qualified sellers at the right price, growth would stall before it began.
We needed a more automated, top-of-funnel system, one that could handle volume, maintain quality, and convert interest into supply. Here’s how we tackled it.
Discover
Discovery & Research
We interviewed private sellers, trade-in veterans, and hesitant would-be sellers to understand behavior patterns.
Dealership vs. Private
Selling a car is a universally dreaded experience for most owners. You're forced to choose between two imperfect options: trade it in at a dealership for a lower price, but with ease and speed, or attempt a private sale for a better deal, but face a long, stressful process.
Private sales often mean meeting strangers, arranging test drives, and dealing with no-shows or lowball offers. Safety concerns are real, and even when a legitimate buyer shows up, negotiations can drag on for days.
Many sellers start out hoping to maximize their return, only to give up and return to the dealership, willing to take a loss just to avoid the emotional exhaustion and hassle.
The Standstill Between Buyer and Seller
Sellers want a smooth, hands-off sale with no haggling or in-person meetings.
Buyers, on the other hand, want to test-drive the car, meet the seller, and negotiate a better deal.
These opposing preferences create friction that makes peer-to-peer car sales frustrating for both sides. Sellers dread the hassle and emotional labor of negotiating. Buyers worry about trust and transparency.
What if we could remove the friction altogether, giving both sides what they want without compromise?
Buying Peace of Mind
Sometimes, sellers accept lower offers just to avoid the time, stress, and uncertainty of holding out for a better deal.
After facing a string of no-shows, aggressive hagglers, or poor communication, even a slightly polite buyer can feel like a relief.
Other times, a looming deadline, a move, a new car arrival, or financial urgency, forces sellers to trade value for speed.
The emotional cost becomes greater than the financial one. In the end, they don't just sell the car, they buy peace of mind.
Define
Problem Framing
Selling a car is stressful. Dealerships are fast but pay less. Private sales offer more money but require time, negotiation, and meeting strangers. Many sellers give up and trade in their car to avoid the hassle. While sellers want a quick, remote process, buyers still expect test drives and in-person deals. There’s no middle ground, prompting the question:
How might we remove the stress of selling a car while still offering a fair deal?
Define & Strategy
We set out to build a mobile app that would:
Deliver instant offers within 90 seconds
Eliminate all negotiations through dynamic pricing logic
Handle post-sale logistics so sellers wouldn’t need to meet or manage buyers
Provide peace of mind by assuming full responsibility after the car is sold
To do this, we framed seller behavior like a game of trade-offs: the faster they want to sell, the more they’re willing to compromise on price, and that’s okay.
Design
Letting Sellers Choose Their Trade-Off
We learned that haggling was one of the most emotionally draining parts of selling a car. Sellers didn’t want to justify their price or negotiate with strangers, they just wanted a fair, fast outcome they could trust. So we removed negotiation entirely. Our dynamic pricing model handled all the math upfront, giving sellers a clear offer with no back-and-forth.
I designed an automated offer system rooted in real seller behavior: people are often willing to trade price for peace of mind, especially when they're in a hurry. By factoring in vehicle details, local demand, and the seller’s urgency, we could generate personalized offers in real time.
Sellers simply selected how quickly they wanted to sell, and we adjusted the offer accordingly.
If they needed to sell fast, they’d get a lower, but guaranteed, offer.
If they could wait, they were rewarded with a better price.
All choices were framed as simple multiple-choice options, removing guesswork and negotiation. To guaranteed fairness, even the lowest offer was set at least 15% above typical dealership trade-in values.
This eliminated tension, set expectations early, and gave every seller the same predictable, scalable experience. By taking pricing out of the conversation, we didn’t just simplify the process, we gave sellers relief, clarity, and control.
Hassle-free, End-to-End
One of the biggest fears for car sellers is what happens after the sale: complaints, chargebacks, or last-minute buyer remorse.
This uncertainty creates hesitation, especially for first-time sellers who worry about being blamed or pulled back into the process.
To remove that anxiety, I designed the experience to end cleanly and confidently the moment the car is sold.
We took full ownership of the vehicle post-sale, dispatched local vendors to handle inspections, paperwork, payment, and pickup, and ensured sellers were paid on the spot with zero obligations afterward.
By eliminating the emotional burden of "what if something goes wrong," we gave sellers peace of mind, trust in the process, and the confidence to let go.
When Great UX Depends on Operations
None of this would have been possible without the offline infrastructure working quietly behind the scenes.
While the app made the experience feel instant and seamless, it was powered by a deep network of logistics providers, private lenders, and cross-border sourcing partners.
This operational backbone allowed us to deliver white-glove service to sellers while maintaining the margin flexibility to offer fair prices and fast payments.
A key unlock came from partnering with local dealerships and car shops that not only aligned with our business model but also believed in the same customer-first vision.
These relationships gave us the ability to scale without sacrificing trust, speed, or value. In the end, it was a powerful reminder that behind every great digital experience is a system of real people, working in sync to earn the user's confidence.
Deliver
Introducing: DCBP's Seller App
DCBP's Used Car Selling App is a first-of-its-kind mobile app that empowers car sellers to sell their used cars directly into a cross-border marketplace, without the need for dealerships or in-person negotiations.
By automating pricing, logistics, and payments, the app redefines what a car sale can feel like, fast, remote, and hassle-free.
For sellers, it means unlocking fair market value with none of the traditional stress.
Early test users described the experience as “shockingly easy” and “relieving,” reflecting a deeper emotional shift: for the first time, they felt in control, not overwhelmed, by the process of letting go.
Product Demo
(Need a better view? Click the expand icon in the top right, then hit "Z" to zoom it just right.)
Results & Impact
Although the DCBP Seller Mobile app was still in development when I left the company, it was a strategic extension of our core platform, built to funnel high-quality vehicles into our cross-border marketplace. It addressed a critical supply-side gap by empowering individual sellers with tools previously reserved for dealerships.
The broader DCBP ecosystem went on to raise one of the largest Series A rounds in Taipei from the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, validating our team’s bold vision to modernize used car logistics and reshape the way cars are sold across China.
Reflection
Designing DCBP Seller Mobile taught me that:
Removing friction isn’t just about UI, it’s about reimagining the entire transaction model.
The best products don’t fight human behavior, they work with it.
Sometimes, the real value isn’t about offering more money, it’s about delivering peace of mind.
And finally, great UX is never built in isolation. The most seamless experiences come from deep cross-functional collaboration across design, engineering, operations, and beyond.
