Tokopedia Detail Produk #MakeItBetter

Long time not posting, I'm back with another #makeitbetter ux finding.

I'm an avid online shopper and Tokopedia (one of Indonesia giant ecommerce) is one of my go-to both in web and app version.

However, I find it quite frustrating that both web and app version, doesn't offer product variation for the seller to input and therefore as a buyer I often face this problem:

1. Buyer needs to manually type in the product variation (color, size, etc). Sometimes, I completely forgot to inform the Seller before checkout and ended up receiving random color.

2. Even if Buyer remember to type in the product variation that they want, it could be out of stock. Buyer will have to cancel the order and may need to repeat the entire searching and purchasing all over again.

3. There's no way for Buyer to know which variation is out of stock, unless it's stated by the Seller in product description.

4. If the out-of-stock variant is stated by the Seller, it's often never been updated, so Buyer may need to chat with the Seller to ask manually.

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It may take time to implement product variation since there are possibly hundreds of thousand of product existing in Tokopedia already, but i believe it's better late than never.

The solutions:
1. Sellers are given the choice to update their existing product with variations (if any). I can imagine it will be painstakingly tedious task to do, so if they opt in to go with the existing method, there will still be 'note-to-seller' field for Buyer to manually type in

2. For new product addition, there should be multiple variation and stock information for each variant.

3. Out of stock variant should be clear on the get go from Buyer view.

4. Show the current stock status so Buyer can have a sense of urgency to complete the purchase asap.

Let me know what you think of these approach. I'm thinking to continue the #makeitbetter series in the future!