B2B E-commerce
Company
Monday Merch
team
Internal
year
2024
role
Senior Product Designer
Situation
Architecting Monday Merch Platform 2.0—
a €500K-backed enterprise platform serving clients including Meta, Uber, and Netflix. While I led end-to-end design across the ecosystem, this case study deep-dives into our highest-friction bottleneck: solving B2B order checkout where buyers lack corporate payment authority.
The Core Problem
Requesters can’t pay for what they build
Consumer online shopping assumes one person builds the cart and pays immediately. In corporate orders (€3,500 to €50,000+), that flow breaks completely.
No Company Credit Card
HR managers and internal brand leads spend hours curating apparel, uploading vector logos, and configuring welcome packs. However, corporate credit cards are locked in the CFO's desk. Forcing instant 16-digit card input caused complete workflow abandonment right at the final step.
12+ Manual Emails per Deal
Because checkouts stalled, account managers intervened manually—typing pro-forma PDF quotes, verifying tax IDs, and chasing bank wire receipts. This operational drag capped sales bandwidth at only 15 client accounts per representative.
EU VAT Reverse-Charge Friction
Under EU Directive 2006/112/EC, cross-border corporate orders legally require verified VAT numbers for zero-rated invoicing. Without real-time validation, client finance controllers rejected pro-formas immediately.
Behavioral Dynamics
The 3 people in every corporate order
B2B platforms fail when they design for generic "users". We mapped the opposing daily environments, mental models, and organizational vulnerabilities of all three parties involved in every order.
The Approver
(CFO & Controllers)
• Environment: Drowning in ERP portals (SAP, NetSuite), bank releases, and audit trails. Highly protective of compliance.
• Mental Model: Refuses to create a new platform profile just to approve one department's swag order. Requires transparent itemization.
• Behavioral Vulnerability: Rejects pro-formas instantly if subsidiary addresses or EU VAT numbers fail official registry checks.
The Requester
(HR & Brand Teams)
• Environment: Lives in Slack, Notion, and Figma. Under immense deadline pressure for upcoming employee onboarding batches.
• Mental Model: Expects an intuitive e-commerce journey (browse, customize, review), but hits an insurmountable gate at checkout.
• Behavioral Vulnerability: Possesses zero corporate card authority. Asking for a card forces them to close the tab and email account reps for help.
The Operator
(Sales Ops & Warehouse)
• Environment: Managing central warehouse inventory and manufacturer delivery windows across Europe.
• Mental Model: Cannot hold goods indefinitely on speculative orders, but cannot send unconfirmed deals to production.
• Behavioral Vulnerability: Suffers "double-allocation drift"—when a client pays 5 days late via wire, the reserved physical blanks are already gone.
Key Decisions
Why we chose 3rd-party rails
Founder directive (Jeroen): Platform 2.0 checkout had to launch in 1 month. The engineering team initially debated building proprietary credit card and wire processing in-house.
Direction Rejected:
In-House Payment Processing
Building proprietary payment infrastructure required European financial institution licenses, PCI-DSS compliance audits, and multi-currency settlement rails. Under a strict 1-month launch deadline, burning capital to reinvent financial rails risked enterprise client trust and killed product velocity.
Drawbacks:
12+ months delay, full security liability, and unproven startup trust
Direction Selected:
3rd-Party Rails (MultiSafepay)
Leveraged established European financial rails (MultiSafepay). Corporate buyers already trusted their infrastructure, allowing instant rollout of iDEAL, credit cards, and Net-30 invoice terms with zero compliance overhead.
Benefits:
Launched in 3 Weeks, established enterprise trust, and 100% PCI liability offloaded
The Design Leverage
By delegating transaction settlement to MultiSafepay, we freed up 100% of product and design resources to solve root operational bottlenecks: multi-entity billing address CRUD, automatic EU VAT validation, and asynchronous link delegation.
What We Got Wrong
Why a simple PDF invoice created stock issues
Our first idea was a simple "Download Invoice PDF" button. It seemed clean, but it caused unexpected problems in the warehouse.
Initial assumption vs. real-world breakdown
I thought letting users download an invoice and forward it to finance would solve the delegation gap. I was wrong.
Finance teams take 3 to 6 days to approve bills. Because our system waited for payment before doing anything, physical blank items in the warehouse were not held. By the time the CFO paid, other automated orders had bought up the hoodies and t-shirts. Account managers had to apologize and restart deals.
The Iterative Fix: We introduced Automated temporary warehouse stock tied to payment link expiration. The second a user clicks "Receive Payment Link", the system automatically locks that inventory in the warehouse so items never sell out while waiting for CFO approval.
The New Process
How the flow changed
7 painful steps vs. 6 fast steps
Comparing the slow manual email loop with the new online delegation flow built in Figma.
OLD EXPERIENCE
10-14 Days • High Drop-Off
Start
→
STEP 1
Config Pack
HR picks swag
→
CREDIT CARD
Forced Card
Demands €15K
→
STUCK
Cart Closed
No card access
→
SALES DRAG
Email Sales Rep
Asks for PDF quote
→
MANUAL TASK
Manual PDF Quote
Manual math & VAT
→
TAX ERROR
Finance Rejection
Invalid VAT ID
→
BANK CHECK
Manual Wire Sync
Manual check
→
14 Days Lost
NEW EXPERIENCE
< 24h to Factory
Start
→
1. REVIEW
Clear Costs
Full cost breakdown
→
2. BILLING
Select Address
Auto tax validation
→
3. SWITCH
Payment Link
Locks stock
→
4. SHARE
Slack to Finance
No login needed
→
5. SETTLE
MultiSafepay
Card, iDEAL, Net-30
→
6. SYNC
Automatic Email
Sent to factory
→
< 24h Factory
DEEP ARCHITECTURE
Core UI and system design execution in Figma
Detailed breakdown of the 4 key interface architectures designed on the production Figma canvas to resolve multi-entity billing, state locking, and asynchronous delegation.
1. Multi-Entity Billing Engine (CRUD)
Multinational clients manage entities across multiple European subsidiaries. Instead of a single static address form, I architected a full lifecycle CRUD engine (Create, Read, Update, Delete) directly in checkout. Integrated live EU VIES validation to automatically verify company Tax/VAT numbers and apply legal reverse-charge zero-rating.
FIGMA: SELECT BILLING (CRUD MODAL)
Address Manager with Branch CRUD Controls & Tax ID Validation
2. The Hero Switch: "Receive Payment Link"
Requesters toggle the switch ON to completely bypass credit card fields. The system executes a defensive `Payment Link ON` state transition, visibly confirming the order configuration is frozen and generating an authenticated, shareable link for Slack or email.
FIGMA: PAYMENT LINK ON (3S STATE LOCK)
Interactive Toggle Switch with Order Freeze Micro-Feedback
3. 7-Day Central Warehouse SKU Reservation
Because finance approval takes several days, generating a payment link communicates directly with the Warehouse Management System (WMS) to lock physical inventory for 7 days. This prevents stock collision while eliminating uncommitted speculative orders.
FIGMA: PAYMENT ORDER & STOCK LOCK
Warehouse Stock Allocation & Reservation Timestamp View
4. MultiSafepay Guest Handoff & Email Loops
CFOs open the delegation link via Slack and click `Open third party payment` without creating platform accounts. Settle via trusted rails (iDEAL, cards, Net-30). Upon settlement, automated webhook dispatch triggers factory work orders and email loops instantly.
FIGMA: ORDER COMPLETED & EMAIL FLOWS
MultiSafepay Gateway Handoff and Automated Email Layer
DEFENSIVE DESIGN
Handling real-life problems,
How the system prevents errors
Good design is about handling moments when things go wrong. Here is how Platform 2.0 keeps orders safe.
If CFO Closes Tab Mid-Payment
Session Token Persistence: The "Continue Flow" modal preserves the MultiSafepay session state, enabling 1-click checkout resumption without forcing the requester to rebuild the cart.
If European Tax / VAT ID Is Invalid
Real-Time VIES Inline Feedback: Address CRUD validates VAT against the European Commission VIES API instantly, disabling reverse-charge with clear explanatory tooltips if invalid.
If Approval Takes Longer than 7 Days
Automated Stock Reallocation: At day 7, the system releases physical SKU locks back to warehouse inventory and sends an automated Slack notification to the requester.
If Invoicing Different Branch Offices
In-Checkout Entity CRUD: Requesters can Create, Read, Update, and Delete legal billing entities directly within checkout without leaving the purchasing flow.
RESULTS
Measurable outcomes
Delivering commercial velocity and operational stability across Monday Merch.
€100K+
Dev Budget Saved
Saved by using MultiSafepay instead of building from scratch.
-93%
Timeline Reduction
From 12+ months in-house build down to a 3-week rollout.
< 24h
Production SLA
Official design-to-production turnaround time.
4.9 / 5
Trustpilot Score
Won Start-Up of the Year 2024 at The Supplier Days.
Start-Up of the Year 2024
Recognized at The Supplier Days 2024 for connecting custom swag design, warehouse logistics, and automated payments into one smooth experience.
Bedrock for Platform 3.0
The address management, tax check tools, and payment link flows designed in Platform 2.0 now serve as the core engine powering Monday Merch Platform 3.0.
REFLECTION
The principle I took from this project
"Enterprise product design is not about forcing organizational users into a rigid consumer checkout funnel. It is about understanding the messy political reality between departmental creators, corporate finance controllers, and warehouse operations—meeting stakeholders where they already work, whether through Slack notifications, automated pro-forma links, or asynchronous delegation."
