Designing the only path forward for 1M+ buyers blocked from bidding.
Summary
Jump to final design ↓Copart runs thousands of vehicle auctions daily.
Most buyers arrive expecting to bid immediately.
But for many, that’s not possible. They need a broker to participate.
The broker microsite is where international or unlicensed buyers figure out what to do next. And this is what they saw.
Before: broker microsite
Buyers explore brokers on this microsite.
Once they leave to contact a broker, what happens next becomes invisible.
Step 6 onwards, the actual conversion funnel, was completely invisible.
From the outside, the flow worked.
Buyers landed on the page and browsed brokers.
But in practice, the experience broke down quickly.
Different numbers across brokers, no context → uncertainty.
Multiple CTAs, no clear hierarchy.
Users didn’t know what to do next.
So, the real challenge
This wasn’t just a discovery problem.
The experience didn’t support users at the moment they needed to act.
Experience that makes the system clear, helps users find relevance, and guides the next step.
One place for all brokers.
Help users find the right broker.
• A guided entry point in the hero (location + lot-based search) for quick starts
• Structured filters in the listing (location, services) for deeper exploration
This gave users a clear path, whether they knew what they were looking for or not.
Making the next step clear.
• One clear primary action
• Key details visible upfront
• A simple 2-step process (contact → broker handles the rest)
So users could move forward without leaving the page to figure things out.
Launched April 2026.
Now live for 1M+ buyers across 198 countries.
Direct conversion couldn’t be tracked, but early signals showed stronger engagement with broker listings and less reliance on support as a first step.
You don’t always get full data.
The brief started with a clear ask: improve the broker experience. But the “why” needed proof. FullStory and Customer Support showed buyer pain points.
But these buyers aren’t really Copart’s customers, they move through brokers. So what happens next isn’t fully visible. That shifted the focus to making the next step clear before they leave.
This work led to a full-time return offer at Copart, something I’m grateful for!
