AutoScout24 wanted to create a new offering that enables a fully online used-car purchase, including payment, car registration, logistics, delivery and hassle-free returns. This shifted the role of AutoScout24 from a pure listing platform to an end-to-end service provider with significant operational responsibility.
Buying a used car – as simple as shopping online
AutoScout24, Europe’s largest marketplace for used vehicles, aimed to create a service that genuinely offers a customer-centered approach for purchasing cars fully online. This objective was achieved through a UX research and hypothesis-driven approach, enabling the team to deliver on time at an impressively rapid pace.
Role
Research Lead
Timeline
2021
Client
Edenspiekermann x Autoscout24
Context
How might we purchase cars fully online?
Role
Research Lead for design and product teams
I served as Research Lead in an interdisciplinary team spanning Edenspiekermann and AutoScout24 staff.
I worked closely with three Product Owners, the UX team (app & web), the service design team for offline touchpoints, and the newly formed internal logistics & operations team responsible for delivery and returns. Where user and market insights fed into positioning and naming, I also supported the branding team.
My responsibilities:
Prioritizing and validating hypotheses from business, technology, dealer, and service design perspectives
Designing a viable validation strategy for a comparably short time to launch
Setting up participatory research & testing structures
Making service processes visible and steering real-world test deliveries
Enabling end-to-end test coordination between digital (UX) and operational (service & logistics) teams
Approach
Making insights leading our work
1. Validation strategy under high uncertainty
I designed parallel validation streams that integrated regulatory questions, dealer processes, and end-customer signals. It combined:
Regular user tests on trust, payment process, and decision logic
Interviews and shadowing with dealers
Digital and physical prototypes for critical steps (payment, document flows, returns)
This allowed the three Product Owners to prioritize and ship concrete increments despite many unknowns.
2. Building research operations to enable multiple teams
In the first weeks, I introduced foundational structures that turned UX research from a specialist activity into shared decision-making:
An accessible research repository
Standardizing interview guides, synthesis templates, and debrief methods
A remote observation tool chain that enabled everyone in the teams to join live sessions as “silent observers”.
Training for Product Owners & UX in hypothesis-driven ways of working
3. Service blueprinting & real-world test deliveries
With Service Design & Operations, we co-created a service blueprint that consolidated the End-to-End experience and made all front-stage/backstage steps visible. With its help, we
prototyped the first real-world test deliveries
onboarded and coached operations staff
derived guidelines for logistics and customer service
initiated a tracking system for document handling (car registration, identification)
Outcomes
Owning a complex on- and offline journey
A fully functional end-to-end service went live within a few months – despite regulatory hurdles and a fully remote setup.
A scalable research-ops foundation that three product owners, UX, and Operations could use long-term.
Early real-world deliveries surfaced operational risks and enabled robust logistics and customer service processes.
Introduction of a registration kit that clearly guides customers through all necessary offline steps (and even surprised dealers with its ease of use).
The product gained trust. smyle is recommended by the police crime prevention authority as a safe way to buy a car online.
The team continued to work with a hypothesis-driven prioritization model after the project with the agency ended.
