Albertsons Companies · Enterprise B2B Platform · 2024–2025

Streamlined item onboarding for 600+ vendors in the Albertsons Partner Portal

I led the redesign of an enterprise item lifecycle management platform that reduced product setup from 6 days to 4, saving merchants 21 hours weekly, and mitigating $2.5B in compliance risk through real-time data validation.

Item Management — cover showing the enterprise item onboarding interface
33%
Faster item setup
21 hrs
Saved per merchant weekly
$2.5B
Compliance risk mitigated
250M+
SKUs managed
Timeline
July 2024 – April 2025
Role
Senior Product Designer
Team
30+ Engineers · 6 PM
Platform
Enterprise web (Partner Portal)
My role

I owned the end-to-end redesign of the item creation and attribute management workflows. I led discovery with divisional merchants, national merchants, and MDS teams to map the complex multi-layer approval ecosystem.

My key contribution was partnering with the data science team to implement real-time validation across 10 of 11 critical attributes that directly addressed the 28.4% data mismatch rate. I also grew the component library by 60% using the Universal Design System (UDS), creating reusable patterns that partner and cost pods adopted for development feasibility.

Stakeholder research Information architecture Form design Design systems (UDS) Data validation UX A/B testing
The Problem

Legacy tools created operational bottlenecks across 600+ vendor relationships

Legacy tools Salsify and Syndigo were driving down engagement, increasing vendor disputes, and producing unreliable item data across a complex approval chain, creating serious compliance risk for Albertsons.

6 days
Item setup time vs. 4 for competitors
8
Approval steps causing bottlenecks
4.5 hrs
Daily merchant review time
28%
Asset data requiring workarounds
Where the workflow broke down
01
Fragmented legacy systems
The item attribute transaction between legacy system and Albertsons merchant platform was inefficient in terms of scaling the product.
02
Compliance exposure
Inaccurate item attributes and unstructured asset collection led to $2.5B in potential legal risk exposure.
03
Lacking accountability
Poor visibility into merchant-vendor approvals caused discrepancies and delays, prolonging item onboarding.
The Core Question

How might we help vendors, merchants, and distributors maintain transparent, high-quality item data while seamlessly collaborating across business units?

User Research

Understanding the complex approval ecosystem

Mapped the intricate workflow between vendors and internal merchants to identify friction points and design opportunities across multiple approval layers.

1
Vendor Draft
Vendors create item proposals with product attributes for business approval
2
DM / NM Review
Divisional & National Merchants approve, deny, or request revisions
3
Final Validation
MDS/RA/SC performs final approval for supply chain distribution
Key Insight
MDS teams possess override authority to bypass DM/NM approval, creating multiple approval paths that required flexible, intelligent design solutions.
Fragmented User Groups
Vendors, Divisional Merchants, National Merchants, and MDS teams — each with distinct workflows and decision-making powers.
Navigation-Centric Legacy
The old tools primarily helped users navigate systems rather than efficiently manage item data and approvals.
Data Mismatch
28.4% information mismatch due to edge case handling failures across vendor-submitted item attributes.
Long Creation Flow
Multiple approval steps with no clear starting point led to high drop-off rates and communication bottlenecks.
Salsify tool screenshot

Salsify tool screenshot

Syndigo tool screenshot

Syndigo tool screenshot

Design Decisions
01
Decision · Task accountability

Redesigned existing components for informed interactions

Considered
Autofilled forms to reduce manual workflow by vendors
Chose
Form restructuring and reusable components based on product timeline prioritization
Why
Decluttered the form designs for easy readability and helped vendors and merchants more accountable to changes and approvals in item onboarding stages by scaling existing component structures.
Tradeoff
Although the item onboarding process forms were lengthy in nature, the number of clicks were reduced with the new design and engineering team handoffs were faster.
Signal it worked
Vendor and merchant feedback revealed 60% time efficiency in attribute collection and approvals with less back and forth communication.
02
Decision · Data validation

Informed validation vs. non actionable instances

Considered
Individual data validation modal for all compliance attributes
Chose
Inline validation rules and guided instructions for vendors
Why
I partnered with product and data science team to co-create validation rules for each non-negotiable attribute to inform vendors about certain show stopper attributes.
Tradeoff
Restarting the item setup process from a discontinued compliance form was unavoidable due to compliance industry standards.
Signal it worked
Fewer than 12% vendor and merchant interactions for compliance related communication. Error validation rates reduced by 78%.
Before

This form broke the user experience and created a gap in the item creation flow leading to back and forth vendor-merchant communication

After

The new form is made with clear inline guidance, content redesign and error states for next steps to vendors followed by email notifications

03
Decision · Asset management

Table format vs. card gallery for digital assets

Considered
Visual card/gallery layout for updating product images and digital assets
Chose
Table format validated via A/B testing, easily scalable for hierarchy structures
Why
The table format was solving 2 problems in one by addressing merchant image attribute requirements and marketing team needs that cut down on additional repository.
Tradeoff
Merging two product requirements into one. I negotiated with engineering and product teams to build a single repository that could enhance the product experience much better.
Signal it worked
Merchants and vendors cut down additional workaround for image capture by 85% and merchant portal remained single source of truth for item image based attributes.
Horizontal Carousel pattern for digital asset management

Horizontal Carousel pattern

Gallery preview — Thumbnail Carousel pattern for digital assets

Gallery preview - Thumbnail Carousel pattern

Solution Overview
Item Management solution screen — streamlined onboarding interface

Hierarchy Maintenance for maintaining Item Supply Chain

Final production of Digital asset management workflow for product image attributes

Impact

Measurable outcomes delivered

Quantifiable improvements across vendor engagement, merchant productivity, and operational efficiency while building scalable design systems.

Key outcome
$2.5B

Legal risk mitigated through compliance redesign — across 250M+ SKUs and 600+ vendors.

21 hrs
Weekly time saved per merchant
72%
Vendor acceptance rate
80%
Albertsons SKUs covered
60%
Design system library growth
Design System Impact
Scaled UDS (Universal Design System) reducing design debt through reusable components. Partner and cost pods leveraged components due to development feasibility.
Process Efficiency
Merchant dashboard mirrored vendor interface, reducing learning curves by 27% and improving override efficiency by 14% through collaboration.