Overview

Tradeshift is a platform that digitizes procurement, invoicing, and payments, connecting businesses with their suppliers and simplifying supply chain management.

As the network grew, a recurring problem emerged: suppliers repeatedly created duplicate accounts. This wasn't a technical glitch, but the result of a broken onboarding process that left suppliers confused about how to connect with their customers.

To sustain growth, it became essential to improve the onboarding experience, making it simpler and duplication-proof.

Replacing proactive sign-ups

Companies could join Tradeshift by signing up directly or by accepting an invitation, which would create an account that only needed activation. However, some invited suppliers also tried to sign up through the website, resulting in duplicate accounts.

Since proactive sign-ups rarely converted into paid customers, it was replaced with a "Request demo" option. This change allowed the sales team to still collect leads, and made email activation and invitations a top priority.

Simplifying activation

Before activating their account, suppliers had to share a lot of details about their company, even when some of that data was already available from their invoices. Each additional field increased the likelihood of drop-off.
While collecting data matters, none of it was necessary to start using Tradeshift. Moving this step to after activation and framing it as setting up a business card showed a significant increase in activated accounts.

Overview

Tradeshift is a platform that digitizes procurement, invoicing, and payments, connecting businesses with their suppliers and simplifying supply chain management.

As the network grew, a recurring problem emerged: suppliers repeatedly created duplicate accounts. This wasn't a technical glitch, but the result of a broken onboarding process that left suppliers confused about how to connect with their customers.

To sustain growth, it became essential to improve the onboarding experience, making it simpler and duplication-proof.

Replacing proactive sign-ups

Companies could join Tradeshift by signing up directly or by accepting an invitation, which would create an account that only needed activation. However, some invited suppliers also tried to sign up through the website, resulting in duplicate accounts.
Since proactive sign-ups rarely converted into paid customers, it was replaced with a "Request demo" option. This change allowed the sales team to still collect leads, and made email activation and invitations a top priority.

Simplifying activation

Before activating their account, suppliers had to share a lot of details about their company, even when some of that data was already available from their invoices. Each additional field increased the likelihood of drop-off.
While collecting data matters, none of it was necessary to start using Tradeshift. Moving this step to after activation and framing it as setting up a business card showed a significant increase in activated accounts.

Overview

Tradeshift is a platform that digitizes procurement, invoicing, and payments, connecting businesses with their suppliers and simplifying supply chain management.

As the network grew, a recurring problem emerged: suppliers repeatedly created duplicate accounts. This wasn't a technical glitch, but the result of a broken onboarding process that left suppliers confused about how to connect with their customers.

To sustain growth, it became essential to improve the onboarding experience, making it simpler and duplication-proof.

Replacing proactive sign-ups

Companies could join Tradeshift by signing up directly or by accepting an invitation, which would create an account that only needed activation. However, some invited suppliers also tried to sign up through the website, resulting in duplicate accounts.

Since proactive sign-ups rarely converted into paid customers, it was replaced with a "Request demo" option. This change allowed the sales team to still collect leads, and made email activation and invitations a top priority.

Simplifying activation

Before activating their account, suppliers had to share a lot of details about their company, even when some of that data was already available from their invoices. Each additional field increased the likelihood of drop-off.
While collecting data matters, none of it was necessary to start using Tradeshift. Moving this step to after activation and framing it as setting up a business card showed a significant increase in activated accounts.