I was a member of the Discovery & Search team, focused on improving product exploration and search.
Eneba had a strong position in digital sales (game keys, gift cards) but faced challenges with a new classifieds module for physical products launched in 🇪🇸 🇫🇷 🇮🇹 🇧🇪 🇱🇹
Strategic goal (OKR): Achieve product-market fit in 🇪🇸 Spain. Convert digital buyers into physical product customers, increasing adoption, sales conversions, and GMV.
Main challenge: Lack of synergy between digital and physical products, as most users preferred digital editions.
Inspired by the Classical Design Sprint framework, I structured the initiative into 5 key phases to stay organized:
Understand – Review the company strategy shared by the Board of Management and align it with UX research findings in a flexible, time-efficient manner.
Ideate – Conduct structured ideation and formulated actionable hypotheses supported by low-fidelity mockups.
Decide – Collaborate with the team to evaluate business impact vs. implementation effort, and selected feasible initiatives for upcoming experiments.
Prototype – Designed A/B experiment variants, including specifications and goals.
Validate – Plan, implement, and launch experiments. Monitor outcomes and share results across the organization.
To ensure alignment with Eneba’s quarterly strategic goals, I conducted an in-depth review of a 100+ page strategy document published by the Board of Management. Document contained comprehensive metric analyses and defined objectives, structured by the Board of PMs under the leadership of the Head of Product.
My focus was on:
Understanding the strategic background, including key performance indicators and dependencies.
Identifying patterns and insights that could inform potential initiatives.
Extracting key strategic goals to guide the ideation process.
📌 Early Concept Formation:
During this analysis, initial hypotheses and initiative ideas naturally emerged. As a first tangible output, I created an unstructured mind map, capturing all potential experiment ideas, product updates, and feature improvements that could help bridge the gap between digital and physical products. This document laid the groundwork for the upcoming ideation phase.
Objective
To explore how direct and indirect competitors connect digital and physical product variants, identifying potential competitive advantages for Eneba.
Competitor Selection - I analyzed 3 main categories of competitors:
Gaming Marketplaces (Direct Competitors):
G2A.com – Global No.1 and Eneba’s main competitor
Kinguin.net
Instant Gaming
Gamivo.com
Marketplaces & Classifieds:
Amazon.com, eBay.com – Global e-commerce leaders
Wallapop.es – Most popular classifieds platform in 🇪🇸 Spain
Leboncoin.fr – Most popular classifieds platform in 🇫🇷 France
OLX.pl – Classifieds platform mirrored across 🇪🇺 EU markets
Allegro.pl – Largest Polish e-commerce platform
Consumer Electronics E-commerce: (Top 4 in Poland)
Komputronik.pl
X-kom.pl
Mediamarkt.pl
Morele.net
Key Findings
No universal UI pattern exists for linking digital and physical versions of the same product.
Search engines on most platforms do not actively support cross-referencing digital and physical editions.
Marketplaces prioritize physical sales, rarely suggesting digital alternatives.
Variant switching is offered by some consumer electronics retailers, but implementation is inconsistent (e.g., only console games are linked).
Major marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, Allegro) focus on seller-driven listings, meaning each product or offer has its own dedicated page, without a centralized product view linking all editions.
Conclusion
💡 The analysis confirmed that no direct "plug-and-play" solutions could be applied.
💡 We need to develop a unique approach to bridging digital and physical product discovery.
Objective
Due to time constraints, I opted for quick, informal interviews with 9 gamer friends who own both PCs and consoles. This allowed me to gather insights rapidly, even though it wasn't a fully structured user research process.
Interview topics
Gaming Preferences
How do users perceive differences between PC and console gaming?
What influences their choice of platform for specific games?
Search & Purchase Behavior
How do users search for and buy games?
What factors influence their platform choice?
What friction points exist in their decision-making process?
Choosing Between Digital & Physical Editions
How do they decide whether to buy a physical or digital version of a game?
Key Insights
Gift cards as a currency hack - Users often buy gift cards as a cheaper way to fund gaming wallets on PC and console platforms.
Exploration via recommendation sections - Users rely on cross-sell and up-sell features like "Other buyers also bought” or “You may also like” to discover alternative versions of games.
Hesitation towards second-hand purchases - Sometimes users avoid used physical games due to concerns about Blu-ray disc condition and packaging quality.
Price - main decision driver - Unless purchasing special or collector’s editions, users almost always choose whichever version is cheaper.
Collectors prefer new editions - Those treating games as collectibles prefer brand-new, shrink-wrapped copies.
Resale value matters - Some users prefer physical editions because they plan to resell them later, effectively reducing the cost of future purchases.
Recommendations / Focus areas
💡 Leverage cross-selling techniques to promote alternative editions of the same game.
💡 Involve Gift Cards as a way to boost digital wallet top-ups.
💡 Consider resale incentives or guarantees to reduce hesitation around second-hand purchases.
Objective
Using my previously gathered notes and insights, I structured a list of potential concepts that could be implemented to improve the synergy between digital and physical products.
Structure - each concept was documented with:
Research Hypothesis – based on observed user behaviors or identified pain points.
Project Hypothesis – outlining a potential solution to address the identified challenge.
Low-fidelity mockup – visually representing the idea for better clarity.
Preliminary pro/con analysis – based on my subjective assessment, intended as a starting point for team discussions during grooming sessions.
Initial Evaluation with the PM
Together with the Product Manager, we estimated the potential impact of each concept on our OKRs.
We conducted a vertical evaluation of business impact, aligning concepts with strategic goals.
No red flags were identified, and all initiatives remained on the list for further evaluation.
Effort Estimation - Technical Feasibility Review with the Development Team
Over 3 refinement sessions, I presented each concept, explaining the rationale and expected outcomes.
Developers and testers provided feedback, leading to minor adjustments.
The team then conducted a technical effort estimation for implementation.
Initiative selection & Prioritization
✅ Quick Wins: We prioritized low-effort, high-impact initiatives for immediate action.
✅ Final Review: The Board of Managers reviewed the final selection for approval.
✅ Backlog Planning: Other initiatives were moved to the Product Discovery backlog for future evaluation.
13 initiatives were formulated, reviewed, and evaluated by the team.
4 initiatives were selected based on impact and effort analysis.
Having a well-defined strategy helped me deeply understand the problem space and the concept of synergy between digital and physical products. The strategy served as an inspiration rather than a strict prescription of solutions, allowing for more creative ideation.
Close collaboration and frequent discussions with PM significantly improved my ability to analyze and assess potential business impact (both positive and negative).
Limited user research scope – Due to time constraints, interviews were conducted with personal contacts instead of a broader user base.
No direct competitor had a ready-to-copy solutions/patterns, requiring more experimentation.
