JUSTIN
CHAI
DESIGN LEAD
UX + IDENTITY
2024 - 2025
Transforming a high-touch affiliate program into a scalable growth system.
Weee! is America’s largest online Asian supermarket, serving 5M+ culturally diverse shoppers. This remains one of the projects I’m most proud of because it gave us the opportunity to rethink how the affiliate program could grow. I led the end-to-end redesign of its affiliate program, partnering with PM, Engineering, QA, and five multicultural marketing teams to transform a manual process into a scalable growth system that helped affiliates join, earn, and succeed with less operational support.
RECRUIT FASTER.
APPROVE EASIER.
EARN MORE.
BRING TRANSPARENCY
TO EVERY DOLLAR EARNED.
Experience preview.
SEE THE OPPORTUNITY
TRUST THE POTENTIAL
Product Designer specializing in
e-commerce experiences.
SEE EVERY EARNING
KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT
Product Designer specializing in
e-commerce experiences.
YOUR FIRST SHARE
MADE SIMPLE
Product Designer specializing in
e-commerce experiences.
BRING TRANSPARENCY
TO EVERY DOLLAR EARNED.
Product Designer specializing in
e-commerce experiences.
Core shift summary.
INSTEAD OF...​
WE DESIGNED FOR...​
Manual recruiting and onboarding for every affiliate.
A scalable, self-serve path alongside high-touch recruiting.
A portal that showed numbers without guiding behavior.
A guided earning system that helps affiliates understand → track → act.
Project impact.
The beta launched in late 2024, with Phase 2 following in early 2025. The result was stronger enrollment, higher activity, improved earnings, and affiliate bookings doubledas the program shifted from manual recruiting to a self-serve experience, while making earnings easier to understand, track, and act on.
+58%
Average earnings
+42%
Enrollment
+10%
Active affiliates
Doubled
Affiliates bookings
What is affiliate program?
WHO
Individuals and communities looking to earn commissions by promoting Weee! products.
HOW
Share products, drive purchases, and earn commissions.
VALUE
Community-powered growth for Weee! and a new income stream for affiliates.
Affiliate was an important growth channel.
Affiliate had become one of Weee's fastest-growing acquisition channels. It already contributed meaningful revenue and had strong community engagement. The opportunity wasn't proving the model worked—it was figuring out how to help it scale.
5
ethnic communities
1000+
affiliates as of 2024
~8%
of booking from affiliates
The problem.
The affiliate program wasn’t just hard to use. It was hard to scale.
The data show.
Active affiliates were declining, new registrations were slowing down, and marketing teams were spending more manual effort to support the program.
62%
Active users dropped 62% over the past year.
47%
New affiliate registrations ↓47% vs. 2023
Research explained why.
I conducted research with five ethnic marketing teams and active affiliates. Through interviews, we uncovered two core problems:
01. GROWTH DEPENDED ON PEOPLE INSTEAD OF THE PRODUCT.
Before joining, the affiliates relied on the marketing team to get approved, onboarded, and supported, making growth difficult to scale consistently.
02. THE PORTAL SHOWED NUMBERS, BUT DIDN'T GUIDE BEHAVIOR.
After joining, The affiliates could see what happened, but not why it happened or what to do next.
The program wasn’t just hard to use. It was hard to scale.
At first, it looked like an portal problem.But after connecting the data and research, I realized something bigger.
Before joining, affiliates depended on marketing to understand the program. After joining, the portal showed results but offered little guidance on how to succeed.
How might we help affiliates succeed beyond high-touch support?
What success looked like?
We mapped the end-to-end affiliate journey with marketing teams and active affiliates, shifting the conversation from isolated features to the full experience.
BEFORE JOINING, SUCCESS MEANS...
-
More people know and understand the opportunity.
-
More people complete onboarding with confidence.
-
Less reliance on manual explanation.
AFTER JOINING, SUCCESS MEANS...
-
More affiliates stay active.
-
More affiliates understand their earnings.
-
More affiliates know what to do next with confidence.
Foundation first. Growth tools later.
We had many ideas for helping top affiliates grow, but the bigger opportunity was earlier in the journey. So we prioritized the foundation first — helping more affiliates join, understand how earning works, and succeed before adding advanced growth tools.
Build affiliate confidence at scale.
Affiliates needed confidence before joining and clear guidance after joining.
Our solution was to support both moments at scale.
01. How might we help affiliates join with confidence at scale?
CONFIDENCE COMES FROM MAKING JOINING FEEL TRUSTWORTHY, CLEAR, AND EASY TO ACT ON.
We redesigned the joining experience into a scalable, self-serve journey that could support growth.
Product Designer specializing in
e-commerce experiences.
01 DESIGN MOMENT
Use key metrics to build trust that the opportunity is real.
Lead with real earning potential to make the opportunity tangible.
Keep the primary action visible when users are ready to join.
Clarify the two ways affiliates can earn.
Product Designer specializing in
e-commerce experiences.
02 DESIGN MOMENT
Reduce friction by asking only what’s essential.
Ask only what’s needed to evaluate the application.
Quick action
Confirm submission and clarify the next step.
Product Designer specializing in
e-commerce experiences.
03 DESIGN MOMENT
Turn onboarding into a clear path to the first share.
Make the earning structure clear by separating commissions and referral bonuses.
Turn the first share into a simple, guided process.
Move users directly from learning to action.
KEY DESIGN TRADEOFF: WHAT SHOULD USERS SEE FIRST?
We explored different information hierarchies to answer one key question: what should users see first?​
1. EARN FIRST.
Lead with the earning model, assuming users needed to understand how they could make money first.
2. BENEFITS FIRST.
Lead with product variety and earning potential, assuming value would make the program more appealing.
3. CREDIBILITY FIRST.
Lead with proof of scale and earning potential, assuming users needed trust before learning the details.
WHY OPTION 3?
After a quick online test with five affiliates, we chose Option 3: credibility first. Earnings first made the value clear but felt too transactional, while benefits first felt more inviting but didn’t build enough trust. Users needed to believe the opportunity was real before learning how it worked, so we led with credibility, then explained the earning value and guided them to action.
02. How might we help affiliates earn with confidence at scale?
BEFORE
The portal lacked clear guidance.
AFTER
Build a scalable, actionable earning guide
BUILD CONFIDENCE BY MAKING EARNINGS EASY TO UNDERSTAND, TRACK, AND ACTIONABLE.
We redesigned the portal around three moments: understanding, track, and act, so affiliates could understand their earnings, trust their progress, and know what to do next.
Product Designer specializing in
e-commerce experiences.
01 DESIGN MOMENT
Make earnings easy to understand with clear overviews and breakdowns.
Break down total earnings into commissions and referral bonuses, so affiliates could see how much they earned and where it came from.
Let affiliates explore revenue and visits over time to understand what drives their earnings.
Product Designer specializing in
e-commerce experiences.
02 DESIGN MOMENT
Make every dollar easy to track from order to payment.
See earnings and their breakdown month by month.
Connect each earning to the order and payment behind it.
Product Designer specializing in
e-commerce experiences.
03 DESIGN MOMENT
Turn earning insights into clear
next steps.
Connect each earning path to relevant guidance and resources.
Move affiliates from learning directly to sharing.
What changed: users, business, and organization?
USER IMPACT
Clearer path to join.
More transparent earnings.
More guidance on what to do next.
BUSINESS IMPACT
Bookings doubled.
Enrollment +42%.
Active affiliates +10%.
Average earnings +58%.
ORGANIZATION IMPACT
Less dependency on high-touch onboarding.
More consistent experience across five markets.
Reusable foundation for future growth tools.
Key lessons from building a scalable affiliate program.
1. REFRAME THE PROBLEM BEFORE DESIGNING THE SOLUTION.
What first looked like an onboarding and portal problem was really a scalability problem. Connecting data with research helped us focus on the operating model, not just the interface.
2. BUILD THE FOUNDATION BEFORE ADDING GROWTH TOOLS.
Advanced promotion tools would have had limited impact while affiliates still struggled to understand how to join, earn, and track progress. Prioritizing the core journey created a stronger base for future growth.
3. TURN OPERATIONAL KNOWLEDGE INTO PRODUCT GUIDANCE.
Much of the program’s knowledge lived with marketing teams. Bringing that guidance into the product made the experience more consistent, self-serve, and scalable across five communities.
