Gmarket gives major shake-up to its mobile shopping platform
Gmarket's newly changed user interface on mobile application platform / Courtesy of eBay Korea
By Kim Jae-heun
Gmarket, operated by eBay Korea, reorganized its mobile application system in January to establish a new brand identity and provide customer-centered services aiming to improve shopping experience.
Since the launch of its open market service in 1999, the e-commerce platform has been sticking to a brand logo showing the letter G in front of a green background. However, it added blue and used a gradation effect to connect with the green, which are now the two key colors for Gmarket.
Gmarket adopted “connection” as the keyword for its e-commerce service, which is its original brand identity. It wants to emphasize that Gmarket is the linkage between customers and products as well as customers and customers.
The newly changed logo of Gmarket expresses the brand identity's essential values ― “Center” (the center of commerce), Connection (meeting of sellers and consumers), Variety (new shopping experience) and Forward (the leader of the market), in visual language.
Gmarket also changed the font style used in its shopping application to “Gmarket Sans,” which is developed by the company. The font style is available for anybody on the platform including sellers and customers to use without restriction.
The icon and motion designs on the shopping platform have been modified too, designed with simple shapes to make it easy to understand and visible in the small icon box all at once. Gmarket used animation to convey consistent and visual entertainment to platform users by applying it in the search window and empty pages popping up before the screen loads order or payment details.
The most notable change is the simplified home page. Gmarket enlarged the search window size at the top. When a user logs in, the screen changes to show content of their shopping interest. The user can customize the home menu as well.
Below that, there are navigation buttons for returning to the home menu, search window, Smile Club, My Page and recently viewed product. The Smile Club button, in particular, takes customers to the membership service page where they can find most the frequently used services. Contents are arranged according to shopping patterns of customers.
“The Atomic Design System we pursue is to design from the smallest unit to determine the common and consistent user interface components. It is a design concept where components come together to become modules and various modules come together and consist of pages where customers meet,” an eBay Korea official said. “It helps maintain a consistent brand identity and usability.”