Publication
5 Considerations for a Strong E-commerce Product Strategy
https://www.toptal.com/product-managers/ecommerce/ecommerce-product-strategy
Jonathan is available for hire
Hire JonathanJonathan Lau
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Location
Toronto, ON, Canada
Toptal Member Since
September 7, 2020
Jon is a multi-industry product manager and entrepreneur with over 10 years of experience in the tech space. He has worked with notable companies such as Instacart, Ford, Nestle Purina, PepsiCo, and Loblaw Digital in IoT, AI/ML, healthtech, AdTech, Retail, micromobility, and ops. Jon is actively involved in the product community as a thought leader and coach. He has a BASc in Engineering from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business.
Project Highlights
Gatorade Gx eCommerce Site
Led the launch of a DTC Gatorade Gx checkout experience end-to-end, running user tests and collaborating cross-functionally, leading to an NPS increase of 15% and a forecasted annual revenue of more than $5 million.
Nintendo Switch Social Club
Started and grew a global Meetup & Discord community to 350+ members in a span of eight months, while spending $0 in marketing budget.
KinderBox Prototype
Completed the web design: Wireframes to Prototypes course (as part of the CalArts UI/UX Design specialization), receiving a grade of 94%.
Expertise
Work Experience
Product Lead | Hardware, IoT, AI/ML
2022 - 2024
Purina
- Led the product development of an unreleased IoT pet healthtech product for the Petivity brand. (www.petivity.com).
- Partnered with design firms and contract manufacturers to develop the hardware, firmware, software, and infrastructure while meeting COGS obligations.
- Collaborated with the R&D team to commercialize AI and ML technology.
- Developed a business strategy and advised management by setting goals, drafting business and product requirements, conducting market research, participating in vendor selection, and assisting in financial planning.
- Managed the regulatory, legal, and certification efforts.
Senior Product Manager
2021 - 2022
Spin (A Former Subsidiary of Ford Motor Company)
- Launched Spin Team, a mobile app used by the ops team to service IoT micromobility vehicles. Developed the product strategy and tactics and led the execution, exceeding defined OKRs: 1.6x target markets launched, 99% usage, and 34% NPS improvement.
- Defined product strategy and roadmap for Q1 and Q2 through collaboration with upper management, opportunity scoring, leveraging Agile, and product thinking. Shared extensive experience, leading to well-defined goals, OKRs, and a focus on usage KPIs.
- Saved the operations division over $50,000 per year by conducting discovery work on a vendor tool, interviewing internal customers, building an ROI model, and presenting the results to upper management, which deprecated the tool.
- Transformed the team culture through organization, communication, defining and justifying team direction, and product evangelization, resulting in the fulfillment of Q1 goals, upper management recognition, and 0 team member turnover.
- Mentored an APM, a first-time PM, and a senior PM through empathy, communication, understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, and provision of constructive feedback and SMART goals.
Product Manager
2021 - 2021
PepsiCo
- Led the launch of a DTC Gatorade Gx checkout experience end-to-end, running user tests and collaborating cross-functionally, leading to an NPS increase of 15% and a forecasted annual revenue of more than $5 million.
- Inherited and analyzed a one-month-old B2B pilot using a combination of the service design model, how might we design thinking, stakeholder interviewers, and presented insights and recommendations leading to the immediate conclusion of the pilot.
- Identified platform analytics improperly tracked for core-user journeys during week one and collaborated with engineers to prioritize and resolve the issue, enabling upcoming key initiatives to access correct data.
- Collaborated with the product lead to define team OKRs and the product roadmap for leadership and managed re-prioritization throughout the year to mitigate risk using testbeds and deliver various B2B and B2C initiatives on schedule.
- Bootstrapped an NPS email solution for SendGrid and SurveyMonkey with the lead engineer in one day after learning the OTS marketing tool did not meet legal requirements. Ensured the on-time delivery of pre-migration NPS surveys to customers.
Product Manager
2020 - 2021
Dawn Foods
- Led the launch of a B2B special-orders feature in only four weeks, leveraging user interviews and prototype testing, resulting in a 42% increase in requests with an additional 100 orders per month.
- Improved data culture by implementing best practices, processes, and documentation to address KPIs, data pulls, and metric tracking strategies, leading to insights that inform prioritization and UI/UX design.
- Persuaded leadership that the new marketing shopping-list feature was customer-focused by pulling usage stats and screen-size data to simulate various viewports in a demo, which alleviated concerns and led to a sign-off for the launch.
- Analyzed user journeys on the eCommerce platform, identified inefficiencies with the click-to-reorder function, and designed a more informative CTA and direct-user path, resulting in a 5% improvement in cart conversion.
- Identified, designed, and prioritized user-security updates surrounding login status and temporary passwords to continue the site optimization initiative, bringing the platform up to industry standards.
eCommerce Product Manager
2018 - 2019
Instacart
- Launched the Food Lion and Price Chopper eCommerce delivery and pickup platform with zero delays by leading a 9-month integration between Unata's platform and Instacart's fulfillment system and redesigning the checkout UI and UX.
- Increased customer engagement and app ratings from 2.6 to 4.7 stars (an 81% improvement) by creating a hypothesis, gathering qualitative and quantitative data, analyzing design patterns, and executing a prepared strategy.
- Assembled and led Unata's first A/B testing team to build necessary tools and processes to run A/B tests after defining metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and success criteria for customer-checkout conversion.
Product Manager
2017 - 2018
Loblaw Digital
- Grew revenue by 2.5x and decreased cart and checkout abandonment rates by 7% and 20% through integrating and launching PC Optimum, PC Insider, PCid, Mobile Wallets, Tracking Pixels, GoData, Qualtrics Site Intercept, and Dermatology Product Finder.
- Increased cart conversion (+5%) and checkout conversion (+38%) by managing the end-to-end user research, design, development, A/B testing, and go-to-market strategy for beauty BOUTIQUE's new optimized checkout experience.
- Persuaded the trading team to choose an optimal solution and approach by building an ROI model (including sensitivity and break-even analysis) of an unvalidated idea and conducting an in-house vs. off-the-shelf solution analysis.
Product Manager
2016 - 2016
Eyereturn Marketing
- Decreased user effort by 50% after launching a flagship customer-facing analytics and insights dashboard, which was designed by leveraging data analysis for revenue, Google Analytics for user flows, and prototyping.
- Reduced user friction by 50% through redesigning the date selection UI and UX in Moqups and InVision, conducting customer interviews, and prototyping.
- Conducted user research and technical feasibility studies on the integration of various vendor APIs (e.g., Facebook Ads) into the analytics and reporting platform.
Project Manager
2012 - 2015
Zulimar
- Received the Royal College Innovation Award for Continuing Professional Development and improved patient care by directing 30+ innovative online Continuing Medical Education (CME) programs that influence behavioral shifts in physician practice.
- Achieved an unprecedented adoption rate (1,000+ physician sign-ups in two weeks) and won repeat business after leading the design and development of an online compendium in collaboration with the CCS under a tight budget and time constraints.
- Enhanced user experience and reduced customer assistance requests by 75% through analyzing user flows and usage patterns and redesigning the UI and UX of Zulimar's CME tool.
Project History
Gatorade Gx eCommerce Site
https://www.gatorade.com/gear/gx-bottlesLed the launch of a DTC Gatorade Gx checkout experience end-to-end, running user tests and collaborating cross-functionally, leading to an NPS increase of 15% and a forecasted annual revenue of more than $5 million.
Gatorade Gx is a subsidiary of Pepsi, which focuses on the Gx brand. This brand offers Gx bottles, Gx pods, Gx sweat patches, the Gx App, and other products to help athletes get the most out of their training and replenishment.
Nintendo Switch Social Club
https://www.meetup.com/nintendo-switch-social-club/Started and grew a global Meetup & Discord community to 350+ members in a span of eight months, while spending $0 in marketing budget.
Nintendo Switch Social Club (NSSC) is a safe and inclusive environment for adults to meet other adults to share their love for Nintendo and video games. Founded during the pandemic, NSSC has hosted over 100 online events and has become an important community for many members feeling the effects of isolation.
KinderBox Prototype
https://invis.io/3GSN9YTSKHECompleted the web design: Wireframes to Prototypes course (as part of the CalArts UI/UX Design specialization), receiving a grade of 94%.
KinderBox is a fictional app that helps parents and guardians order healthy meals for their child(ren). These meals can be picked up or delivered to a school. A mood board was created to define the color scheme, style, fonts, and feel of the app.
This prototype was a capstone project to demonstrate product design and the use of Sketch and InVision.
This prototype was a capstone project to demonstrate product design and the use of Sketch and InVision.
StyleMe Prototype
https://invis.io/CBS0QYAY6SGCompleted the web design: Strategy and Information Architecture course (as part of the CalArts UI/UX Design specialization), receiving a grade of 91%.
StyleMe is a fictional app that helps users assemble and choose an outfit after they have imported a virtual avatar and filled their virtual closet with clothing and accessories. Aside from the social media buttons, all elements (e.g., buttons) are designed with Sketch.
This prototype was a capstone project to demonstrate product design and the use of Sketch and InVision.
This prototype was a capstone project to demonstrate product design and the use of Sketch and InVision.
Other Experience
Education
2015 - 2016
Master's Degree in Business Administration (MBA)
Richard Ivey School of Business - London, Ontario, Canada
2004 - 2009
Bachelor of Applied Science Degree in Electrical Engineering
University of Waterloo - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Certifications
SEPTEMBER 2020 - PRESENT
Front-end Web Developer Certification
LinkedIn Learning
JUNE 2019 - PRESENT
UI/UX Design Specialization
California Institute of the Arts via Coursera
JULY 2014 - JULY 2020
Project Management Professional (PMP)
PMI
Collaboration That Works
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
1
Share your needs
Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.
2
Choose your talent
Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.
3
Start your risk-free talent trial
Work with your chosen talent on a trial basis for up to two weeks. Pay only if you decide to hire them.
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring