From 70+ days to Minutes
Designing a scalable, automated merchant onboarding system for Bolt Products
Project Overview
My Role
Lead Product Designer working with Product Manager and Engineering Manager
Goal
Increase merchant self-service experiences, reduce internal touch points and manual work to get merchant live faster
Cut down time to go live to act on potential revenue lying in open opportunities
Challenges
Hunting down the need for specific data points from multiple cross-disciplinary teams to determine the what actual data we needed from merchants
Change is hard, so getting Implementation managers to start using the new form took a bit longer than it should have
Key Results
The onboarding process was cut down from over 70 days to just a few minutes
40 Inputs were condensed to just over 10
Feedback from Implementation managers suggested fewer less direct touchpoints and intervention with Merchants during onboarding
Potential $.14B in open open opportunities by removing months off of go-live time for signing merchants ndbox setup (increased deal velocity)
This project focused on redesigning Bolt Checkout’s merchant onboarding experience - transforming a manual, fragmented process which often spanned over 70 days, into a streamlined, scalable, and largely self-serve flow. Through deep data analysis, cross-functional collaboration, and a strategy-first design approach, the work reduced internal dependencies, clarified setup for merchants, and laid the foundation for automated account creation across e-commerce platforms.
Background
Bolt historically was a single-product company and so onboarding was handled internally, which meant a lot of manual processes. With new products coming into existence fast and frequently, this process had become outdated and a bottleneck to merchants getting online.
The Problem
Basic onboarding was taking over 2 months after constract signing.
Bolt’s existing merchant onboarding experience created unnecessary friction at every step. Merchants were asked for information they didn’t need to provide, were routed through multiple users before an account could even be created, and experiences excessive back-and-forth in the form of emails with Bolt teams. As a result the typical go-live time stretched to 70+ days, delaying revenue and creating a poor first impression. A lack of automation, duplicated and manual work, and siloed workflows led to recurring bottlenecks across the process.
Key issues included:
Time-consuming communication loops between Merchants and Bolt
Manual task handling by Bolt’s Implementation managers
Overly long and unnecessary forms, other asking merchants to gather information from different stakeholders
Repetitive data entry by 3 or more different merchant users and stakeholders
Redundant payment and configuration data collection caused blockers in account creation
Address fields did not support international addresses, halting process or causing confusion for international merchants
Five or more contact points between Bolt and the Merchant done through email, causing unnecessary delays
Poor accessibility design, resulting in hard to read information
Goals & Metrics
Creating a streamlined onboarding flow across Bolts product offerings and enabling faster time to live would give the sales team greater flexibility with how they engage prospects. By lowering the duration and effort required to stand up a sandbox the sales team could potentially close deals faster by proving a simple/streamlined onboarding process, and allowing merchants to experience Bolt on their own website with little effort.
Ultimately, the redesigned flow aimed to reduce Merchant and Bolt communication cycles from five interactions down to one while automating tasks previously handled manually by the Professional services team.
| Company | Contact | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Increased Onboarding Efficiency | As measured by PS metrics | Surveys |
| Reduced Time to Launch | As measured by PS metrics | Financial Force |
| Increase SI Deals | More SIs using Bolt | Provided by partnerships |
| Increased Deal Velocity (Stretch goal) | More M2 managed checkout deals signed | Salesforce |
Current State Flow with Touchpoints
Discovery & Process Mapping
Data Analysis
My PM and I collaborated closely with cross-functional teams to audit the 40+ inputs collected during onboarding. Together, we identified which fields were truly required, who the intended user was for each input, and how the data was used internally. This helped us determine which information was essential for initial account creation and which could be deferred to later stages within the merchant dashboard.
We created a detailed spreadsheet to map every input and included
what the information was used for internally (i.e. payment setup, sandbox experience, ect)
Whether it was necessary to setup a merchant account (i.e. get them access to the merchant dashboard)
Which user role was expected to provide it (engineer, owner, etc.)
All of this data was then translated into the desired end-to-end flow, clarifying what surface the user was on at each step, what inputs were required, and how the experience should adapt if steps were completed out of sequence.
Design Goals
Create a simple, scalable UI that could support future products and features
Enable merchants to set up a Bolt account with as little friction as possible, allowing them to start testing Bolt quickly in their own Sandbox environment
Communicate progress and completion to reduce uncertainty and abandonment
Create an interface that aligns with the new branding and also feels lightweight, straightforward, and modern to create a delightful first time experience for merchants
Because this work was driven primarily by data analysis and product strategy, the UI was intentionally kept as simple as possible. I leveraged existing components from our design system and explored a few iterations of the onboarding screens, progressing from simple, wireframe-like concepts to a more polished, branded Bolt experience.
Progress Indication
I also explored different ways to communicate progress through the flow by adding some kind of indicator of how many steps a user would need to complete. To maintain scalability, I ultimately chose a simple “Step X/Y” indicator which allowed the number of steps to adapt dynamically based on the selected product.
Phase 1: Design Flow
Additions to Merchant Dashboard
Because we determined that some data was not essential to gather during onboarding and could be completed as part of configuration, some steps had to be added to the merchant dashboard once they create their accounts.
A checklist of items for merchants to complete would now live on the homepage and deep link to the sections in the dashboard that housed what they needed to do, like connecting to their cart platform or adding payment information.
Automation
As a close followup to the initial flow redesign, more automated work would be completed to connect with Bolt systems and automate the creation of Production and Sandbox accounts.
Expanding to New Standalone Bolt Products
To support differences in product setup, the onboarding experience was designed to be flexible. Shortly after the initial discovery and design work, we introduced a new initial product-selection screen that allowed merchants with a single product choice to quickly tailor their onboarding path, without adding unnecessary steps or complexity.
Long Term Product Vision
Conclusion
While we defined metrics early on, the fast-paced and constantly evolving environment at Bolt meant that competing priorities often influence how quickly outcomes can be fully measured.
The redesigned onboarding form launched successfully, enabling merchants to create accounts and begin setup significantly faster than before (a few minutes instead of a few months).
Based on the impact analysis, completing automation for merchants using Adobe Commerce represented a potential $1.4B in open opportunities, with the new experience positioned up to remove months from the merchant go-live time.
Early internal feedback from Implementation managers and professional services suggested a drastic reduction in manual effort as there were fewer steps required and less direct intervention.
By shortening time-to-live and simplifying sandbox setup, the new onboarding experience positioned the sales team to increase deal velocity and allow prospects to evaluate Bolt more quickly on their own sites.
Overall, this work laid the foundation for a more scalable, automated onboarding system that balanced merchant self-service with internal efficiency, while unlocking meaningful long-term revenue opportunities.