Empowering in-store sales at Martinello

With more than 35 years of history and over 100 stores, Martinello became the largest retail chain in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Close, human service from its salespeople has always been one of the brand’s defining strengths.

Yet the sales process relied on separate systems for checking inventory, finding product information, communicating with other stores, and completing purchases. This fragmentation slowed service and split the salesperson’s attention between the customer and operational tasks.

In 2022, I led the product design work to bring the complete in-store sales journey into one app from product selection through payment without requiring a constant switch between systems.

The central challenge was to simplify without oversimplifying: translating a rule-heavy, highly variable point-of-sale operation into an app that felt clear, consistent, and trustworthy without ignoring the realities of the business.

Much of the scope was already defined, so the work was less about deciding what to build and more about determining how it should work in practice.

Conversations with stakeholders and salespeople revealed that many operations depended on undocumented rules and day-to-day judgment. Understanding those variations was essential to turning a complex process into an experience grounded in how stores actually operated.

The final app supported salespeople throughout the entire sales journey. It abstracted the complexity of store operations into a clear, intuitive, continuous experience from selecting products to completing the purchase.

A unified inventory view allowed teams to communicate directly across stores and request that products be reserved or transferred.

Communication was another important part of the journey. Salespeople and managers regularly exchanged information during internal workflows, so we embedded communication both within a store and across Martinello locations.

In one example, a customer requests a discount beyond the salesperson’s permitted limit. The manager can approve or reject it while the conversation remains connected to the sale rather than moving to a separate channel.

Checkout was one of the project’s most complex areas. The flow needed to remain flexible for customers while complying with internal operations and point-of-sale business rules.

We worked closely with salespeople and stakeholders to ensure the solution supported both the customer experience and the organization’s internal processes.

Special thanks to Rafael Rosar and Sidnei Favoreto, whose contributions were fundamental to the project.