Phone Number Expansion
This initiative shows what we can do with phone numbers, how it can protect accounts, reduce fraud, use it for marketing and transactional purposes, and make it easier to login.
Role:
UX UI design
Systems thinking
Product strategy
PRDs and 1-pagers
Design systems
Team:
Product Designer
Analytics
Engineering
Risk Ops
Part-time Product Manager
Problems:
Email takeover attacks are causing more fraud cases, and our current methods to prevent these attacks aren’t very effective. Most of our authentication relies on email, which can be risky if someone else gains access to the email. We need phone numbers on accounts so there’s an alternative way for us to verify or authenticate when necessary. We don’t need to verify right away but eventually in the future.
Opportunities:
Phone number is added security for a user’s account. Can use it authenticate when needed
We can use their phone number to reach out for marketing and transactional purposes.
Future of passwordless: as we collect more phone number, it can be used for another login method using OTP
For seller fraud, we can get signal from phone and address to see if they are fraudster
Verified phone numbers can be used as a strong signal that the account is owned by geniune user
Impact
After launching 2 new touch-points to collect phone number we now have 60% of accounts with phone numbers.
We’ve expanded international phone numbers and started collecting international phone numbers this will help with international payments and world cup 2026
We were able to recoup $741k GTV in a quarter by verifying risky purchases in checkout
We’ve increased verified phone numbers from 5% to 22% of accounts.
Collecting phone numbers
We launched 2 more touchpoints of collecting phone number and in progress for one more on the sell flow. We also expanded to international phone numbers to get ready for World Cup 2026 and international payments.
Verifying phone numbers
We were able to recoup $741k GTV in a quarter by verifying risky purchases in checkout.
In addition to blocking fraud, it’s generally good security practice to have verified phone numbers so I did the same exercise as collecting phone to see where else it made sense to verify phone numbers like post-purchase after account creation.
Future of Login OTP
I put together a whole strategy of how we want to redesign our login and sign up UX. It started from solving a UX problem to creating a vision of SMS OTP. I put together a strategy doc and ended up handing it to another team for development.
Current Experience
SMS Login
Guiding fans to the right path—log in if they have an account, or sign up if they don’t—will reduce confusion, reduce our errors and improve sign in success rates. Allowing users to log in with SMS OTP will add an extra layer of security while making the experience more convenient through auto-fill—leading to faster logins.
Checkout Login
Removing some unnecessary steps will reduce friction and help more users complete their ticket purchases—improving conversion.
