Back
UI/UX Design
ehhllo eXpress
Building a delivery marketplace around fair economics
CONTEXT
Lagos has no shortage of delivery demand. The harder problem is pricing each job fairly when traffic, fuel costs, timing, and provider economics refuse to stay fixed.
Ehhllo eXpress launched on iOS and Android in May 2022 as a delivery marketplace for Lagos State. The product connected customers with independent riders and established logistics companies through two separate Flutter applications: one for the person sending and one for the person delivering.
During the active operating period, the platform registered more than 500 customers, over 150 independent providers, and more than 50 logistics companies. It processed over 1,500 delivery requests, completing more than 1,000. Approximately 80 percent of customers returned to use the service again, and the product held an approximately four-star store rating. Those numbers confirm that the product worked. They also surfaced the structural problem the relaunch is built to address.
The relaunch targets selected Lagos zones first, with Uyo in Akwa Ibom and Abuja activating only when provider coverage and local support are confirmed. Ride-hailing and additional mobility features are later phases.
PROBLEM
Ehhllo's original pricing engine calculated delivery fares using distance and estimated journey time. The model was designed to create consistency. In a city as unpredictable as Lagos, that consistency became the constraint.
Traffic changed journey time after a price had already been calculated, while fuel costs and provider operating expenses continued to move underneath the model. When Ehhllo adjusted prices to protect providers, some customers found specific deliveries too expensive. When the calculation shifted to favour customers, some routes stopped making economic sense for riders and fleets.
There was no version of a single platform-generated price that remained fair to both sides across all conditions. Ehhllo had built a marketplace and priced it like a fixed-rate logistics company. A marketplace where one side has no input into the terms of each transaction has a structural ceiling.
ROLE
I founded Ehhllo and led the product from its original business model through launch and the current relaunch direction. I defined the positioning and identity, designed the information architecture, user flows, interfaces, and design system across both applications, and developed the roadmap, feature specifications, product documentation, and investor-facing materials. Working directly with a build team of three to five, I remained accountable for the product and brand direction throughout the engagement.
APPROACH
The customer application was a complete delivery environment. A user could create an account, enter pickup and destination details, describe the package, select a vehicle type, place the order, track its status in real time, confirm delivery, raise a dispute, rate the provider, and manage payments through an in-app wallet. The provider application had its own dashboard for accepting work, tracking active deliveries, monitoring transactions, and requesting withdrawals.
One architectural decision is worth naming directly. Ehhllo generated two separate security codes per delivery, one at pickup and another at final handover. Collecting a package and completing its delivery were treated as distinct events requiring separate confirmation. This was not a UI feature. It was a structural decision that reduced ambiguity at both ends of a job and gave operations staff a reliable record when something went wrong. For a platform responsible for recording package handoffs, that kind of product decision created accountability where verbal confirmation alone would not have been enough.
By December 2023, the pricing conflict and the cost of rebuilding an inaccessible backend made continued operation unsustainable. I paused the platform instead of continuing to patch a model that required structural change.
The relaunch changes the relationship between platform, customer, and provider. Instead of Ehhllo generating one compulsory price, a customer describes the package, route, and timing. Verified nearby providers can propose a rate. The customer can compare offers, consider ratings and work history, accept, or negotiate. The platform establishes the trust infrastructure and marketplace rules while both sides determine whether the price makes sense.
The revenue model was redesigned so Ehhllo would no longer depend on controlling the price of every delivery. Providers would retain greater ownership of their earnings while the platform focused on access, trust, and marketplace infrastructure.
The visual system evolved with the strategy. A more precisely considered identity emerged: cream, stone, brown, charcoal, and black, led by Inter with restrained use of Raleway. The editorial typography was calibrated for a marketplace that needs to feel capable of holding customers, independent providers, logistics fleets, and city operations together.
OUTCOME
The first Ehhllo eXpress established that the product could attract customers, providers, and logistics companies and carry real deliveries from request through completion. It also identified the constraint a fixed-fare engine could not overcome: a marketplace where providers had no say in the price could not remain sustainable as operating costs changed.
The applications are currently off the App Store and Google Play, and the relaunch has not yet gone live. What exists now is a clearer product direction, a live acquisition site, two preserved Flutter codebases, an updated design system, and a defined Lagos-first delivery MVP built around the operating lesson that mattered most.
Every delivery is different. The relaunch turns that operating lesson into a product strategy connecting pricing, trust, brand, and marketplace design.
