Gear N Grid
A multi-seller marketplace for energy and industrial equipment across the EU and the UK: solar, storage, heat pumps, EV charging, grid electricals, machine tools and the installers who fit them, in one checkout. We led it from discovery to an eight-week pilot in the Stuttgart region and Bristol.
- Client
- Gear N Grid SE, Amsterdam and London
- Type
- Client Project
- Year
- 2026
- Status
- Piloted in the Stuttgart region and Bristol, Sep to Oct 2026
- Our role
- Research, UX/UI, brand identity, product management and build oversight
- Services
Power your home. Equip your plant. One checkout.
- 68 → 81
- System Usability Scale, first to last pilot build
- 2.6
- sellers per order, on average
- 23 of 26
- pilot buyers placed a multi-seller order unaided
- 14
- verified sellers live, in 5 countries
01
The problem
Equipping a home or a site in Europe means buying from dozens of suppliers across borders, with VAT rules that change at every one. Gear N Grid set out to sell solar, storage, heat pumps, EV charging, grid electricals, machine tools and the installers who fit them through one checkout, across the EU and the UK.
We led research, UX and UI, brand and product delivery, from discovery in June 2026 to an eight-week pilot in the Stuttgart region and Bristol. Fourteen interviews with plant managers, procurement leads, distributors, installers and homeowners in Germany and the UK, and a teardown of B2B marketplaces such as Unite, RS and Contorion, kept surfacing the same three problems.
01Fragmented quoting
Each line of a bill of quantities goes to a different supplier by email. Quotes come back as PDFs in different formats, with VAT, freight and lead times hidden in different places.
02Unverifiable compliance
Buyers could not quickly check a seller's registration, a CE or UKCA declaration, WEEE registration, or whether an inverter meets the local grid code.
03Nobody owns the last 50 metres
Heavy machines arrive with no crane booked; heat pumps and batteries arrive with no installer.
Photographs: concept visualisations
Procurement marketplaces were strong on office and maintenance supplies, and solar shops on modules, but none let a buyer put a machine, the solar to power it and the installation into one order.
02
Five people, one order
One rooftop order touches five people on four sides of the marketplace. Each got a persona from the interviews, and each got a product of their own.
Business buyer
Plant manager
Esslingen, DE
- Wants
- A machining centre plus a 300 kWp rooftop, under one PO with approval
- Stuck on
- Comparing quotes that don't line up
Home buyer
Homeowner
Bristol, GB
- Wants
- A battery, a heat pump and an installer she can trust
- Stuck on
- Not knowing which installer is certified
Seller
Solar wholesaler
Freiburg, DE
- Wants
- Sell into 14 countries without 14 web shops or a VAT team
- Stuck on
- Cross-border VAT and compliance paperwork
Partner
Electrical contractor
Bristol, GB
- Wants
- Steady installation jobs and referral income
- Stuck on
- Chasing leads and unpaid referrals
Approver
Head of operations
Esslingen, DE
- Wants
- Control every spend over €25,000
- Stuck on
- Approvals by email with no audit trail
Photographs: concept visualisations
03
How we got there
Five months from the first interview to a live pilot. Every step changed the design, and most of the changes came from watching people buy.
01 · Jun 2026
Listen
Fourteen interviews in Germany and the UK: plant managers, procurement leads, distributors, installers and homeowners, mostly where they work.
02 · Jun 2026
Sort
Every note went on one wall. Three clusters kept growing: quotes that don't line up, compliance nobody can check, and deliveries nobody owns.
03 · Jul 2026
Sketch
Paper first: the product page with Request quote beside Add to cart, a cart split by seller, and quotes compared line by line.
04 · Jul 2026
Test
A clickable prototype with eight people in Germany and the UK. Five read business prices as VAT-inclusive; six missed the quote button.
05 · Aug 2026
Design the system
Storefront, business buying, seller centre, admin, partner hub and app, reviewed as one set. A tree test with 42 people split Solar & storage out of Electrical.
06 · Sep to Oct 2026
Pilot
Eight weeks live in the Stuttgart region and Bristol, with 26 buyers and 14 sellers, and us on site for the first deliveries.
Photographs: concept visualisations
04
Make, Power, Run
The catalogue is organised by what a buyer is doing, not by trade: making things, powering them and running the site. Installers and services sit in the same tree, and the same cart, as the goods.
Make
- Machine tools
- Material handling
- Automation & motors
- Cable & wiring
Power
- Solar & storage
- Grid & switchgear
- EV charging
- Power backup
Run
- Heat pumps & HVAC
- Compressed air
- Tools, spares & PPE
- Installers & services
Variants carry engineering specs, such as kW, phase, voltage, grid code and IP rating, set in monospace so buyers can scan them, and every price says whether VAT is included. A tree test sent us back here once: see round 2 below.
Photographs: concept visualisations
05
VAT, line by line
In the first round of testing, 5 of 8 people read business prices as VAT-inclusive. So the switch between private and business buying moved into the header, and every cart line now says how its VAT is treated. Try it.
Delivering to Esslingen, DE
Voltaro H10 hybrid inverter
Seller in Freiburg, DE
German VAT, 19%
€1,654.10incl. VAT
NYY-J 5×16 cable, 500 m drum
Seller in Leipzig, DE
German VAT, 19%
€2,594.20incl. VAT
Aerotek SK-15 screw compressor + dryer
Seller in Poznań, PL
OSS: charged at the German rate, 19%
€11,721.50incl. VAT
- Net
- €13,420.00
- VAT
- €2,549.80
- Total
- €15,969.80
Net prices are the ones in the designs. Switch to Business: the Polish seller’s line drops to reverse charge, which is exactly what testers could not see before the switch existed.
06
Quotes that line up
A business buyer uploads a bill of quantities and sellers quote line by line. The pilot showed buyers ranking quotes by total and missing the partial ones, so incomplete quotes are now flagged and never ranked on price.
RFQ · 300 kWp rooftop, Halle · 5 lines
- 1
Netzbau Schröder
2 of 5 lines · latest delivery Mon 15 Dec
€58,900excl. VAT
- 2
Solarhaus Weber
5 of 5 lines · latest delivery Mon 15 Dec
€171,940excl. VAT
- 3
Elektro Krause
5 of 5 lines · latest delivery Fri 12 Dec
€176,210excl. VAT
Ranked by total, the partial quote looks like a bargain. That is how pilot buyers read it.
07
Five products, one system
We designed the whole marketplace: a web storefront for homes and businesses, a buyer app, a seller centre, an admin console and a hub for installers, all on one design system.
Homeowners and businesses shop the same catalogue. A switch in the header flips every price between incl. and excl. VAT.
08
What it does
Each feature answers one of the problems above, and each has a decision behind it.
Private / business switch
Prices incl. or excl. VAT, in the header, because testers misread business prices.
Quote desk
Upload a BoQ, get quotes line by line and award by line. Incomplete quotes are flagged and never ranked on total.
VAT engine
VIES check, intra-EU reverse charge, OSS rates and UK VAT, with each cart line showing its treatment.
Verified traders
Company register, owners, sanctions, CE/UKCA and WEEE checks, with trader details shown to buyers.
Multi-seller orders
One cart splits into one sub-order per seller. The buyer gets one tracker; sellers see only their part.
Heavy freight
Parcel, pallet with tail-lift, or low-loader with crane. Dock hours and the crane pad are collected at checkout.
Approvals and credit
PO, cost centre, approval threshold and net 30 or 60 terms. Stock is held 72 hours while approval is pending.
Partner hub
Jobs matched to certifications such as MCS and NICEIC, with schedule, referrals and payouts.
- 01Placed
- 02Confirmed
- 03Packed or crated
- 04Dispatched
- 05Delivered
- 06Unloaded
- 07Commissioned
Every order moves through the same seven steps, with escrow released at milestones.
09
Flows and blueprint
The sitemap, the business buyer’s path from a bill of quantities to a purchase order, and the service blueprint for a kit sold with its installation.
10
Three rounds of testing
Every round produced a specific change to the design.
Round 1 · Jul 2026
Moderated prototype test, 8 people in DE and GB
5 of 8 read business prices as VAT-inclusive
Private / business switch added to the header
Round 1 · Jul 2026
Same sessions
6 of 8 missed the quote button on product pages
Request quote placed beside Add to cart
Round 1 · Jul 2026
Same sessions
Both sellers asked who unloads heavy machines
Freight class on listings, and site details collected at checkout
Round 2 · Aug 2026
Unmoderated tree test, 42 people
Only 57% found hybrid inverters inside Electrical
Solar & storage split out; success rose to 88%
Round 3 · Sep to Oct 2026
Pilot in the Stuttgart region and Bristol, 26 buyers and 14 sellers
Buyers ranked quotes by total and missed partial ones
Incomplete quotes flagged, with the missing lines named
System Usability Scale
68 68
First to last pilot build
Place a multi-seller order
5/8 23/26
Round 1 to the pilot
11
The pilot
The pilot confirmed the idea: buyers who came for one item left with a kit from several sellers, often across borders.
- 26buyers placed orders
- 14verified sellers live, in 5 countries
- 31 hmedian time to first quote
- 2.6sellers per order, on average
- 68 → 81SUS, first to last pilot build
- 23 of 26placed a multi-seller order unaided
The weakest area was heavy freight: two machine deliveries slipped waiting for a crane, which put crane hire on the roadmap.
12
The grid sun
We drew the identity too: a mark, 13 category icons in its cut-block style, 40 line icons, tokens, states, voice and a handoff spec.
GEAR N GRID
Four grid cells hold a sun of tapered rays around an open centre. The cells and the diagonals joined to them are lime, the straight rays white, and the east ray runs long: power flowing out. It replaced two earlier marks, one of which read too close to Google’s G.
Carbon #16191D
Headers, dark surfaces, text on light
Hi-Vis Lime #C8F03C
Primary actions and the mark; a fill, never text on light
Coolant Teal #0E6F6B
Links and secondary actions; lime's stand-in on light grounds
Alert Vermilion #B5391C
Warnings and freight flags only
Steel 600 #5B636B
Secondary text
Steel 200 #DEE1DC
Borders
Sheet #F4F3EF
Page background
Space Grotesk for headings, Inter for body and UI, and JetBrains Mono for SKUs and specs.
Photo credits for the product pictures in the screens
- Rooftop solar modules: Hayan Alhasan, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
- Ground-mounted solar: Grendelkhan, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
- Installers on a roof: mobius, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
- Hybrid inverters: Asurnipal, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
- String inverter: Asurnipal, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
- Home battery: E. R., CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
- Heat pump: PeterEastern, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
- EV wallbox: Solomon203, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
- Machining centre: Glenn McKechnie, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
- Forklift: P1898, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
- Distribution transformer: Simon-says-elkay, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, cropped
The other product photos are public domain, CC0 or from Unsplash.
13
What's next
The biggest lesson: in Europe, VAT clarity is a UX problem, not a back-office one. Showing each line’s VAT treatment did more for business buyers’ trust than any catalogue feature.
What we would do differently: test the seller centre as early as the storefront. Seller feedback on multi-country pricing arrived late and forced a second pass on the listing editor.
- Q1 2027
All of Germany and England; partner hub fully live
- Q2 2027
Netherlands, Belgium and Austria, with Dutch and French UI
- Q3 2027
Finance at checkout: net-60 terms, leasing and solar instalments
- Q4 2027
France, Poland, Spain and Italy; used machines and crane hire