Paisool
Reinventing online grocery shopping through a service that lets you shop from local grocery stores without compromising on conveniences
My Role
User Research & Synthesis
UX / UI Design
Collaborated With
C-Suite Staff
Duration
15 weeks
Engineering
Founders & Head of sales
Product Type
Android App
India has a growing list of online grocery delivery services that are convenient solutions aimed at simplifying grocery shopping for the modern consumer.
Easy and quick access to groceries is a step in the right direction. However eGrocery giants like Big Basket and Grofers are reshaping how people shop and making local corner stores ('Kirana Walas') a thing of the past
How might we help shoppers maintain or rebuild a relationship with corner stores?
What is the problem?
Why is this a problem?
Disrupting a way of life
Some people in India spend all their lives buying from the same local corner store, it's been a way of life, it's culture. People in India have long-standing relationships with their corner stores and their owners. There's a mutual relationship between regular shoppers and store owners based on tried and tested quality, price, and trust.
Affecting Small Businesses
India is home to the youngest population in the world which is leaning more and more towards the eGrocery Market. The growing popularity of large eGrocery platforms is putting the local 'Kirana walas' in jeopardy since these corner stores fail to provide the conveniences online grocery stores do. But there's a lot more these corner stores can leverage.
The Solution
A mobile platform that merges the convenience of technology with the trust of a corner store. Paisool brings corner stores online and allows shoppers to buy groceries locally.
It's a digital shopping platform inspired by in-store experiences. It's aimed to fulfil the needs of regular corner store shoppers and onboard new eGrocery users too.
How did we get to the solution?
To understand how people shop and to identify gaps in the system, we spoke to 16 People across Bangalore.
We wanted to understand if buying from corner stores was becoming obsolete and if people preferred it to ordering online.
Fly on the Wall
We spent some time at a popular local corner store called Indira Stores to observe how people shopped and what were some common patterns in the environment
Even though we weren't designing for the store owners; it was crucial to account for their experience since they're integral to the design system.
Qualitative Interviews
We spoke to a range of shopper, from people on either end of the spectrum who shop at only online stores or only corner stores, and to many people in between
Our aim was to understand how much people valued corner stores in this digital age and what attributes of corner stores and eGroceries appeal to shoppers
Interviews & Research
Key Insight
Shoppers value the relationships and quality that corner stores offer but not more than their own convenience like saving time, access from any place and delivery.
User Personas
We created our user personas based on the needs and lifestyles of the people we interviewed to help us map and design a desired experience for them.
Corner Store Shopper
Kavita Sen, 42 yrs
About
Works at an NGO. Wife & mother, has 2 kids ages 8 and 6. Lives in a joint family (extended family), works from 9:00 am - 5:00 am. Spends up to 2 hours on commute every day. Has help to cook meals but overlooks prep
Needs
-
Trusting the store owner is important
-
Personally need to verify quality of products
-
Keeping store credit
" I can't see what I'm getting online; I like to personally see the things I buy "
Online Shopper
Aman Saxena, 31 yrs
About
31 yrs old man, working at a multinational tech company. Lives by himself in an apartment. Cooks occasionally for himself, usually over weekends or when there's time.
Needs
-
Prefers convenience over relationship with store owner
-
Not fussy about the quality but disappointed if it's very poor quality
-
Grocery shopping should be as mindless as possible
" I don't want to go through the trouble of picking fruits and veggies by myself "
Waveline Map
We mapped our user's emotional journey as a waveline; this helped us understand the ups and downs of their experience around shopping. By also mapping a desired waveline, we could visualize opportunity areas.
Ideation, Concepts & User testing
Ideation with the team
After we synthesized our research and came up with some broad clusters of opportunity themes, we sat down with the Paisool team to come up with some ideas which we would further flesh out.
We did several rounds of a brainstorming activity called crazy 8s for each category, voted on the best ideas and then further developed those.
Fleshing out concepts
We generated many iterations of the concepts as paper prototypes, which we tested and validated with the internal teams at Paisool. We then used these as a foundation for creating a low fidelity prototype for user testing.
Prototyping & user testing
Testing with a range of users we were able to fine-tune the concepts and incorporate some key details to some features. User testing with low-fidelity paper prototypes and screens allowed us to save time by making immediate impactful changes to our designs, and avoid the more labor-intensive editing of high-fidelity designs. An idea like subscriptions evolved into lists with more functionality and we only arrived at that idea because of user testing.
We got a lot of helpful insights and suggestions, to list a few below
Key features of the solution
Lists
Convenient like subscriptions but customizable
Subscriptions proved to be an attractive feature during user testing because convenience was a popular demand. However, people also wanted more flexibly. Hence the idea of subscriptions evolved into Lists, a feature shopper could have full control over by setting reminds to order articles daily, weekly and monthly or they could choose not to set any reminds at all.
Buckets
Helping
Subscriptions proved to be an attractive feature during user testing because convenience was a popular demand. However, people also wanted more flexibly. Hence the idea of subscriptions evolved into Lists, a feature shopper could have full control over by setting reminds to order articles daily, weekly and monthly or they could choose not to set any reminds at all.
Key features of the solution
01
Lists
Convenient and customizable subscriptions
Subscriptions proved to be an attractive feature during user testing because convenience was a popular demand. However, people also wanted more flexibility. Hence the idea of subscriptions evolved into Lists, a feature shoppers could have full control over by setting reminders to order articles daily, weekly and monthly; or they could choose not to set any reminders at all.
02
Bucket
Simplifying filling that basket
"Delivery isn’t the issue, selecting the products is the hassle." Selecting the same article you need every time is tedious and annoying. As you start using Paisool, this feature populates personalised buckets for you that have articles you usually order and some new similar things you might like. They're editable because removing what you don't need is easier than searching to add it.
03
Wallet
For shoppers and stores to track and maintain credit
Credit is a signifier of trust and a relationship between the shopper and the store owner. We needed to bring this offline relationship to the online platform, in order for the new shopper to build relationships and for regular customers to maintain them.
04
Substitutes
Providing suggestion like a shop keeper would
Often when a store owner is out of stock, he suggests another brand for the same products that are available. We borrowed from that in-store experience to add this small detail to our design, so shoppers always get all the items they need.
05
Store Preference
Only get delivery from stores you already shop at
This was a big design challenge for us. Users had two stong preferences, either getting their orders fulfilled from a store of their choice or getting everything in their orders regardless of the store. So we let people set a preference for a favourite store, or they can split orders between multiple stores to fulfill the order if they don't have a favourite
06
Tracking Delivery
Keep track of you oders
We didn't offer live tracking, but with guarantee 30 mins delivery, we wanted to bring active orders upfront. This makes it easier to track multiple orders and see if your delivery is split between two different stores.
Takeaway
If it's not broken, don't fix it. Familiarity can play in your favor. It can be very tempting to introduce exciting edgy ideas while designing something that's supposed to be unique, but it's more important to listen to your users and design something functional for an activity that is functional. Innovation isn't always a requirement for a good experience.