Reimagining e-commerce for the next 100mn users in India.

2GUD is a marketplace launched by Flipkart in 2019, with an intent to provide diverse and unbranded selection, at value.

After 6 months of launch, engagement and conversion were highly unsatisfactory. To address this, I did user research to unearth what users need, conducted workshops to bring shared understanding of the problem space, and called out the need to change our strategy. Through facilitation of design workshops, I played a pivotal role in enabling solution discovery and revamping our product.

Leading a team of 3 designers, and with the support of numerous stakeholders, we shipped a fully revamped experience in 5 months.

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Duration

Sep, 2019 - May, 2020.

Role

Design Lead, managing a team of 3 designers.

Impact

~3x increase in engagement, significant increase in conversion.

TL;DR

  • 2GUD’s engagement and conversion were very low.
  • Did primary research to uncover the why.
  • Identified core needs w.r.t shopping behaviour.
  • To realise our vision of reaching tier-3 & tier-4 towns, it was critical to move away from traditional forms of ecommerce.
  • Facilitated ideation workshops with Product, Eng. & Business stakeholders.
  • Led the design team to ideate, inform and execute our strategy.
  • Prototyped the experience to establish shared understanding.
  • Significant increase in engagement and conversion, post 3 months of launch.
  • One of the projects that I’m very proud of.

img center 2GUD’s original form. Laded with merchandising everywhere.

Background Context

2GUD is a value-conscious marketplace, launched by Flipkart in 2018, with the vision of making the “bazaars of India”, digital. This translates to providing great unbranded selection that you would typically find in local markets, at value.

After 6 months of launch, the conversion & engagement numbers were highly unsatisfactory. In order to address this, the product team was seeking ideas on how to increase user engagement on the app.

I proposed that we immerse ourselves in User Research to understand shopping behaviour of our users – Specifically, I mentioned that we needed to understand what is it that makes people go to our competitor stores (AliExpress, Shein, Clubfactory, Wish).

This is a great starting point when you are in the discovery phase of product. Because, ideally, if you want your product to replace one of your competitors – you need to understand what the competition is offering to the users, in the first place.

My Role

I led the design strategy and execution of this project along with a team of 3 amazing designers.

Being a Design Lead, I also did planning, setting up critiques and presenting design work to the stakeholders at large. This project did not start with the intent of building an experience vision, but evolved organically to a complete redesign of the platform.

Understanding competition & user motivation

What makes people engage on AliExpress, Clubfactory and Shein?

Primary research

We interviewed 12 people (6 men & 6 women) in the age group of 18-30 years. The interviewees were from Jeeves (a partner org. of Flipkart which takes care of customer support). We chose this group because we wanted to understand the motivations of people from a different socio-economic background and also because of easier access.

While the user research team on Flipkart was conducting an in-depth study on the next 100 million users, we have felt that it primarily covered people’s barriers to entry to online shopping and not really talk about what makes them shop.

Synthesizing research

Being a spiritual seeker, I often question what causes one to behave the way they do. While I’ve found some form of an answer, I was elated when I could connect my experience to what Don Norman, the veteran in UX, had to say about it. In his book, Emotional Design, Don mentions that a person has 3 types of goals which are relevant for designers & product makers.

  • Visceral goals
  • Behavioural goals
  • Reflective goals

I used this lens to look at the research findings to uncover the core needs of the users.

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Core needs

Synthesising the research enabled me to discover the core needs of people interacting with these various ecommerce stores.

  1. The need to keep up with the times - #BeTrendy
  2. The need to stand out from the crowd - #BeUnique
  3. The need to become better - #BeBetter

If people were to engage with 2GUD, we have to address these core needs.

Human needs rarely change over time. Only the channels that people use to fulfil the needs change.

- My key realisation from the user research study.

Trusting Technology - A study about the next 100mn users in India.

(This was happening in parallel to our effort in improving the shopping experience on 2GUD.)

Flipkart made tremendous progress in providing access to its services to hinterlands of India, however, adoption was still a big problem to solve.

In order to address this, Flipkart’s user research team was conducting an in-depth study on the barriers for ecommerce in the next 100mn users of India. These are the people located in tier 3 and 4 towns, who have recently have got access to Internet or haven’t had access yet. They consume content online through Tiktok, youtube and facebook, but are extremely wary of transacting online.

An important finding from this research was that people have trouble with trusting technology.

Abstracting away human intervention was not the way to solve for adoption, for the next 100mn.

People cared about relying on a person that they could reach out to in case of an order failure, a return or a refund.

With our mission to bring diverse selection of bazaars, online — Our product team opined not solving for trust will be a major blocker for 2GUD’s adoption.

This study was a wake-up call for us. It informed us that we simply cannot rely on traditional means of e-commerce flows and expect people would start using our services. Addressing trust became a critical addition to our strategy.

Ideation workshops

Building a shared understanding

Armed with the knowledge of our users’ needs and the barriers to entry for e-commerce in tier 2,3&4 towns, it was important for all the key stakeholders to be on the same page in order for us to decide on what we should be doing.

I conducted a workshop in order to bring shared understanding among the various stakeholders in the team.

img center It was empowering that these exercises enabled everyone to talk about the fundamentals of our product and strategy and arrive at a shared understanding.

Creative Ideation

Having done the homework earlier, each our sprints started with a How Might We statement. We focused on the following questions to be addressed as part of our workshops.

  • HMW enable our users to become trendy / unique / better as they interact with 2GUD?
  • HMW inculcate trust as they browse 2GUD?

I saw the true value of collaboration by involving people from diverse backgrounds. I was amazed with the creativity in the room. I confess that I would’ve never come up with such interesting ideas, alone.

img center Facilitating these workshops was definitely one of the high-points of this project, for me

The Strategy — Influencer-based commerce

The idea from the design sprint was a stepping stone of formulating our strategy.

The concept was that we’d have a person talking about product in the form of a video. This product could be something that is trendy / unique. This person would talk about how they’d use this product to style themselves better, or do things in a better way.

The important aspect here is: People trust a person that they know or relate to, rather than a system.

The person in the video would be an influencer, but who is known in the community. 2GUD would sample some selection and send them to make videos.

Our product team spent some time to ideate on the supply side of things and had come up with a plan. The initial strategy was to find people who are already influencers on Tiktok and Instagram and use some of their content and combine with our selection. Later, we would nurture people within the community to become influencers.

Our hypothesis: Influencer-based commerce works better than traditional ecommerce for the next 100mn users of India.

Content strategy

Thanks to the user research, it was clear to the team that we have to focus on content that either talks about trends, unique products or how a person could be better by using these products (how-to videos). Showcasing a product is one thing. Telling you how a product would fit into your lifestyle becomes even more valuable.

Executing the vision

Growing the design team

In this process of envisioning 2GUD, I had hired a designer to join our team. Our team grew to 2 designers. Later in the process, our newly joined manager suggested that we take the help of a graphic designer to closely work for designing icons and other creative materials.

In addition to myself, we had 2 interaction designers and a graphic designer as part of our team.

Design exploration

While we would have influencer content that would showcase trendy selection - not every product would have a video associated with it and not every video would be watched.

It was important to showcase the diverse selection that we have on 2GUD. So, selection discovery is definitely an important goal we had in mind when designing.

img center Iterations for the Influencer video.

img center Provision to check out the products referenced in the influencer video, in-context.

img center Influencer store - A space for the Influencer to showcase their taste.

Creating a unique brand for 2GUD

When we are designing for India, our product aesthetic should be Indian. Our minds have been infused with western notions of design and we heavily borrow from it. We chose to consciously break that and attempt to bring indian aesthetic to our product. Special mention to the spark and support given by my manager in pursuing this.

With a vision to bring a shopping mela online, we set out to look at various elements of a mela and if we could borrow some of them to the UI. I directed a designer from our Marketing team and a graphic designer from our team to bring this to fruition by identifying specific places in the UI to introduce art.

Using creative illustrations, section separators and graphical forms, we brought some unique visual style to 2GUD, beautifully executed by our graphic designer.

This was my first time doing art direction and I loved it.

img center

Prototyping & Testing

While our team was creating great designs, I proceeded to prototype the experience as close to the real thing as possible, using Protopie. I re-discovered the joy of prototyping through this project 🧡

This prototype was used in all major presentations with stakeholders. I ensured that people experience this on their mobile phones, to experience the product as intended by the designers.

I also created a detailed prototype for the team to use for usability testing sessions.

Impact

I moved on from the company 2 months before launch, and so I am not privy to the exact metric impact. My ex-team pinged me on the launch date to celebrate. It was great to see months of hard work put in by the team come alive.

I heard from one of our product manager, 3 months after launch about how 2GUD was doing. And, there was a significant increase in engagement and a nearly 3x increase in conversion.

How I changed as a designer, through this project?

It is exhilarating to envision a major product, facilitate the process of design thinking with cross-functional stakeholders and, attempt to create a new brand language. Even more enriching is taking ownership and steering the design ship to execute the vision at a rapid pace.

Design thinking is a powerful tool to come up with innovative solutions to the problem at hand. Even though I was exhausted in the process of planning & facilitating the sprint – my adrenaline pumped when I saw amazing creative ideas from the participants.

I have to thank the product team for being so open and placing trust in me to try a new way of working and to take charge. Without their trust in me – this wouldn’t have come to fruition. It gave me confidence as a person, a designer and a leader.

This is a project that I’m proud of.