Overview

India is a nation of shopkeepers and as of 2019, only 12 per cent of the country’s retail trade is organized or modern. The rest is supported by small traders, retailers, and Kirana store owners. It has been amply demonstrated during this COVID-19 pandemic, with these neighbourhood stores serving 1.3 billion Indians without creating a sense of panic.

Problem Statement💬

Today, it is not uncommon for us to deal with our local stores through WhatsApp. The whole communication is manual and needs constant attention from both sides until the time the purchase is made.

Also, the increasing competition from e-commerce players in the market (especially in tier 1 cities) affects the sales of local stores.

Considering (i)WhatsApp has been rapidly expanding its payments business (UPI), (ii)It has a WA Business app and (iii)its ‘dealing with local store’ use case, There is a scope of product intervention to make the entire process seamless and also support local stores go online to compete with online players.

Constraints ⛓

• WhatsApp has its design philosophies as an org. Don't break those philosophies unless necessary.
• This experience should not break or intervene with the personal chat ecosystem that WhatsApp is.
• Covering Customer side of experience only i.e, Whatsapp App

My assumptions for the scope of this project 🤔

Designing for millions of users leads to diversified user scenarios, So taking certain assumptions to develop a good solution for this problem in a limited time.

• In response to competition, Local stores need to compulsorily modernise their retail practices such as Digital payments, Inventory management, delivery services etc.
• Covering Only Product-based Retail Businesses only.

Research to validate Problem Statement📜

As the Problem has some personal assumptions, I choose to validate the problem statement, which helps me ensure that we’re solving the right problem and also helps me understand the problem much better.

• I came across a market research reportby Accenture which gave me the following insight.

Local neighborhood shops need the support to reverse the trend of decline in sales, profitability and employment in this sector.

These declines are mainly due to E-commerce players and Supermarket retail chains.

• I asked 17 users who live in tier 1 and tier 2 cities about their usage of Whatsapp for dealing with local stores. Results: 14 out of 17 said they/their family uses WhatsApp to deal with local stores.

Why Can Whatsapp be a Potential Product market fit?

• Huge established User base. (covers almost all segments of users: Rural, Urban, Rich, Poor, middle-class)
• No need to install new apps/learn new ecosystems for the users. (especially for Non-tech savvy users)
• WhatsApp to expand its payment business (UPI).
• Whatsapp already has a Whatsapp Business app, but it requires major upgradation.

My Process

Understand → Define → Ideate → Design

Field Study

Some Glimpses of India’s Local Stores

During the field study, I tried to observe their way of working and Asked a few questions I prepared for primary research: Click Here for the Questionnaire. Key Observations are:

• Generally, In urban areas 2–3 people and in rural areas generally, 2 people work in typical Kirana shops.
• Shopkeepers use Manual Kahta to record credit transactions.
• They follow a Trust Credit Model where they offer products on credit to known customers.
• 9/10 stores have UPI Qr scanners.
• Some offer home delivery, some do not (highly depends on various factors like Availability of staff, amount of order, Distance etc.)
• Mostly, A specific user buys products from a few of their favourite stores, i.e, they are regular customers of some specific stores.
• Store owners knew about Whatsapp business, but haven't found it usable and not updated the catalogue.

Studying Current Products

Whatsapp App (left) — — Whatsapp Business App (right)

Observations Made

Problems Identified in the current flow of Whatsapp (Customer app)

• No categorization of chats
• A person has to scroll through all the items separately to add them to the cart. No way to search for the item.
• No scope to give a rating to the Store.
• No scope to get delivery updates without calling or messaging.
• No continuation to smooth checkout. Break of flow and send the order as a message to the seller—no digital authentication of purchase and delivery.
• There is no scope to get purchase history.
• There is no scope to search local stores in a particular area online. They can contact a shop only if they already have the contact details.

The WhatsApp business app is very similar to the common WhatsApp app but with some additional features like Catalogue making, Automated Reply, Labels, Quick Reply, Advertisement via Facebook and Instagram, and Adding business details.

Problems Identified in the current flow of Whatsapp Business (Seller app)

• No scope to easily import or modify a huge catalogue.
• Can’t get user feedback/ratings to develop successful business strategies.
• No scope for the auto-generated bills for customers.
• There is no scope to get business analytics, sales statistics etc.
• No notification of pending payments and a tool to remind the customer about the same.

Reviews on Play Store (WA Business)

Screenshots of some play store reviews

Current User Journey of Purchase from a local store

User Scenario: Shivani has recently shifted to a locality in Kanpur and She doesn’t know the nearby local stores. She is well-versed in using WhatsApp and UPI payment features.
After some time, She is a regular customer of a few nearby grocery stores and saved the store’s mob no. so that she can deal with it with Whatsapp whenever needed.

User Task: As a Housewife, I want to buy some grocery items from a local grocery store.

Offline Store Purchase journey:

Online Purchase journey through Whatsapp:

I empathised with the user on every step and wrote down the action a user takes and the opportunity for improving the pain points. click here for detailed journey mapping.

Pain Points Discovered💢

Keeping in mind User pain points and Research insights, How might we statements (HMW) were formed on which brainstorming was done on each HMW that give me the features and solutions of user needs.

• HMW reduce the human efforts to place orders and process orders?
• HMW Increase the accessibility of the catalogue and items offered?
• HMW we provide seamless payment continuation for ordering through Whatsapp?
• HMW Ease the uploading item process for businesses?
• HMW Make the local businesses more visible?
• HMW Accommodate Trust credit model, bill generation to help local stores?
• HMW help users to give ratings & reviews and decide the store to shop?
• HMW Retain the USP of WhatsApp/Whatsapp Business, ie, personal touch and customization while solving these issues?

Some direct and indirect competitor apps

After brainstorming on HMWs and noting down solutions, I had a rough picture of what my solution will look like, So I looked for apps that provide similar features/services to understand the established mental models of users, for UI inspirations, and for defining key differentiating features of WhatsApp.

Now, let’s Jump to Solutions🎇

Solution: The all-new shopping experience with local stores on the Whatsapp app that addresses the pain points from both sides of users.

Information Architecture

The Entry Point (First-time User)

Why these design changes?

1. Added Store Tab as entry point lying beside Status and shifted Calls Tab to the right. Reasoning: Design wise no interference in the Chat ecosystem. I surveyed 8 users among my friends and asked: How much do they use the Calls tab? Result: 7 of 8 users said they use the Calls tab rarely.
2. Design Decision: UX copy added. Reasoning: to highlight the features and actions they can take going further.
3. Instructional Overlays were added to guide the new user to initiate a search. (especially novice ones)

Iterations

Searching a nearby store/product

Well, How these things are happening?🤔

1. In-Store search, Whatsapp fetches the available stores that are serviceable to the User’s Location. The store needs to set a distance limit (km) of their area Serviceability in the Whatsapp Business app.
2. Products are shown from the Serviceable store’s Catalogue available at the user location.

Product design decisions, & Why?

1. All Filters and individual filters are both added to help the user find faster what He/She looking for.
2. Nearby stores in default search screen based on their respective distance.
3. Delivery Options and Delivery time according to their Store’s WA business profile.
4. Ratings are added to help decide the user in selecting any store.

Redesigning Store Profile

Product design decisions, & Why?

1. More than one display pics option was added. Reasoning: To establish trust in users' minds from good hygienic photos.
2. Added ‘Ratings and Reviews. Reasoning: To help the Store to get feedback from customers and also help other customers about the quality of the store’s service.
3. Offered Delivery options by Store added.

Selecting a Store (& Add to cart)

Gift products pics from Archies

1. 3 Tabs introduced in addition to Top Bar: Reasoning: Making catalogue more accessible (opens directly to catalogue screen). Order section for managing previous orders.
2. Grid and List view added in the catalogue: Taken consideration of products which is image-centric. (for eg. Gift SHOP) as WhatsApp will be a common platform for all local stores. Also to increase or decrease the no. of products on a screen.

‘Placing an Order’ flow

Continuation to Payment (Introducing Trustpay)

What is Trustpay?It is a pay later payment option which is wholely managed by the individual stores for their specific customers. It can be enabled by the store owner to their special customers allowing them to buy products on credit.
It has features to set credit limits, and Requests due amounts at once from many customers, all manageable from the WA Business app.
It will Solve the issue of

1. Trust credit model (Offering products on credit to known customers.)
2. Recording in the manual ledger by shopkeepers
3. Coping with competition from e-commerce players offering various payment options including pay later.

Other payment options are: Whatsapp UPI and COD

Let’s see it in action (Continuation to checkout)

Product design decisions, & Why?

1. Added Status Card at the top of the chat. Reasoning: To provide the status of the current order and show the payment requests at the top.
2. By default, UPI is selected to increase the chances of Whatsapp UPI usage.
3. Trustpay payment option is only visible if the store enables it for a customer.
4. Delivery options as per Store offerings.

Iteration

Hick’s law: The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.

Seller’s payment request (Trustpay Due)

The seller can request for Trustpay bill due from the WA business app which will be notified to the Whatsapp app.

Design decisions, & Why taken?

1. Payment Request will be sent as a Chat message and Card alert at the top. Reasoning: To induce the user to make payment at the earliest.
2. Trustpay transactions are in red, alerting users of dues. Users can also pay the dues anytime from the Orders sections without any payment request.
3. Order summary screen. Reasoning: Replace the manual bill generation process of store owners, keeping it organised, accessible and automated.

Iteration

Store Promotions

For helping the store to promote its offerings by introducing unique features in the Status section.

Design decisions, & Why taken?

1. Only users with past transactions will be able to view store statuses. i.e, stores which are in the Store section of the user’s WhatsApp.
2. For store statuses, ‘Reply’ is replaced with ‘Open store’ since it’s more reasonable.
3. Stores can embed any product from their catalogue in their statuses to take the user directly to the cart checkout screen. (WA Business app).
4. Store badge added to store profile as a distinction from normal contact statuses.

Switching to Whatsapp UPI QR to accept payment

Whatsapp QR demo created

In Order to encourage WhatsApp UPI transactions, WhatsApp QR can be introduced. (merchant transaction)

Why Local Stores will switch to Whatsapp QR?Well, Whatsapp QR will come with some unique features.

By scanning the WhatsApp QR code from the WhatsApp app, After the successful transaction the customer can experience the following:

1. If the user’s Home location (WhatsApp have this location) is serviceable by this store. Whatsapp will display that transaction as a pickup transaction in-store section of WhatsApp.
2. Adding that shop to the Store section, Makes the Store catalogue accessible to users in case of future purchases.
3. This will be the default feature and the Customer can disable this feature in the payments settings
4. The promotional status will also be available in the status section of Customer.
5. It can be used as a Contact saver QR too.

Touching the Major Problem

(Uploading of huge catalogue)

I have already assumed that the Store is modernising its retail practices such as Digital payments, Inventory management, delivery services etc.

Now, the question is How this Ecosystem of Whatsapp Business will work.

Well, for applying these solutions, Whatsapp Business need to be revamped according to the features mentioned above to deal with customers. Inventory management, Digital payments, Delivery Location etc are the features to be looked into.
I tried to solve the uploading huge catalogue problem.

What's Currently Happening: Upload Products one by one.

Solution: Batch Uploading through spreadsheet linked with WhatsApp business account. (real-time changes can be seen in the catalogue)

For this, Some Assumptions are made.

1. Store manager skilled with common software like Excel/Google Spreadsheet.
2. WA business app can be accessed with Web.
3. WA Business app accepts linkage of Google spreadsheet that real timely updates the Catalogue and ViceVersa (through WhatsApp business).

Some Edge Cases Discovered

1. The store doesn't confirm the order and cancelled it.
2. Location of the user has changed or He/she has changed the city?
3. Store Closed but serviceable in an area

How will I measure the success of my solution? (Metrics)

- No. of payment made through WhatsApp UPI
- Increase in No. of users (here local Businesses) using Whatsapp Business
- Time Consumed for Placing orders for products and services on Whatsapp.
- Usage Frequency (Recurring customers)

How Whatsapp will make money? 🤑

Although It is a hypothetical concept of mine But from a business point of view, No product is sustainable if it ain’t making no money ! so here’s how Whatsapp will make money.

1. Whatsapp can charge a nominal subscription fee from the stores using the WA business app for these store features.
2. Initially, it may be free as a trial, maybe a year (for getting used to users- sellers & buyers). Later it can be monetized.

Final Words- Next Steps

1. Evaluate the current prototype with the potential users by conducting usability tests.
2. Gather a more diverse set of the target audience to understand the problem in-depth from various different perspectives.

If I caught your attention to this point, my case study is worth a 👏💖.

Thanks for reading 🔥

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