Is design really for everyone? Let's look at the impact of a brilliant e-commerce business model.
Background
For my Baccalaureate thesis, I worked on a design research project to explore the impact of Quick-Commerce services on local mom-and-pop stores known as 'kiranas' in South Bengaluru.
Hypothesis-
Since the pandemic hit India in 2020, there has been a rise of quick-commerce services which have captured large consumer bases, eating away from the business of kirana stores.
Problem Exploration
Investigating the positionality of kirana shop owners on quick-commerce.
I set out on a mission to speak to kirana shop owners with these goals in mind -
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How has business been since the launch of q-commerce?
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Which parts of their job is the hardest?
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How much technology do they use and trust?
Lessons I learnt in my first round of interviews.
Conducting primary research with an audience from a very diverse background was not easy -
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Language Barrier: Many Kirana store owners come from various parts of India, and speak a language I was not fluent in. This made conversations inorganic and I was often told that they no longer had time to chat.
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Low Digital Literacy: I based my initial conversations on what technology the shop owners used, which they were uncomfortable using and discussing.
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Privacy & Trust: When I interviewed some of the non-owners at some shops, they were hesitant to reveal much information.
Interview Insights
Partnering with Q-Commerce is a lost cause.
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When initially launched, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto delivery executives bought perishables like milk and vegetables from Kiranas.
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High costs to have your store visible on the quick-commerce platforms.
Business has been rough since the pandemic.
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According to Snapbizz, online sales were up 32.4% in 2020 and 39% in 2021.
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80% of Kirana stores that went online saw a temporary increase in sales only during the first wave of COVID-19 in India.
Support required for Technology
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PayTM's voice box is trusted by everyone I interviewed.
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Every kirana shop owner uses a smartphone, mainly for WhatsApp, YouTube and UPI apps.
Managing Inventory is tedious without technology.
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Distributors miss their store every 1 out of 4 weeks and have to waste half a day in wholesale stores for their best products.
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2 in 3 kirana shop owners do not track their sales.
Problem Statement
Kirana store owners have to compete with the convenience of quick-commerce services(like Zepto, SwiggyInstamart, BlinkIt, etc.) making it harder to sell their products to consumers.
The Competition
A 7 minute delivery to your home is way better than going out to buy things you need immediately.
I studied Swiggy Instamart, Dunzo, Zepto, blinkIt and BigBasket Daily to understand how they work.
Darkstores
A darkstore is a mini-warehouse which is stocked up very frequently based on the consumer habbits predicted by AI models analysing the buying patterns of a particular hyperlocality.
Let's understand how Q-Commerce darkstores work in every locality.
I spoke to the Team Lead of a Darkstore from BlinkIt in my locality, to understand the systems in place which have helped them achieve deliveries to consumers in under 10 minutes!
1. Hyperlocal Darkstores
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Several Darkstores are located in all the major hyperlocalities in major cities of India.
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Each darkstore caters to the needs of customers easily accessible within 20-30min by bikes.
4. Deliver Executives
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In a single shift, there are upto 12 delivery executives waiting at the darkstore, ready to deliver products in a giffy.
2. Frequent Item Indexing
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Constant processing of consumer behaviour and trends predicts the items required within the week.
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At the store, a team works to update the stock of items within the darkstore. They receive shipments from the main warehouses at least twice a day.
3. Quality Check
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There are 2-3 quality assessment officers present during every shift to replace produce with loose, back-up pieces.
BlinkIt darkstore where you can see delivery executives waiting to receive customer orders.
Do Consumers really prefer it?
I conducted a survey to understand if customers have started using q-commerce and if they prefer it to shopping in-person.
The survey had 44 respondants, and here are some of the key insights.
74% prefer Supermarkets over Kiranas for in-person shopping.
For monthly puchases, the respondants indicated that they prefer shopping in person.
40% have switched to Q-Commerce overall.
For all grocery needs, people have begun shifting to Q-Commerce services, with Swiggy Instamart being the top choice. This number is likely to grow as suggested by Statista.
Defining a user persona.
User Requirements
After an inductive analysis of all the data points from research, I generated a list of user requirements.
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Complete visibility of inventory of a particular Kirana shop.
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Quick and easy implementation by shop owners.
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Increase customer-engagement.
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Reduce time taken for a product to reach the customer.
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Cater to the daily needs of customers.
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Ensure availability of hot-selling items.
Design Brief
To design an intervention that helps kirana store owners manage their inventory with ease and enables them to give their customers a more convenient experience at home or at their store.
Design Ideation
A Gigamap of ideas to help Kirana Owners.
I created an abundance of ideas to fulfill all the requirements.
First, I mapped all functions(generated from the user requirements), and sorted them into pages for the inventory manager application.
For a successful intervention, multiple requirements need to be satisfied. The following images show the final concept detailing.
Detailing the personality of the assistant.
Final solution and Testing
Creating a friendly user interface
Think Aloud - User Testing
To test the final prototype, I spoke to 4 kirana shop owners. I walked each of them through the prototype and then asked them to perform two simple tasks -
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To check how many cucumbers are left in the store.
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To place orders to distributors.
The results -
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A few UI fixes were needed (including font size and colour contrast) to help them better navigate to the distributor page.
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The overall impressions suggest that the voicebot functions would be very helpful, but kirana shop owners are generally not comfortable using new technology and would require some training.
The video shows a testimonial from one of the Kirana shop owners I interviewed and tested the prototype.
What's Next?
Dootha, as an inventory manager, can successfully help kirana shop owners maintain their inventory better and provide insights with predictive algorithm sets based on the typology of the products they sell. However, the next question is how will this be of use to customers?
I am working on a customer-side design for Dootha that will help them look at the available products and deals in kirana's near them. I hope to create features that enable kirana shop owners to advertise deals. and get sponsored by some of the popular brands who they sell with to reclaim their customer bases.
Baccalaureate Thesis - Design Thinking Project
August - December 2022 | Bengaluru, India