Sriram Sundaram

my case studies

Here is my take on the problem statements which were of particular interest to me. For ease of scanning, these have been structured as follows:

Metrics

Approach

Recommendations

Artefacts

Improving the conversion and repeat purchase rates in LBB’s iOS app

Metrics

Increase the overall conversion rate of the buying funnel
Increase the repeat purchase rate
Decrease the average time spent before placing an order

Approach

I explored the end-end buying experience in the iOS app - landing page → searching for a product → visiting the product page → adding items to the cart → checkout and payment → repurchasing a previously bought item. Throughout this user journey, I encountered many issues that made the whole experience feel sub-standard compared to the experience offered by other marketplaces like Amazon, Airbnb, Uber, etc.

Given LBB mainly targets the millennials in the metro cities of India, at least 10-20% of its user base would be using an iPhone. This makes the iPhone user cohort important to LBB’s business goals.

Recommendations

Personalising the landing page to drive more purchases

Display offers at the top of the page to grab the user’s attention right away and increase the chances of engagement
A "Here’s what we curated for you" section based on the user's past purchases
An "Editor’s picks" section on categories that the user has not tried before to drive new purchases
Customize the landing page of men and women differently. Women are more likely to buy products like scented candles, home decor items, artisanal kitchenware, gourmet foods, etc. These products should be deprioritized on the landing page of the male users.

Recommendations

Improving the in-app navigation for a better buying experience

A permanent navigation pane at the bottom enables the user to visit the most commonly used pages (Home page, "My Orders" page, etc.) with a minimal number of clicks
A search bar at the top of every page that can redirect the user to a new product page

Improving the repeat purchase experience

A "Buy again with 1-click" CTA on the landing page for one or more items that the user had purchased in the past. Clicking on the CTA would take the user directly to the payment page
Add a "Buy again" button with an option to modify the quantity, for every past order in the "My Orders" section.

Recommendations

Avoiding decision fatigue while choosing a product and addressing incomplete payments

When multiple products are listed on a page, label certain items as "Bestseller", "Trending" or "LBB’s pick" to make it easier for the user to select a product
Display the total number of reviews along with the rating to help users make better decisions
When there’re pending items in the cart when a customer opens the app, remind him of the pending cart and nudge him into making the payment.

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My Product Observations

How "The Whole Truth" creates user delight?

The Whole Truth is a D2C brand selling healthy energy bars, protein bars, nut butters and immunity boosters

Being honest about their ingredients is the USP of ‘The Whole Truth Foods’. They reiterate this with delightful copy in their products
The cardboard box has a personal message from the chief cook where she talks about how she sources her ingredients and her mission to make healthy foods more mainstream
Environment friendly design - shredded paper instead of plastic to pad their packages; They incentivize you to return the plastic covers for recycling by offering discounts the next time you make a purchase

Why BNPL products like Simpl and Lazypay will capture a larger slice of the online payment pie?

Buy Now Pay Later is a popular payment method where users can avail credit and repay at regular intervals with 0% interest

BNPL products provide easy access to credit with a quick and completely digital onboarding
1-click payment without requiring an OTP or a PIN (for UPI payments)
Guaranteed payment success since you won’t run into low balance issues with your card or wallet
Easy access to credit reduces customer hesitancy driving higher transaction volumes and Average Order Value (AOV). This incentivizes more merchants to support this payment mode.

Why I still prefer Cricinfo over Cricbuzz on my desktop?

Cricinfo and Cricbuzz are the two most popular websites for anything related to Cricket. In the last few years, Cricbuzz has been gaining users at a faster rate than Cricinfo

Cricinfo solves the most important use case (checking scores) better by using visually appealing cards and having CTAs for follow up needs (points table, schedule and match videos)
The cognitive load is low. The articles are arranged in well-designed cards in the central pane while the left and right panes use smaller font to keep the focus on the central pane
Cricinfo has cool features like "Quote Unquote" and "The Cricket Monthly" that come for free. It is hard to get incentivized to pay for Cricbuzz plus when Cricinfo is providing so much more for free.

How Slack’s attention to detail provides user delight?

When you message someone in a different time zone, you get a “it might be too late for this person” nudge
When you have an unfinished message in either a DM or a channel, there is a pencil symbol next to the name of the DM or the channel that serves as a reminder
Often, when you’re talking to someone either in a DM or a channel, an information that you need might be in a different DM/channel. To prevent this back and forth, Slack added a "Split view" feature that lets you view 2 DMs/channels side by side
When you have an important message but it’s not the best time to send it yet, you can schedule it to be sent later

How Telegram offers a much better "groups" experience than WhatsApp?

Ability to pin multiple messages at the top of the group for easy access
The "view thread" option lets you see only those messages belonging to a given thread. This is helpful when there are multiple threads taking place at the same time.
You can have a channel associated with a group for broadcasting important information along with conducting polls to get consensus on something
Action items arise out of conversations. Telegram allows you to set reminders in-app

How Groww offers a better buying experience for retail investors than Zerodha Kite on its iOS app?

The landing page has info on the “top gainers” and the “top losers” and also how the major indices have performed. This feature is completely missing in Zerodha
It is easier to find the “Analyst buy/sell rating” and “fundamentals” of an individual stock. In Zerodha, this information is at least one additional click away
Much cleaner and intuitive UI. The 2 tabs at the bottom correspond to the two most popular instruments (stocks and Mutual Funds)
The touch-ID-based login and the “dark mode” feature make the app easier to use.

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