TECH-ENHANCED CHECKOUT FOR A BETTER IN-STORE EXPERIENCE CASE STUDY
This was done a few years ago, so now I can publish it
The Zara Mobile Payments App & in-store Self-checkout service case study documents the processes involved in a redesign of a fashion retail and digital payment app which includes a product scan feature for customers to perform a self-checkout at a physical store.
Project Overview
5 day Design Sprint & Research Process
Team: 3 members
My Role: I am directly or indirectly involved in every stage of the process, including the visual design for the interactive prototype.
Includes the following process and methodologies:
BACKGROUND (BUSINESS CHALLENGE / BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY)
Zara is a global brand (more than 2,250 around the world that is owned by Inditex Group)
It is a very popular brand from kids (0–15) , to young women & men (16 to 55)
It is so popular in many countries that sometimes its stores are crowded, specially in different seasons during the year: Christmas, summer & winter sales, buen fin & Black Friday, etc. And on regular days, in different times, there are store that are crowded.
This may be great for the business, but it is not so great for the customer’s experience at their stores.
People in big cities is usually in a hurry and aspire to fast services in order to gain time for themselves.
Long checkout lines have long been a major pain point for shoppers. Retailers began introducing solutions like self-checkout decades ago. Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” tech is a particularly radical approach. Retailers that aren’t going that far, however, are nevertheless piloting and rolling out tech-enhanced checkout options.
These tech solutions, besides to provide better customer’s experience (CX), it will also bring a better employee experience (EX) because, these help employees to not being overwhelmed and saturated with work.
ANALYSIS — DIRECT OBSERVATION
ANALYSIS — BENCHMARKING
RESEARCH
In Asia are the leading apps that allow digital payments (WeChat Pay & Alipay) . The most common use cases are These apps have a QR scanning feature using the mobile phones camera to scan the QR code to purchase an item easily and efficiently.
I did a competitive & comparative analysis of fashion brand’s apps like H&M, Mango, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, Adidas, etc. and cashless apps
in other parts of the world to get a better understanding of the features and process of purchasing through an app
Because in Mexico don´t offer mobile payment and self checkout (there are some kind of experiments like Self checkout Oxxo in Monterrey and some self checkout in Walmart and mobile payment with Cashi App in Walmart)
Nowadays eventhough your competitors should be from the same industry or sector; you always have to analyse tech companies.
Your competition is also with them.
CHALLENGES
Researching cashless apps outside of my country was a challenge.
- I was able to download some apps I researched but I wasn’t able to make an account because I don’t have a phone number of selected countries that the app serviced to.
- This made it difficult to understand cultural standards of purchasing and seeing the process in which these apps work.
- Since I couldn’t learn the functionality of these apps from my own phone, I had to find other ways to learn. I discovered tutorial app videos and people showing the process of purchasing various items and services which gave me a better understanding of how these apps work.
In Asia is more common to buy everything through the mobile (coffee, movie tickets, public transport tickets, clothing, electricity services, plumber, etc.
The leaders are:
- WeChat Pay — Tencent
- Alipay — Ant Financial (Alibaba Group)
Tech giants like Apple, Google Samsung & Facebook & WhatsApp developed their own apps & payment services
Facebook would be more likely to be like Alipay & WeChat Pay, because it is a social platform.
In Retail, many companies have implemented digital payments & self-checkout , like Walmart, Target, and CVS.
Zara is already testing this option of self-checkout in London.
And in 2016 Inditex launched an app for mobile payment options for all their brands (inWallet)
I consider important that a global brand offer same services in all countries
So, we now know that Zara has the technology and knowledge to implement something like this.
And also, very important, review lessons learned in order to implemented in a right way here in Mexico.
USER RESEARCH
INTERVIEWS
I did a research with 10 personas
AFFINITY DIAGRAM
This Affinity Diagram was made in order to help me condense down the data I got from the user interviews. I did group things together into color coded groups
I clustered research information and after that, I define research insights and design opportunities.
Using the affinity diagram, we generate user pain points and design opportunities from user research data.
Research Insights:
- Customers wanted more payment options in-store
- Customers hate to wait in line to pay
Design Opportunities:
- Offer more digital options in store ( through mobile)
- Provide a self-checkout counter
USER-PERSONAS
During this research I came with 4 User — Personas:
POINT OF VIEW
After the user research I did, I think that the point of view is:
Zara customers need a service to avoid long queues and be able to pay their merchandise faster.
The vast majority appreciate if a product/service allows them to save time.
“ María José needs more payment options and a way to check out faster in Zara stores because she appreciates her time and she hates to wait long time.”
HYPOTHESIS
I believe that by providing a self-checkout and mobile payments options service, we will improve the in-store experience.
We will know this to be true when we see:
- higher conversion rates through this solution
- customer changing behaviors & more usage of this solution
- performance at store (less crowded, reduction of long lines, staff less overwhelmed)
HYPOTHESIS RATIONALE
WHY I am suggesting this solution?
- We are transitioning towards a cashless society
- Zara is part of a big Fashion group which has the resources (money, technology, knowledge)
- Zara has tried this option in other countries and as a global brand, it should replicate the same services in almost all of the ones it has presence
- Although there is some resistance or unfamiliarity to these solutions, it is a fact that other retail chains like Walmart, Target, CVS, Uniqlo, etc. are offering this option.
- In such a competitive world, it is a sin as a company to be behind in certain aspects. I think that global brands should comply with global/majority needs motivations and actually are ‘responsible’ to help emergent markets to understand how to use these new technologies.
- Zara’s target in Mexico is people that has certain income, education, and almost all of them have at least one smartphone and understand how to interact in digital world (have Facebook and other apps)
Because TIME is the most valuable thing to people, especially in situations where you are in a long line waiting to pay, and the only thing you want to do is get out of the store. So, you don’t want this to be a 30-minute experience, it’s about moving the line along.
And for the company there are direct benefits by using it, because that speed in line matters to the bottom line for Zara.
Like how quickly they can move that line along, how quickly people can get their clothing & accessories matters to business, because the more quickly they attend people, more people can purchase. In this way, Meanwhile some customers are being attended by cashiers, other clients do the self-checkout . So, it is more revenue for the business.
It is a win-win situation. Both parties benefit from that experience.
Offering an app for general payment, is what is not quite clear for customers, that is why Apple pay, Samsung pay are suffering. The argument is SPEED & TIME. (that is why Starbucks’s app is winning over Apple & Google pay, etc.)
So, we will struggle to change habits in consumers,; but in order to get them to do something that is more efficient, the efficiency must exist or else, they will not buy into it.
