Designing a feature to schedule orders and subscriptions for Swiggy
A case study that I did for Razorpay’s take-home assignment
The food delivery market has seen significant growth over the past five years. Led by platform-to-consumer services, the market has expanded, adding billions of dollars in potential revenue capture.
Problem Statement
The task was to let users pre-order their desired dish and get it delivered at a scheduled time. The job was to build a feature to schedule orders and extend it to create weekly and monthly subscriptions.
We had to choose among popular food delivery applications(Swiggy, Zomato, etc.) & follow their design ideology and UI patterns, and ensure that the feature finds a logical place within their Information Architecture. After some toggling, I chose Swiggy.
I was curious why haven’t Swiggy rolled out these features already, and I wondered why should Swiggy even bother about introducing these new features in the Indian food delivery space? So, I did initial research about the food delivery market in India and found some intriguing stats.
Market Research
- India’s online food delivery market expects to grow at a 30% CAGR and is estimated to touch $21.41 billion by 2026.
2. Key growth drivers of the food delivery space in India:
- Increase in internet penetration and digitalization.
- Inflating income levels.
- Increasing middle-class demographic.
- Growth of working population and dual-income, nuclear families.
- Changes in the urban lifestyle.
Hence, introducing new features can help Swiggy to stay ahead of the competition by acquiring new users, increasing business & engagement, and leveraging the market’s untapped potential.
I studied the literature available on the internet to get a deeper understanding of consumer behaviors in the food delivery market in India. The prominent insights are listed below:
- More than half of India’s population (1.2B) is under 25, and most fast-food demand comes from the 18–40 year age group.
- 63% user base for the online food delivery market are Millennials.
- 81% of people said that they ordered food online for convenience.
- Timeliness of delivery was the most significant factor for 22% of users.
- 17% of users complained about late delivery.
This research was useful for understanding user goals and the development of relevant user personas and user stories.
Hmm, but, How are the Scheduling and Subscription features beneficial?
Based on the research, I jotted down the User goals, Restaurant goals, and Business goals:
Competitive Analysis
It is essential to know about the performance and offerings of Swiggy’s market competitors to get an edge over them.
- Zomato owns a hefty 38% of the user base, while Swiggy holds 27% in the Indian food delivery market.
- Cloud Kitchens are also a significant competition in Tier-1 cities.
- GrubHub and UberEats also offer pre-ordering services but not in India.
Inferences:
1. While cloud kitchens are on the rise, they specialize in catering through personalization, user convenience (24*7 scheduled deliveries), and evolving menus. The big players like Zomato, Swiggy, etc provide users with a huge variety of restaurants to choose from.
2. By incorporating features like schedule and subscription, Swiggy can offer better personalization and convenience services to eliminate competition from cloud kitchens.
3. Swiggy can also acquire or set up its own cloud kitchens, as it already has a large user base in tier-1 cities.
Target audience
Based on the research, I identified the potential target users for the features of scheduling and subscription.
- Job Professionals, Dual-income families having busy lives.
- Students/Hostellers who are bored with mess food but too lazy to cook.
- Existing users who always order food on specific days of the week/month.
- Gym hitters who want to pre-order their post-workout meals.
- Corporate/House party organizers.
- Food Bloggers who want to review the food at home.
- People who want to schedule deliveries for guests.
User Research
- As a part of qualitative research, I prepared a questionnaire and conducted online interviews with six people that use food delivery apps.
- I wrote down the insights and categorized the user behaviors, pain points, and motivations to build personas and user stories.
User Personas
Inspired by the public research and interview insights, I developed user personas relevant to the context of both the features. Detailed and diverse personas helped me empathize better and cover all the major pain points & motivations of the target audience.
User Stories
Afterward, I constructed user stories for all the respective personas. User stories enabled me to explore different user-flow possibilities and underlying edge cases. It’s helpful to get an idea about how well these features might fit in the user’s life and their impact.
Ideation
Based on the research and personas, I brainstormed possible issues users might face with order scheduling and subscription. Then I ideated the solutions for those problems.
Swiggy Schedule
Feature Description
- The user can schedule deliveries up to four days in advance.
- Zero delivery charges. The order gets delivered under the 30-min time slot chosen by the user. Time slots are preferred rather than absolute time because it enables the delivery partners to deliver multiple orders in nearby areas.
- Users can now also “add restaurant instructions” to get a customized experience with their pre-ordered meals.
- Users can schedule even when the restaurant is closed; it’s up to the restaurant to accept once it opens.
- Users will get reminder notifications (that can be opted out) before the preparation starts for the scheduled order.
- Users can request to change delivery location in case of any emergency.
- Users can reschedule before at least 4 hours of the scheduled delivery time. This will give enough time to the delivery partners to plan their deliveries.
- Cancellation Policy: The users can get their order canceled for free until the order gets live.
User Flow for Scheduling
Feature Discovery
Swiggy Schedule is intended to be used by most of its current users. A pop-up on the home screen with a tutorial (see how it works) would be a suitable introduction. This is an optimal way to get users’ attention and create awareness about Swiggy Schedule. This feature would also be visible in the cart section as a “check-box” during checkout.
Final Screens
I designed high-fidelity screens consistent with Swiggy’s Design System and according to the flow. I also tried to guide the users by writing Micro-copies:
- The serving time of restaurants is displayed to avoid any confusion.
- Ensuring users that we’ll notify them as the restaurant accepts their order.
- Showing the time remaining to reschedule on the screen.
- Labeling the cards to inform the user about the confirmation status of the order.
- Informing users about the next immediate time availability of a food item.
There will be a separate section for scheduled orders on the standard tracking screen to avoid confusion.
Users will get notified if the chef at the restaurant marks an item as being unavailable. To avoid cancellation, we will offer similar food alternatives or reschedule options.
The reschedule button isn’t kept on the primary cards but inside the details screen because we don’t want to endorse the rescheduling behavior. Besides rescheduling, the user can request to change delivery location in an emergency.
Swiggy Subscribe
Feature Description
- The user can subscribe to meals from a particular restaurant on a weekly/monthly basis.
- Including multiple restaurants in a subscription can add variety and reduce monotony. Although the execution would be cumbersome at scale, so I haven’t included that in the solution.
- Users will get free deliveries and additional discounts of up to 40%. This will encourage them to subscribe more as they can save money.
- Users can choose an advance billing schedule, i.e., whether to pay in advance for a week/month. Partial payment options will initially save users from financial burden while supporting the restaurant and verifying legitimate subscription requests.
- a) Custom Subscription: The user chooses the restaurant, dishes, quantity, delivery schedule, and billing schedule.
- b) Pre-curated Subscriptions: The restaurants will offer the meal plans, and the user can choose the delivery and meal schedule. The restaurants will provide complimentary food items (deserts, etc.) with every order to reduce monotony and maintain user delight. Surveys to understand user preferences better and personalized subscription plans
- Users will get reminder notifications (that can be opted out) 12hrs before delivery and before the preparation starts.
- Users can also reschedule a subscription delivery. But the rescheduling can be done for the same day only. Users can request to change delivery location but only for single subscription delivery. Charges may apply.
- If the user gets bored, then he can also change food items for this just this order.
- Users can track subscription orders from separate screens to avoid confusion between general, scheduled, and subscribed orders.
- Individual Order Cancellation: Free cancellation before the preparation starts. After that, cancellation charges may apply.
- Subscription Cancellation: The user can cancel the remaining subscription before making payment for the next week/month.
User Flow for Subscription of Meals
Feature Discovery
The subscription feature can shoot up a user’s engagement with the app and create more business, making it an essential element. However, not all users might need it.
So rather than including it in the primary navigation framework, I decided to put it as a promotional banner on the home screen. Subsidiary services like Genie etc., are also discoverable in a similar fashion on Siwggy’s app.
Final Screens
As this feature will be a new rollout and requires more input from the user side, I included the basic usability heuristics to ensure smooth onboarding for the users:
- Visibility of system status: Displaying the process and status of every step involved in the subscription. The user gets feedback after every step.
- User Control and freedom: a)While creating a subscription, users can go back or undo their actions in case of a mistake. b)The user can also view/edit all the information about the plan from the cart page.
- Error Prevention: a)Only showing nearby restaurants as we promise free delivery. That’s why selecting a delivery address is the first step while creating a plan. b)Single meal cost is shown to the user. Now users can tailor the plan according to their budget.
- Consistency and standards: Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing.
- Aesthetic and minimalist design: Interfaces should not contain irrelevant or rarely needed information.
Users can also subscribe to meals from their favorite restaurant right away from the restaurant page. The user is asked to confirm the delivery address before proceeding to prevent possible errors and inconvenience.
Track and Manage Subscriptions: I designed separate screens to be displayed on the “My Account” screen from where users can track & manage subscriptions.
Users can track subscription orders and view detailed schedules on the tracking screen, arranged as per the arrival. They can also change items, reschedule, change delivery location, and cancel the order.
Users can view and manage their subscriptions from the manage screen. Users can view details of the subscription plans, renew old plans and cancel subscriptions. He can also browse and create new plans from this screen.
Edge Cases
- After scheduling an order, what if the user wants to apply a coupon code. How will the discount coupons be tackled with scheduled orders? If a coupon is valid now but expires before the scheduled delivery, will the user be able to apply the coupon?
- There might be some days when the restaurants are closed. How will the weekly/monthly subscriptions be dealt with on those days? This might also be an issue around festivals and holidays.
- While changing items in a prepaid subscription delivery, the new items selected might not be available. This might lead to a bad user experience.
Features for Future
Additional features that might be included in the future but aren’t the part of the initial solution:
- The user might want to add/remove certain food items in some cases. So there should be an option to modify the subscription menu.
- A calendar menu where the user can select a menu for each day of the week.
- Multiple restaurants in one subscription plan to add variety.
- While changing food items for a subscription delivery, the new total amount might be less than the prepaid meal cost. The restaurant will have to reimburse the money, which is undesirable for business. Swiggy’s virtual-currency wallet system, Swiggy Wallet, can solve this. Users can earn points and redeem them to buy food. This can also bring back all the money after cancellation and reimbursement.
Thanks for reading.
