Migros

12 min readFeb 6, 2019

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On the September of 1997, Migros introduced the virtual shopping experience to their customers, considered a “first” at the time. Migros Virtual Store: with its scope of services and the product variety that they have from fruits, vegetables to meat, is considered to be a first even in Europe. The Virtual Store’s registered customers, today, has reached the booming number of 40 thousand.

Here is how the Migros officials explain their objective: “Our principle derives from providing limitless and unconditional service to the customers. By increasing the areas of use of the internet, we would like it to become a part of life. We aim to provide this service, with the use of the latest technology, to everyone with time and transportation limitations or to ones who are unable to leave their homes due to various health issues.”

My role and team

Caner Özgökmen — PM
Esra Rençber — UX Research
Jeff Romi – Head of Product / UX

UX Research

Our user

While the offline customers are mostly composed of males, the online customers are generally females.
The virtual store customers: during their first visit use the banner and during their second visit tend to use the search button to make a purchase.
The virtual store customers were described as “the people who buy food to their houses” twice during the meetings, however after their discourse about the issue, they reached to the conclusion that increasing the penetration of the currently existing mass of customers would be better.
Current customers: women between the ages of 35–44, married, educated, mostly iPhone users, have an above the average bachelor’s degree, with kids.
The current customers are a sub group of the plaza employees who do not have the sufficient time, this is the target group.
Active customer = Has placed an order at least twice

Pain Points

The user who hasn’t verified their membership cannot open a new account with the same national ID number.
At the beginning of the process the users experience panic regarding the delivery time and day- they do not know that their order can be delivered on the day and time of their choice.
The pop-up ads that appear interrupt the experience.
The warning and information messages that appear at the beginning of the page do not strike the user’s attention.
The “Welcome *Name*-*Last Name* writing on the blue bar at the top is not noticed.
The customers is not informed regarding the shipment charges until the very end.
After completing and placing the order, the users cannot predict what they will encounter.
At the checkout, after selecting the region, the page goes back to the main page.
The products that have been added to the cart previously appear in the cart during checkout and as they are forgotten by the user, they have a hard time making meaning out of why the products might be listed there.
The users have a desire to enter all the necessary information prior to hitting the “complete the purchase” button, regarding the payment and delivery.
The need to manually change the amount of the product after adding it to the cart, and hitting the “add” button.
After entering the quantity information, the users forget to hit the “add” button.
Difficulty in locating the cart on the page.
Difficulty in realizing that the products change after filtering.
Problematic search results.
Difficulty in realizing the default listing of the products and the reason they are listed that way.
Difficulty in realizing the purpose of “Buy all” button in “Everyone to the Table”.

Benchmarking

1. E-commerce on the Rise

The shopping trends that evolve based on the ever changing lifestyles defy the traditional concept of a market. The e-market sector, is more rapid in adjusting to the change, compared to the currently existing markets. Although this brings certain disadvantages caused by its nature, the e-markets make up for their weaknesses by providing new services every day.

Peapod

One of the fore-runners of e-markets in the USA, Peapod, provides a service of having their customers who use smart phones scan a QR code using the Peapod application, with the two dimensional stores situated at the exits of crowded subways in Chicago, making it easier for them to order.

Following the successful pilot application, the company is planning to open these virtual stores to 100+ bus and train stations.

Grocery Run

Grocery Run, in Australia, brought and adapted the concept of short term design products’ discount to grocery products and executes 48-hour discount marathons on basic products.

With a year’s worth of business, Grocery Run has become the biggest e-market in Australia, pushing other offline stores to have big discounts on dairy products like milk and basic products like toilet paper.

E-mart

The fridge with an LCD screen, that has been launched by Samsung in Korea not long ago, helps the consumers order the products that they ran out off, easily and rapidly.

Quidsi

Quidsi, offers a new shopping experience with the sales that they make specially for certain categories.

Periodic sales, for basic goods
Low prices
Easily remembered URL’s
Quick shipping, 1–2 days
Superior customer services

Schwan’s

With a background of 50 years of ice cream services, Schwan’s entered the frozen goods sector, and with the trust that they gained from their previous customers, expanded their territory of sales by providing a shipment service with 6.000 trucks.

2. Thinking Differently

In the future, the applications made on prices and product diversity will start falling short for physical stores. The customers will expect to be entertained. Hence, we will start seeing innovative shipment models where one can go through the “drive-thru” or where the customer will not even have to leave their vehicle. The virtual stores integrated with the physical ones will be on the rise.

Auchan

The French company Auchan, entered the market in Suzhou, China with their drive-thru stores. The customers can place orders online and drive through to pick their orders during the time zones determined by themselves.

Tesco

Tesco, initiated the service where the customers can scan the barcode of the products with their smart phones and add them to their online carts.

P&G and Walmart

P&G and Walmart merged and started delivering to their customers in big cities via scanning the QR codes of heavy products. The customers have an easy access to the QR codes via the PGMobile trucks that are parked in New York.

“This is quite smart, no one wants to carry a 5-pound dog food package or 30 toilet papers all the way to their apartments.”

3. Connections Made with the Customers

The reciprocal communication with the customers will escalate into a new dimension. The best example for this how the Seiyu group, owned by Walmart, asks their customers through Twitter which products they prefer to have lower prices and offer 4-week discount on the first 100 ones offered by their customers. The brands will now have identities that evolve based on the active relationships they create with their customers rather than specific and rigid ones.

Lawson

One of the stores located in Japan, Lawson, created a virtual character called Akiko-chan, in order to better assist their online customers.

After the creation of Akiko-chan, it is said that the visits of the website increased by 1.4 times.

Whole Foods

Whole Foods, from the USA, reached to 1 million Twitter users in during their first year (currently it is 3M).

85% of the tweets that are posted are composed of providing answers to the questions posed by the customers.

While the company strengthens their relationships with the customers through Twitter, it also introduces the culture and lifestyle of Whole Foods.

Whole Foods is also the first company ever to use Pinterest as a medium of marketing.

Seiyu

Seiyu (Japan) has asked their customers through Twitter which products they prefer to have lower prices and offered 4-week discount on the first 100 ones offered by their customers.

Real

Real, in Germany, has developed a system where the customers can hold their smart phones on the products and can see and use the related coupons on them if they exist.

Marks & Spencer

Marks & Spencer collaborated with Jiepang and Weibo in China and through their GEO technology, has been sending the texts regarding the promotions going on at their newly opened stores to the users.

Through this strategy Weibo — the biggest social sharing platform in China — has created interaction between their customers, sending gifts to those who share posts about them.

Conclusion: What’s in the Future?

The customers will expect different shopping experiences, and if the stores fail to accommodate that, they will face with lower sales. The interaction between the online and offline sales will keep increasing.
Technology will increase the efficiency and will cause the price competitiveness to reach its climax.
Gathering the customers’ information and analyzing them will have greater importance.
Same day delivery options will increase and the online stores will have to start to efficiently balance their capacities and the demand.

Previously Failed Attempts

For 18 years, various projects have been tried out and were dismissed.

Accessing to recipes through the products didn’t work so it was cancelled.
They demonstrated discounts by crossing out the actual prices but it was thought to be confusing, so they stopped using that method.
Efficient search and filtering projects are run and are about to be completed.
The concept of “member get member” system is being improved.

Operational Recommendations

Periodical ordering feature
Identifying alternative products
Delivery at any desired time frame till 10 PM
Paying cash/credit card upon delivery
The old ordering module
Notifications regarding specially picked and packaged products
Delivery/pick-up from Migros Express locations such as gas stations like Petrol Ofisi
Delivery from the store
Pick-up from vending machines
Return guarantee

Solution

The subscription phase should be simplified. E-mail and password information should be asked for at the first step and all the rest of the required information should be requested upon the completion of the order. “Why should I create an account?” can be added as information. The fact that the activation e-mail is received late during the creation of the account is an issue. In addition to this, receiving the second mail when the user clicks on “send the e-mail again” late is another issue. The duration of receipt of the mail was approximately 10 minutes in the test that we conducted. Whether the activation phase exists of not should be re-evaluated.
In the page where the user picks their territory, they should be informed about the delivery options. For instance, when the customer picks delivery from the store, they should be informed that they will be creating the order online but will be picking up from the store. The same arrangement should be done during “How Should We Deliver Your Order?” part while placing an order.

The category menu should be moved to the left.
There is a lot of text in the shopping steps and there are a lot of links that may cause the user to leave the cart. These should be simplified. Kliksa’s cart has been optimized like this and the completion of the order being placed increased by 10%.
In the notification area located on the cart’s Freeze Header, there should be a warning such as “Buy X TL more, enjoy free services fees”. This warning should change based on the cart total.

The advantages that are at the “cashier front” should be shown at the cart.

The phases of the shopping experience should be shown step by step. The current step of the purchase should be indicated above.

The purpose of “Gift Card” should briefly be indicated. The tabs on the payment page should be rearranged. Eg: There appears to be a tab called “Points and Accounts”, however it is hard to tell what its function is. In this field, the customer can benefit from the discount by entering the discount code, however it may be perceived that they can use their credit card points from this field as well. The radio button should be removed, there should only be a field where the customer can enter their coupon codes.

In the “Payment Options” step, we can perceive the card type by the first 8 digits of the card, without the customer having to make a selection. This way, we can make the customer make less clicks and selections. The process of choosing the credit card should be eliminated. The customer should only be inserting the credit card information and these information, if “pay by credit card” option is chosen, should be retracted from the area under this selection. The step of choosing the payment type and entering the payment information should be done on the same page.
Distance Sales Contract should appear on the screen of the returning customers by default. There should be demonstrations of personalized banners and promotion announcements based on the customers’ segment. Personalization can be conducted based on the purchasing habits of the customer or based on clickstream data.
There should be a newsletter sign up box on the main page for those who would like to be notified about various promotions that will be held. It should be shown to the guest users. SMS verification should be requested on the second step as well.
A representative image that won’t take a huge space on the page must be shown along with the products listed right below it, in each category page. The representative image should not overshadow the product images. Currently, the products don’t seem to appear at the eye level.

The top sellers, the related products and suggestions on the category pages are situated under different regions but they look quite scattered. These should be rearranged. If there appears to be a product that the customer previously bought from that category, that one must be prioritized.
The brands page must be arranged. All the logos of the brands must be shown alphabetically, in a way that the customer can click on them. On the brand pages, a special banner created for the brand should show, along with the brand’s products. “All of the Campaigns” page must be rearranged”. The campaigns should be demonstrated with representative images.

Membership operations must be gathered under the “My Account” page. Password should not be requested when the customer would like to update their membership. The membership information must be shown and an input box must appear when the customer would like to change their currently existing membership information. Otherwise, there shouldn’t be an input box.

Warning messages and their design should be modified. Eg: when we add a product to the cart via the Online Migroskop from Migros.com.tr, it redirects the customer to our website, however the warning below shows at the top of the page. If the customer sees this list without seeing the products on their cart, they will probably assume that they couldn’t add the product to the cart. This warning must only be shown when the customer would like to proceed to the payment page with a cart value under 65 TL.

The “take a look” pop-up that appears when hovered on the product visual should be eliminated. Also, the fact that the pop-up does not disappear when the customer adds the product to their cart via the pop-up is an issue. It must either go away, or a button indicating “keep shopping” should be added. When the customer adds the product to their cart from this screen, warnings such as “Log-in / Sign-up” appear. Subscription should be requested in order to add the product to the cart.

The main page should be simplified. It should be evaluated if the modules other than the mostly used “top sellers, products on sale, personalized campaigns, what is purchased the most at the moment” will be used by the customers or not.