SmartMart

These days people, generally, prefer going to supermarkets over local stores because they can get a large variety of products from different brands at one place. Being huge entities, they are able to provide customers with discounts almost all year long.

As it is a space which is regularly used by numerous people, we thought it would be a good opportunity to understand and better the experience at a supermarket.

Why we chose the supermarket?

Amongst other ideas, enhancing the experience of shopping at a super market was something we as a group looked forward to. We wanted to shorten the time it takes at the billing counter; help manage over-crowding and spillage of queues into aisles and make it easier for the customers to find what they are looking for.

We aim to make the experience of shopping at a supermarket convenient, fast and intuitive by cutting down on unneeded steps and making tasks easier with the aid of technology.

Identifying Problems and Opportunities through research

To understand the existing space and system of super-markets, we visited multiple stores and talked with employees and customers to understand how they used and perceived the space.

Customers usually visited the super-markets one or twice a month to do their grocery shopping.

There was a divided opinion regarding whether or not it is easy to locate products within the sort. Long time customers navigated the store with ease while some others found it difficult sometimes and complained about the products being placed at a new location.

Customers who didn’t visit often found it hard to navigate due to lack of proper, communicative and clear signage. Either signage was not present or not visible properly.

Customers also complained about misplaced labels, i.e. labels bearing the old prices or offers not being replaced with the updated information.

The common concern all the customers we talked to, was having to wait in the long queues, even more so on Sundays and festive holidays.

After our research we sat down and discussed the areas and opportunities we wanted to focus on. The first problem was the long queues. We realised that the actual act of scanning and billing isn’t long, but the act of taking out multiple products, putting them on the counter to scan and then putting them back again in bags was the real time-consuming process. Therefore, we tried to look at how we could reduce those steps and minimise the time consumed at billing counters. The solution that we developed was self-scanning wrist bands which customer would be provided. This is discussed in further detail later in the blog.

The other problem we wanted to address was the misplacement of product labels. We have attempted to solve this problem by replacing the printed labels with a digital panel which would be attached to the edges of all shelves. This will also be elaborated upon later.

Supermarket is a place which most people set aside time for. Hence, people will take a tour around the store and eventually find all the products they need to. Should they still have trouble, the staff is always there to help. Thus, navigating the store is a minor problem which can easily be solved by simple, visible and basic signage, should any user need it.

We weaved the individual solutions for each of the problems into a system. When a customer enters the supermarket, they will be handed the self-scanning band which scans the barcodes of the products they buy with the help of the digital panel. This will ensure that the band automatically scans the barcode when the customer picks it up, along with that it will solve the issue of misplacement of product labels, as mentioned above. The product will be added to the list to be billed later. If the customer wishes to put back the product, they can do so and the band will be scanned again to remove the product from their list. There will be weighing mats on each shelf so that if the customer takes two boxes of the same product and it scans only once the system understands it to be two products on the list. If a product is picked up but no band scans the barcode, a light beeping sound will play to prevent shoplifting. Another advantage of the weighing mat is that it will notify the employees when there is a need to restock a certain product.

At the billing counter, the customer simply needs to scan their band and pay the bill. This ensures a faster and more efficient billing and shopping process. The bands will be collected by the security guards at the exit and be put in the charging station.

Reaching the supermarket

The supermarket experience was not our first idea. We started off the process with online transactions and currency as our focus area. To research about the same, we went to vendors, rickshaw-walas, local stores and eateries, international brand stores and educational institutes. We also interviewed people from different age groups and professional and economic backgrounds.

The most interesting part about the research was going to the Blind People’s Association and observing how the visually impaired people handled transactions.

After understanding the people’s perspective, we tried to understand the various e-wallet apps by using them ourselves. Following this, we listed down the functions that we wanted to include in our new app as well as new ones we thought would enhance the experience.

Once we started the ideation process, we realised the existing apps already have a lot of functions and the new ones that we wanted to add were too scattered to be put into a system. This forced us to make the difficult decision of finding a new focus area.

By Anjni Shah, Palak Paun, Prajakta Kulkarni and Vashishtha Dubey