Designing the shopping experience for Large Appliances
Users show different shopping behavior in every category. The way one buys clothes is very different than how one buys electronics. The older Flipkart shopping experience had a one-size-fits-all approach which offered the same experience for everything we sold — books, clothes, or electronics.
Naturally, this did not prove to be the best design for the Category business teams or users. Being the largest GMV drivers for the company, the Mobile phones and Large Appliances experience had to reflect the way users make their choices and buying decisions. We also had to enable the business teams to sell value-added-services such as warranties, installation services.
We revamped the user experience design for Mobile Phones and Large appliances categories with a similar approach, mainly because both were specification heavy. Users do a lot of research and many of them also compare their shopping experience with offline retail shops. In this article, we describe the chosen design approach to redefine the shopping experience for the Large Appliances customer.
Research to understand the customer
We had data from our Analytics team about the customer trends on Flipkart. In addition, the product and design teams needed a peek into how users purchased large appliances. Offline stores were direct competitors in the Large Appliances category. Our counterparts from the business teams got us permission to visit a few stores of a big Bangalore-based large appliances chain.
At the stores, we were in observation mode all the time. The salesman told us that the rush started on Friday afternoon all the way to Sunday night. Here are some wonderful insights from the research –
- Multiple Opinions before a Decision 👨👩👧👦 – Customers usually don’t visit the store alone. Buying large appliances is usually not a one-person decision.
- Customers need help with choices 🧞♂️ — The salesman first asks about the appliance they are looking for. Some customers know exactly what they want. Some just say that they’re there to buy a TV. And based on the answer, the salesman follows up questions about favorite brands and the size of the TV the customer is looking for.
- Selling Price and Brand matter a lot 🏷 — The brand and price of the products are displayed in big font in the shop. If the salesman shows any products way out of the customer’s budget, the customer calls it out immediately.
- Warranty and Originality important 👍 — If the customer mentions online options, the salesman usually warns them about fakes and problems in brand warranty and support. Trust is a major driver to be skeptical about e-commerce.
- Offers attract attention 🎁 — Salesmen use limited-time offers, service/repair vouchers, and freebies to close the sale.
After these sessions, we also called around 100 of our existing customers to understand their buying behavior. Over 60% of those users didn’t even visit offline stores before making their decision. They loved the price and convenience that Flipkart offered.
So, why are customers buying large appliances online rather than offline?
The online user is in control of her decisions much more than an offline user whose decisions are partially influenced by the accompanying people or the salesperson.
Much bigger selection – There are more products online, for the user to choose from, and to make choices, than a retail store which has space constraints.
Good product deals – With several sellers in a similar sector showcasing their products online, the user gets a better deal with the online purchase than an offline sale.
The Decision Makers
Trust
Earlier, most people didn’t upgrade their large appliances often. These were at least 5 to 7-year purchases. A few years ago, many people would tell you they’ve owned their TV for 15 years! The upgrade could be a collective decision after months of arguments, or change in family size, or extra income because of annual bonuses, or if the appliance is beyond repair.
Even today, most customers have an affinity towards big brands — because of warranty and wide reach of service. It’s important to call out that this trend is slightly changing. Customers are becoming more sensitive towards price, and about fast-changing technology. You can see this with the immense popularity of cost-effective, non-flagship brands.
There are many more brands now. Some customers do their research online, ask other people who they trust as knowledgeable, or have made similar purchases in the recent past. In an offline store, the salesperson may act as this expert. This behavior is not different online as ratings and reviews of products and services aid in social validation.
Trust about service and repairs after the purchase is also important for customers.
Exchange
Large appliances occupy a lot of space in people’s houses. The old appliance has to make way for the new one. Hence Product Exchange becomes a major decision maker during these purchases.
Delivery and Installation
Many of these appliances are not plug-and-play. Customers need installation and some kind of demo of these products. The speed of delivery and installation is not a decision maker, but customers like to be delighted here. Especially when people are buying large appliances online, they want to get the delivery sooner as they feel the longer it takes, the chances of damage during transit are higher. Also, installation should be as soon as the delivery happens — as the customers would be eager to use their new purchase; No one likes a big brown box just standing in their homes.
Affordability
As mentioned earlier, customers are price sensitive. Large appliances are usually high-value purchases. For a lot of customers, the budget is a constraint. The EMI mode of payment is a major breather for customers. Offline stores have stalls of their finance partners who give EMIs at 0% interest. Flipkart also offers EMIs, and this was a major decision maker in this category. I’ve described this in my blog about EMIs.
Before the Design
We had all the information from the research and the calls, and understood the main decision makers of the customer.
We observed that most of our customers —
- Shop on a mobile device.
- Need help with which product to buy in the absence of a salesman.
- Are not very savvy about the technical product descriptions.
Components of the Design
Here’s the typical user flow on Flipkart. A user –
- Searches for a keyword
- Navigates from the hamburger menu
- Taps on a merchandising unit like a banner
She would then land on a Category Landing Page — which is usually a page full of more merchandising units that try to gauge what she is looking for. Every unit leads to a browse page which has a list of products. From there, she can choose a product and see more details.
Based on our findings, we had to design many of these components for the large appliances customer. We also designed some new pages and components to educate users and help them decide on the product to buy.
Buying Guides & Product Finder
To help customers understand technical specifications, we built a Buying Guide. This helped users understand the parameters they need to consider before buying a large appliance. Here’s the TV Buying Guide on Flipkart.
We also created a product finder widget. It asks these questions, like a salesperson, and helps users to shortlist.
Browse Page
As the product image is not the primary factor to buy a large appliance, we displayed results in a list view.
Here’s what the customer needs to know to decide on a product –
- Product title — Well, large appliances don’t really have a name like mobile phones but have a lot of product specifications. This is important for people who key in the model name they’ve researched online or offline.
- Price — Flipkart shows the listing price, and the MRP struck through with the percentage offer.
- Exchange, EMI — Research showed us that these are two of the most important factors to decide on a product. These affect the price directly, so we showed these keywords near the price.
- Key Specs — We show 5–6 key specifications of the product that the customer can see and quickly compare with other products on the page.
- #OnlyOnFlipkart — This was business critical information that called out products that were exclusively sold on our platform.
- The Flipkart Assured tag — Another business critical information that gives assurance to the customer about product and fulfillment.
We also designed the Compare feature, which was a feature long due on mobile screens. This was crucial in helping people decide the product.
If the user keeps scrolling this page without being able to decide on any product, then we should help her filter and shortlist. We made widgets that appeared after every few product listings to help users filter results.
Based on our research, we also showed tips and testimonials in the browse page. These also helped to break visual monotony.
Product Page
Images aren’t very important in this category, so we defined its dimensions to accommodate the tall products (like refrigerators) and wide products (like TVs). A lot of brands make useful launch videos for their products. Hence, we kept thumbnails for better discovery of these videos. (Later, we also found out that users who watched these videos were more likely to buy).
After the product name, we mention its rating based on the score given by the buyers of this product. Ratings and reviews majorly influence the buying decision.
Price has always been a decision maker for Flipkart users — so although we show it in the browse page, we designed the page in a way it comes in the first fold itself. Customers look for bargains, bank offers, freebies even in the brick and mortar stores for such high-value items. Offers take the highest priority.
Key Call-outs
From the research, we had identified the decision makers for this category. Hence, we wanted to have these key call-outs — Delivery, Affordability, and Exchange — right up there. We muted these slightly on the display page, but they still stood out from the rest of the content. We even made them tappable, leading to a page with details, in a later release.
Since trust was also a decision maker, we put the brand logo and warranty information to act as a trust marker.
Delivery & Installation
The installation service is a unique but prime feature to categories like Large Appliances and Furniture. The installation date with the cost had to be clear and flexible.
Payment Options
As we know, EMI is a big decision maker in this category. This card takes users to a page with the EMI plans based on your bank (or other instruments like an NBFC). Cash on Delivery is also present on the card for those customers preferring Cash on Delivery.
Product Description & Specifications
Specifications are very important in these mobiles and large appliances. Brands create a lot of content about their products to call out the salient features. These are a digital version of banners and pamphlets we see at a lot of stores where the technical specifications and features are simplified.
The card on the product page calls out the key specifications.
User reviews
Flipkart gets a lot of ratings and reviews on the products it sells. These are important for customers when they make buying decisions. As going through a lot of reviews can prove cumbersome, we created aspect-level ratings to help customers dive into the reviews for criteria specific to them.
Ratings and reviews provide social validation for users and are one of the major advantages of online shopping over the offline world. To help customers in this category see how fulfillment and service fare in their location, we are working on filtering reviews by location.
Cross-selling
There are digital value-added services that the customers can purchase such as an extended warranty. For a country like India, where there is a lot of fluctuation in electricity, a lot of electricians recommend customers to buy voltage stabilizers. This widget enables us to cross-sell these.
Content
Just the experience revamp, without a content revamp, wouldn’t be as effective and helpful for the users or business.
Gauging the technical understanding of users was tricky. We reworked the catalog being uploaded by many 3rd party sellers. The business teams here took on the challenge — and worked with the Catalog team on including explanations for terms such as “Refresh Rate”, “Spin Speed”.
We also had to be careful about the length of the text. Our research shows that our customers just don’t read blocks of text. Besides, our customers do not love to read long paragraphs of technical English text. Our designers defined character limits for some sections with the catalog team, and for some others, defined truncation behavior in the UI.
Post Purchase Experience
After the user has placed the order, on the order confirmation page, we ask for the date and time slot when we could deliver the order. This was important — you don’t want your delivery team to climb up the staircase with a heavy appliance — only to find a locked house.
The user experience is never complete if the offline experience does not complement it well. Our supply chain teams work hard to deliver the product to customers within 48 hours of the order! This is very important to compete with the buying experience in brick and mortar stores.
Next Steps
Flipkart is in constant pursuit of improving the shopping experience of customers. We are working to help them shortlist and decide on the right product at the best price.
We’re also focussing on helping customers get insurance for their purchase and upgrade to their next appliance at the best exchange price. We can improve the predictability of delivery, installation, and post-purchase services too.
We would love to hear about your experience of buying a large appliance (online or offline) and see if our design resonates with you.
