E-commerce
Client
Mammapack
Website
mammapack.com
Role
Ux Researcher - Ux Designer - Ui Designer
Timeline
6 months
Agency
Cookie Media Agency
case 2.
Mammapack is an e-commerce business that resulted from a simple yet ingenious idea:a real Italian supermarket for Italians living abroad.The project emerged from the idea of two young Italian entrepreneurs residing abroad who, like thousands of other Italians, are still tied to the culture and culinary traditions of Italy.Currently the store offers over 10,000 products with delivery to 21 countries.
Il cliente fin dai primi mesi del 2018 ha testato l’interesse del mercato attraverso un minimum viable product
The online Food & Grocery market is relatively young and still not fully developed (1.1% of the total value of retail purchases made by Italian consumers, 2019) with potential buyers not yet embracing the concept of buying groceries online. As a designer, the main problem was providing an interface with a high visual impact, shaped to the needs of the identified target, able to positively stimulate users through a fully immersive buying experience.
Offering an absolutely unique yet simple and easily accessible experience, tied to Italian culture, specifically the one known by those born in the ‘80s and ‘90s, who represent the highest percentage of Italians residing abroad, through constant references to television shows, movies and comics.
Offering a product classification system that resembles, with a few necessary adjustments, the shelves of an Italian supermarket, and finding the right balance between a correct semantic organization of all necessary information and an innovative product search experience.
Research & Analysis :
Interviews
Quantitative data analysis
Wireframing:
Iterating & Testing
High fidelity prototype :
Iterating & Testing
Development:
Iterating & Testing
Team
1 Project Manager
1 Ux Designers
2 Software Developers
1 Copywriter
1 Social Media Strategist
In addition to being necessary in order to acquire a correct comprehension of the business model, the interviews with the two stockholders also helped us identify and define valuable proposals.
All research was focused on how to organize information and expand the rationale behind the buying process.
Discovery Phase
The database in our possession consisted of a basic online community created on Facebook by the client itself in the six months prior to the start of our activity.
Targeted strategic contents had in fact created a strong sense of “anticipation”.
Based on those choices, we created a minimum viable product as the next step for initial testing.
Comparative Phase
The enormous quantity of products available for sale raised problems related to the organization of all related information.
We proposed two surveys with a dual objective:
first of all, identify the most wanted and most difficult products to find abroad;
then find clues that would guide us towards a correct interpretation of the mental model that would statistically help us optimize product organization.
What is your age bracket?
Sex
What country do you live in?
Do you miss the opportunity to buy Italian products?
Do you regularly buy Italian products?
Do you regularly find your favorite brands?
Would you buy Italian grocery products online?
When shopping in our online store, how would you like the products to be arranged? (more than one answer is possible)
Which of these Italian product categories would you like to buy but have difficulties finding abroad:
If you had to select a product from a specific category, how would you like to go about it?
If you had the opportunity to buy the product you want in bulk (5/10/20 pieces) at a convenient price, would you do it?
70% of surveyed individuals would prefer a product classification “by shelf”.
In other words, a classification similar to the one of a physical supermarket: this case too shows a preference for a one-dimensional taxonomic system.
La stessa percentuale immagina una classificazione orientata a quella di un supermercato fisico: anche in questo caso prevale uno schema tassonomico, mono dimensionale.
73% of surveyed individuals would buy baby products, and specifically:
Food
Hygiene products
This shows the need to apply a multi-hierarchical system to the main menu in order to satisfy said specific request and make the search more flexible.
40% of surveyed individuals would buy a pre-packaged box of items to fill specific needs,
such as refilling a category of products (pasta for example).
The surveys were conducted directly on the Facebook Mammapack Community, by using Google Forms.
Based on the results, we developed diagrams reflecting the leading mental models that had been identified through our research and we used them to immediately optimize several aspects of the business.
Mental models
The first diagram clearly shows a net preference for searching products by brand. Said preference also influenced homepage organization, as described below.
Tale necessità ha influenzato anche il sezionamento della home, come descritto in seguito.
The second diagram interestingly shows a trend inversion in user expectations related to the product selection process.In this case, users seem to prefer locating the recommended products by category rather than by brand.
The structure of the main menu is based on a multi-hierarchical taxonomic system, whose main category labels are representatives of the tone of voice chosen for Mammapack.
Furthermore, the use of emoji for each main category makes the organizational structure easier to understand in a quite original way.
Food
Did you eat? ▾
Drink
Mugs and Glasses ▾
Health & Beauty
Rub-A-Dub-Dub ▾
Household
Spick and Span ▾
Baby
9 months later ▾
Box
11 boxes shipped in 24 hours ▾
At this point, the hover selector will open the sub-categories in the form of standard categories.
Restructuring the home page required constant engagement and effort.
Many different solutions were available to us.
The huge quantity of products (over 10,000) required the creation of a section dedicated to the most popular brands.
The survey conducted previously, during the research phase of the project, provided the first useful data to filter products based on user selection.
sezionamento home page
During the first Minimum Viable Product tests, two pieces of information were absolutely useful to understand the needs of the community users:
Based on this information and to make the shopping experience more interesting, we have devised a dual purchasing approach, which we called “by pallet”. Said purchasing approach entails a discount program based on a minimum quantity ordered, which is flexible at first, and then set at 6 for all products.
Please note the two purchasing methods: Classico → add to cart
“By pallet” → buy “no. of products” and receive “x discount”
The first homepage wireframe is the result of analysis and prior collaboration among the parties.
The prototype, created with Adobe XD, has allowed us to fully appreciate the high-emotional impact interface, so strongly desired by the stockholders, which we combined with a copy strategy that could induce a wistful feeling of homesickness and in turn create a sense of belonging.
+ 7,500 customers
Revenues of 900,000 euro
+ 9000 ordini
From the very beginning, Mammapack appeared as a stimulating idea both analytically and creatively.
The trickiest part was definitely defining its information architecture, which in fact represented the core of the research phase.
The large quantity of products and categories contributed to the problem.
The surveys and interaction generated within the community proved helpful.
The ability to use all available “sources” and fully engage them is probably the most important lesson I learned from this project. Although it might seem trivial, I would like to highlight an aspect that I have always considered very important during the design phase. Always pay great attention to cognitive biases.
Mammapack is a project in which Italian values and culture are enormously amplified.That is why successfully balancing reason and emotions when making design choices was neither easy nor obvious.