Background
The coronavirus pandemic has upended life as we knew it and has also changed how our customers shop, with many American families sheltering in place and relying heavily on online deliveries. Our mission to save our customers time and money in order to allow them to live better rings true now more than ever.
Express Delivery is now a business priority. With Amazon Fresh, Instacart and other competitors offering 1-hour delivery, we want to build upon our recent momentum with new online grocery customers and offer a compelling express delivery option as a complement to regular delivery.
This project is to redesign Express Delivery to increase discoverability, understandability, and utilization of the feature.
Customer context: “Oh no! We’re missing a key ingredient.”
THE PROBLEM
Express Delivery is not well promoted and explained.
In the existing design, Express Delivery can’t be found on the pre-checkout book slot page, where the majority of customers actually reserve a time. It is also not well explained across the order placing flow.
THE GOAL
To drive the discoverability of Express and provide customers with more transparency around the fee.
We would like the ability to better promote Express as an option to the customers in the basket building journey. This will help drive our business goals of number of Express orders, as well as customer experience goals around providing transparency as up funnel as possible to the customer that they can get their items ASAP via this offerring.
MY ROLE
Product designer
TIMELINE
Apr - May 2020
TYPE
Web and mobile application
THE CHALLENGE
New features need to be designed and launched in 3 sprints (6 weeks).
There are two flows to reserve a time slot: from Cart (during checkout) or from Home (pre-checkout). For Express Delivery, we would like the customer to check out ASAP, and Customers will only see Express time slots during checkout when they have at least $30 items in the cart.
User flow 1: Reserve a time from Cart
However, because of COVID-19, time slots are always fully booked and customers intended to book it first, before checkout. 67% of customers actually reserve a time in this way, and they will not see Express on the book slot page.
User flow 2: Reserve a time from Home (pre-checkout)
In addition to the lack of discoverability of Express Delivery, there are more pain points and opportunities across the flow. Based on the impact to customers, we came up with some new features as solutions to the pain points.
Solutions/features
Improve discoverability
Split Express and standard delivery fees in book slot page
Amend order
Upsell Express delivery
Ideate
On the page of reserve a time, I created different options to introduce Express Delivery to first time customers, with a clear way to indicate the price difference between Express and standard delivery.
To add more discoverability, I tried to add label/illustration/background to highlight the Express time slot.
Illustration
To visually represent the idea and tell the story of Express Delivery, I worked with an illustrator to create customized illustrations for the feature. We tried to add images of pickup/delivery related items to help customers understand the message quickly.
New Features
Homepage banner to marketing landing page:
Make entry point on Homepage more actionable to allow customer to start their Express order
Ensure "fine print" around Express hours is discoverable
Ability to book Express slot up-funnel (on book slot page):
Qualified for Express (have more than $30 in cart): highlight Express time slot and split Express fee from standard delivery fee
Not qualified for Express (have less than $30 in cart): provide messages and keep shopping link
Messages to customers after selecting Express slot:
Pop-up modal: Express time slot is not editable
Alert message on Review Order: The order need to be completed ASAP to get Express delivery
Upsell customers who book a standard slot to an Express slot:
Evaluate upsell opportunities for Express E2E to ensure we balance business goals & delight for our customers
This was a feature that only existed on Web in the legacy version of Express, that we added to apps as well
Ability to reschedule from a standard delivery order to an Express order:
Allow customer to reschedule from a standard delivery order to an Express order
Communicate price delta in new slot
Validate
For this study, 6 Walmart online grocery pickup and delivery customers were presented with a prototype in an unmoderated user test. The goal was to evaluate discoverability, understandability, and reaction to the offer and flow.
RESULTS
FINDINGS
The banner and messages about Express Delivery are discoverable, understandable and piques interest.
Almost all understood that Express Delivery would deliver their items within 2 hours and that there was a $30 minimum.
The $30 minimum requirement was clear and even expected.
But only a few initially understood that the order could not be edited once submitted. Not being able to edit the order once submitted made sense to participants once they saw it a second time when prompted either in the popup or in “learn more.” Some clicked through it quickly or did not read it on “learn more” where it appears at the bottom on the first go around.
All the participants could easily imagine situations, where Express Delivery could be helpful and described scenarios where they needed something urgently and not having that item, would disrupt their plans.
Participants were appreciative about having an express delivery option, but for most, it felt pricey and a few customers expressed having a problem with the $30 minimum.
There were some points of confusion on the first “Reserve a Time” screen:
- The majority of participants initially mistook 6pm-7pm & 7pm-8pm to be Express Delivery slots whether or not they had seen their cart amount of $17.07 and thought $7.95 was the total express delivery fee.
- For the few who did not see the cart amount, they did not connect the $30 minimum requirement message with their cart amount.
- Although most saw the “$30 min and Keep Shopping,” only one used the “keep shopping” link. Most used the “x” to continue even when they were looking to add items.
Customer Response
In ~6 weeks, the team built 5 net new features to drive discoverability & usability, and launched 2,099 stores with Express Delivery.
Express orders make up ~9% of delivery order volume
Express baskets are smaller (~$75, 25 items)
Basket composition over-indexes towards non-Grocery / GM items, indicating a "Prime Now" use case
~30% of Express customers are new to OG and trend younger (<34 years old)
“Wow! First time using delivery. Ordered Express 2 hour delivery and my order arrived 50 minutes later! Amazing! Mark was very friendly as well!”
““I did the new Express Delivery and it was great. My order arrived in just over an hour. All my bags were tied shut and my subs clearly marked..””
“I used Express and had my groceries within an hour. You all are the best. Keep up the good work.”
