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Environmental Sustainability in the UK’s Retail E-commerce

Project overview

The project is done in collaboration with the Business Innovation Team at Tata Consultancy Services, UK and Ireland. In this project, I have looked at the FMCG retail e-commerce in the United Kingdom through the lens of environmental sustainability.

My role

For my final year capstone project spanning six months, I embarked on an inquiry aligned with the theme provided by TCS. This involved comprehensive primary and secondary research, followed by an in-depth analysis and synthesis of the findings. Subsequently, I conceptualized and developed the complete UX and UI for a proposed feature, testing it with a select group of users.

Background and Context

Context

The global e-commerce industry is rapidly expanding, a growth further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This surge led to significant market changes, including shifts in consumer behavior, notably towards ethical consumption focusing on environmental sustainability and necessity-driven purchasing.

Design intent

The objective was to understand the market trends in the United Kingdom to identify the opportunity areas for a design intervention to make the e-commerce environmentally sustainable. Through this project I want to:

Understand the UK’s FMCG market trends and various stakeholders involved
Educate myself about what environmental sustainability means in the context of e-commerce
Know the challenges around offering sustainable goods and services
Identify gaps and opportunities areas
Design solution for identified gap/s such that it helps users take environmental friendly decisions

Proposed solution

A " Community Shopping" feature for mobile applications that will enable users to exchange goods within the community/area. It will also allow them to group their home deliveries with other deliveries in an area.

Design Process

Human centered approach was taken using the “Double Diamond” framework to discover, define and solve the issue at hand. The process has been made participatory in nature by involving different stakeholders wherever possible.

Empathize & Discover

Define

Ideation

Prototype

Test & Refine

Market research

Secondary research

Primary research

Stakeholder Interviews

Insight formation

Experience map

Persona

Defining problem statement

HMWs

Brainstorming and brain-dumping

Userflows

Usability tests

Wireframes

Changes

Dot Voting

User stories

Scenario building

User journey map

Ideation

Empathize & Discover

Literature review

The context, clients, latest trends and consumers behavior were thoroughly studied. Meaning of sustainability in e-commerce with the help of existing studies was understood.

Secondary research was done in this phase to understand the domain and narrow down.

Steps in a retail flow and the activities performed.
Yellow shows the e-commerce flow

Experience Mapping

On the basis of knowledge gained with secondary research, I created an experience map. From awareness to post usage phase, an experience map shows the overall journey of a consumer. It also maps all the business entities involved at each step of the journey and the role they play.

Experience Map

Key findings (from literature review)

Packaging

Many innovations are taking place around packaging, yet it is one of the major challenges faced in e-commerce. To keep goods safe and protected, sometimes excessive packaging is used. There is a lack of information about waste segregation and disposal

Last mile Deliveries

There are many issues in Last Mile Deliveries. Businesses are struggling to optimize their deliveries as it is one of the most expensive part in the whole supply chain. Some even run at losses. When it comes to consumers, they are struggling to get desired delivery slots and at economic prices

Food Waste

All FMCG and grocery retail businesses are struggling with the problem of food wastage. UK households waste tonnes of food every year, the most popular reason is due to not being used in time. The amount of carbon released due to food waste by UK households equals to carbon generated by one in five cars in the UK.

Price Sensitivity

Consumers have become extremely price sensitive while shopping and due to this people have started exploring new stores which provide products at more economic prices.

Transparency

There is a lack of transparency in the system. Not only consumers, but other stakeholders involved in the system also face this challenge. Since the system is so huge and there are various sources of information, it is difficult to keep a track and then provide proper information to others.

Supply Chain

Supply chain management is one of the issues that businesses are still trying to solve. From increasing and fluctuating demands to inventory management, supply chains need much investment.

One of the key highlights from secondary research is the Last Mile Delivery. This is the phase where goods/services reach the consumers. With the number of increasing online orders, flexible delivery options are in demand. Last Mile Delivery is considered one of the most important parts of the supply chain and the most expensive one.It is affected by many factors, such as:

Problems related to Last Mile Deliveries (LMD)

How might Last Mile Deliveries for Grocery e-Commerce in the UK be more Environmentally Sustainable?

Primary Research

An e-commerce ecosystem comprises many stakeholders so it was important to prioritize in order to conduct primary research. Keeping a focus on the Last Mile Delivery system, Stakeholder Analysis framework was used for prioritization.

Problems related to Last Mile Deliveries (LMD)

To dive deeper, stakeholder interviews were conducted with the people who agreed to help me with my research. Three types of stakeholders were interviewed - Consumers, Delivery Partners and Business Relationship Managers (BRM)

User Interviews

Key findings from Primary Research

Insights were formed based on the information gathered from interviews of each stakeholder group. Based on these insights, themes were identified within each group and across groups.

Consumer Insights

Delivery Partner Insights

Business Insights

Theme for Consumers

Availability of delivery slots is an issue
Word of mouth is the most effective an common way to trust a brand
People want to feel a part of community and know about their contribution
People purchase undesired products to avoid confusion on availability of a product
Application of delivery charges plays an important role in shopping decisions
There is a gap between aspiration to take action vs. availability of options
Lack of motivation for consumers to adopt sustainable practices

Theme for Business Relationship Manager

Technology is used extensively for sustainable solutions/services
There are multiple channels for information regarding deliveries and its scattered. There is no specific system in place

How Might We questions were asked based on the identified themes

How might we increase the availability of delivery slots and reduce the struggle to get one?

How might we make consumers feel as a part of society to motivate them to take environment friendly decisions?

How might we help consumers in better management of their waste and be informed about it?

How might we use technology to optimize the deliveries?

How might information be collected to generate combined reports of sales through every platform?

The How Might We questions were analysed based on the criteria - Will solving the chosen problem make LMD more environmentally sustainable? Will creating an impactful solution be possible within the given timeframe? Who will be most impacted by it? Will stakeholders be easily accessible in case needed to contact?

After analysis, the need of a solution for consumers was identified, catering to their needs in such a way that it makes Last Mile Deliveries environmentally sustainable

Ideation

To build any solution for a set of audience, it is important to get into their shoes and see the world around. User persona is a tool which enables that.

Persona 1

Persona 2

Ideation was done with an intention to answer the HMW questions. Though the ideas were for the consumers’, I made sure that business and delivery partner’s point of views were kept under consideration.
For each idea proposed, benefits for consumers and business were noted along with the research findings on which the ideas were based on. Ideas were selected by Dot Voting

Ideation

Ideas were first selected and then prioritized. As the business innovation team of the company, the most important thing is to come up with innovative solutions. Ideas were selected on the basis of:

They should be original
They should justify the research.
They should be doable in the given timeframe.
Should be interesting enough to convince the client.

Prioritization of the ideas was done using the COCD - box.

COCD - Box for idea priortization

The two final ideas are:

Idea 1. Community Shopping feature that would allow people to exchange groceries within an area.

Idea 2. Inform users about other deliveries in the area and allow them to merge.

Conceptualization

Next step was to build the concept from the selected ideas. This process had several steps involved.

Steps involved in conceptualization

I built several user stories which were then prioritized using the MoSCoW method. This helped in identifying the “Must have”, “Should have”, “Could have” and “Won’t have” features for the solution and defining the functionality & features of the solution.

User stories and prioritization using MoSCoW

After deciding the functionality, the next step was to identify the gaps in the proposed solution. Scenarios were created keeping the user stories and personas in mind. For the scenario created, User Journey was mapped which helped in identifying the gaps and areas of improvement in the proposed solution.

User Journey Map

Final Concept

Considering the finalized ideas, a “Community Shopping” feature has been proposed. The aim was to design a solution that can be incorporated in any existing e-commerce application and can be sold to the clients of the company. The feature has two main functionalities:

Exchanging food within a community/area for thoughtful consumption and unbinnig. (part 1)
Informing users about other deliveries in area and getting group home deliveries. (part 2)

Shown below are the steps involved in existing e-commerce platforms.

Final concept - Part 1

Enabling users to exchange products within the community/area

A registered user can exchange the extra products with other people living in the community. This will enable better utilization of available resources to reduce waste. A user can upload products on the app by scanning the bar-code or adding Unique Product Code (UPC) which will be visible to other community members once approved by company. People can choose to sell it or give it for free. The visibility of the products will depend on the address and area code entered by consumers.

User Scenarios

a) Adding a product to the e-Commerce platform

User flow for adding a product to the platform for sharing it with community members

Features and Visual Design

Home Page - services

Showing the feature upfront on home page along with other services provided by any

e-commerce website/ app

Community shopping

Home page for Community Shopping service. Users can view products available in their area and add more products

Adding a product

Option to add a product. Empty state when a product is not added for information

Step 1: Scanning product

To upload a product for selling, users need to either scan the barcode or add UPC manually

Step 2: Add product images

Users will have to add at least 3 images of the product following the instructions shown for each image.

Step 3: Product description

Users will have to add a description about the product as shown in the screen above. Seller can charge the amount decided by the company once the barcode is scanned.

Step 4: Delivery details

User can add delivery options and details. For privacy reasons, a landmark cab be added instead of home address for pick-up.

Review and upload

User can review how the page would look and upload it

You can view the FIGMA Prototype here

b) Picking up a product from community member

Benefits for Consumers

Avoid/reduce food wastage by bridging the gap between customer and consumer
Connect people, giving them a sense of community - As observed from primary research, people want to get involved at a community level and want to know about the impact of the contribution made by them. This covers the social aspect of sustainability
Monetary benefit - A user get an option to earn the money back for the product not being used. This can motivate people to use this service.
Increased knowledge about the contribution made - To make consumers more aware not just about how they can help in saving environment but also about their contribution

Benefits for Business

Quantifiable efforts for environmental sustainability - To get more investors based on ESG framework, it is important to show the proof of how any initiative has created an impact. Through this solution, businesses can quantify the impact.
Increased customer base and loyalty - Customers even if they don't want to shop, would use this service when needed. This will increase the customer base and more people would try this.
More Inclusive - This makes the overall online shopping experience more inclusive by involving consumers in it.

Final concept - Part 2

Informing users about other deliveries in the area and giving them an option to merge

Through this solution, any user who is placing an order and booking a slot for delivery will be notified about other deliveries in the area. They will be given an option to choose individual delivery slot or book a delivery with other people in the area. Users can join this group either once or can subscribe for it. Based on the number of people getting a delivery in that particular group, delivery charges will be divided. Delivery group is a bunch of orders delivered together. There will be no information shared with people other than number of people in a group and number of deliveries at a time. There will be no provision for people to contact or to know about others in any way.