Mobile cataloguing app

Android mobile application to enable B2B sellers to sell their products on AJIO Business by uploading to the product catalogue.

AJIO Business

Context

Types of sellers : AJIO Business has both Marketplace Sellers (sellers who do not belong to Reliance Industries as well as Private Labels (Brands owned by Reliance).

Vendor management system : The primary tool that the sellers use to conduct their business with AJIO is the vendor management system or VMS. Apart from viewing and fulfilling orders, viewing their performance and payment information, sellers use the VMS to upload new products into the AJIO and AJIO Business catalogue.

AJIO Business Catalogue : Being a B2B system, AJIO Business sell products in predefined packs and pieces. The sellers are required to upload styles and create packs containing style, colour and size variants.

Go live on storefront : Once uploaded to the catalogue, the items are verified by two levels of QC before go live on storefront. Once a product goes live, it is visible on the AJIO Business storefront app and is available for retailers to purchase.

Intoduction

Problem Statement & Expected Business Impact

"Create an android mobile application that enables entry to mid-level sellers catalogue their products fast and without cluster team intervention"

Reduced time to go-live : Current cataloguing takes 10-15 days to complete, this is inconvenient for sellers who have a fast moving catalogue, refreshed on a weekly basis. The mobile app will have to reduce the time to go live considerably.

Increased cataloguing : Mobile app will increase the over all cataloguing by 10%-15%.

Project Plan

"The design process is divided into four parts, each part with different intents and outcomes related to each other"

Exploring the Problem Space

Problem Space

Open Questions

"Some of the open questions I had at the beginning of the project that needed to be clarifed "

Who are the users ? We have a lot of different kind of sellers from different clusters across the country. Each of these sellers have different requirements and usage patterns. A mobile app for cataloguing will not be helpful to all of them. In that case who are we designing for?

What do they do now ? How do these sellers upload products to the catalogue now?

What are the problems they face currently ? I needed to understand the pain points that the sellers face currently and haw a mobile app can solve for that.

Is a mobile app the right approach ? The cataloguing process is complex and required the sellers to enter a large amount of data. Is a mobile the right form factor when dealing with such an action and data intensive workflow?

Current Cataloguing Process

Target Group

"In order to find the right answers to the open questions I needed to pinpoint the user group that I needed to focus on. With multiple rounds of discussion with internal stakeholders, I was able to identify the primary attributes of the sellers to fall under the target group"

Price Point : Sellers operating in the entry to mid price point markets also known as D-Type sellers.

Catalogue refresh rate : Sellers catering to the fast fashion markets with a monthly catalogue refresh rate of <20. ie sellers who upload new styles once in two weeks to once a month with no more than 20 styles.

Cluster : The two markets that have the largest concentration of sellers satisfying both these criteria are the Metiabruz and Barabazaar markets.

"This information helped me direct my research effort in the right direction. I got in touch with cluster merchants (AJIO Business representatives responsible for handling sellers in a particular cluster) and sellers operating in the Metiabruz and Barabazaar area"

User Interview and Insights

"A discussion with the cluster managers were first conducted followed by conversation with the sellers to find out how they catalogue currently and problems they face"

Insight #1 : Most large sellers sellers their products not only on AJIO Business but also other B2B and B2C players like udaan, mesh, amazon, flip kart etc. Since they operate in scale, they generally employ data entry people to catalogue products. This is something that small sellers cannot afford to do.

Insight #2 : Most small sellers employ just a few craftsmen (3-4) and operate from a small workshop.

Insight #3 : Most sellers do not own a computer or they are not comfortable using a computer.

Insight #4 : Sellers who own a computer are sceptical in cataloguing themselves due to the complexity of the process.

Insight #5 : Current cataloguing for both these types of sellers is completely done by the cluster merchants which is not their actual job. This takes up a major chunk of their time.

Proto - Persona

"Basis the discussion with stakeholders, cluster mangers and sellers, I was able to create a proto-persona which I could use to map out the user journey and refer back to while making design decisions".

User Journey Map

"On testing the existing cataloguing process, the users were not able to move beyond the category selection. This is where they need to generate an excel sheet to enter their catalogue. Nearly all sellers believed working with excel sheets needed expert knowledge of operating a computer which none of them had."

Affinity Map

"The user journey map revealed recurring pain points across. I grouped these pain points together in twelve major points that needs to be addressed while designing a solution"

Pain Points

"The major pain points identified are"

Device : Lot of sellers do not own a computer or are not comfortable using one

Process : No way to let users visualise the the process to upload to catalogue

Existing Products : Users do not have any visibility of existing uploaded products. Only feed IDs do not convey any relevant information

Handholding : Cataloguing process is complex and users are not guided through it help them succeed

Excel Sheets : Most small sellers are not comfortable using excel sheets or can't afford to hire someone to enter data for them

Styles: Style creation requires entering multiple style attributes which seem tedious.

Variants : Creating colours and size variants of a style is confusing using excel sheets.

Image : Image upload is disconnected from styles leading to errors

Data Inputs : Due to the nature of excel sheets, there is no way to let users know if they have entered all relevant information. This leaded to errors and QC rejection which in turn increases the TAT to go live

Packs : Creating packs and adding variants is unintuitive and does not guide users on the types of possible configurations

QC Failure : Difficult to understand which styles and packs that have failed QC. Users need to download the excel sheet to view the details

Error Correction : Difficult to quickly correct errors identified in QC and re-upload leading to increased TAT

Actionables

"A list of points to keep in mind while designing the mobile app for cataloguing"

Enable small sellers to catalogue using mobile app

Set up clear expectations by telling users the steps to successfully upload products

Give users a view of the live and recently uploaded products

Design the architecture in a way that guides the users through the steps

Design an alternative to excel sheets while entering and connecting style and pack attributes

Divide complex tasks into smaller chunks that can be handled one at a time

Set up proper hierarchy of concepts like styles, variants and packs according to users mental model and connects them seamlessly

Let user upload style, variant and pack images directly

Design the tasks in a way that reduces the possibility of errors

Clearly show the status of recently uploaded products and prompt users to take action in case of errors.

Enable users to quickly identify and correct errors in data entered

Exploring the Solution Space

Solution Space

Constraints and Scope

"Before starting on the design solution I had detailed conversations with business and technology teams to understand the constraints. "

I needed to understand how the existing technology worked to create designs that could be properly supported by tech. I also needed to understand and prioritise business use-cases to decide what to include in the designs.

Device Constrains

Excel sheets allow for multiple styles to be uploaded together. This is something that cannot be done on a mobile device restricting only one style upload at a time.

Since users can only create one style at a time, they can only create packs of two configurations only ie single style multicolour and single style multi size.

Multi style packs cannot be created for now.

Business Constrains

We are going to focus only on small retailers from matiabruz and barabazaar markets

Sellers would upload one style at a time and roughly around 20 styles a month.

Technology Constrains

The system is designed around feed IDs. Each feed ID contains multiple styles and packs which can be in hundreds. With mobile, only one style can be added into a feed ID.

Style meta information except HSN code cannot be edited after upload. In case of errors, the entire style is rejected.

Manual QC errors are marked by QC associate at a variant level. Ie in case of errors variants are rejected and need to be corrected.

Comments from QC associates in case of errors cannot be shown at a data point level. They are shown only at the variant level.

Scope

The mobile app will only allow catalogue creation for now. All other features of the VMS will be incorporated later.

Multi style pack creation will be taken up later in phase 2.

Image cleanup and editing before upload to be taken up in phase 2

Re-Designed User Journey

"User journey for the three use-cases after considering the pain points, and constraints."

Use Case : Uploading new products to Catalogue

Use Case : View existing products in catalogue

Use Case : Status of newly uploaded products

Information Architecture

"Considering the tech proficiency of the target user group and the complexity of the cataloguing process, the architecture needs to be narrow and deep to enable hand holding. I mapped out the hierarchy to help visualise how the information should be presented to the users so that they can see, decide and make actions according to their needs".

Anchor 1

Wireframes

Use Case : Active Styles

Active Styles Tab

List of items that are already live on AJIO Business

Filter

Users can filter products by date uploaded, date updated and status in case of new uploads.

Page 1

View Next

Sort

Users can sort uploaded products by date uploaded and date updated

Use Case : Uploading new products to Catalogue

Step 1 - Entering Style Information

Add New Landing Page

Set the users expectation by telling them the steps involved in uploading products to catalogue.

Page 1

View Next

Selecting Categories

Users need to select the category of product they want to upload. The style attributes in the next step will be defined by their selection.

Style Information

The first step, by default is to enter style information of style meta data. Users either enter data into text fields or select from a drop down.

Step 2 - Enter Style Details

Add New Landing Page

If users "close" in the previous step, they get back to the add new landing page. They can see that step 1 is completed and can directly start step 2

Select Colour Options

Users need to select all the colour variants available for the style.

Page 1

View Next

Style Details

Users are required to enter style attributes like fabric, sleeve, collar etc depending on the category selected.

Form elements are unblocked sequentially as options for SKU and Images are dependent on colours and sizes selected.

Step 3 - Pack Creation & Product Upload

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Add New Landing Page

If users "close" in the previous step, they get back to the add new landing page. They can see that step 2 is completed and can directly start pack creation

Pack Creation

Users need to enter Pack SKU and Pack Name to define the pack after which they need to add variants to the pack and upload pack images.

Pack Variants

Colour and size variants have already been defined in step 2. Users need to select a colour-size variant and enter quantity for each.

Use Case : New Uploads and QC

New Uploads Tab

List of items that have been recently uploaded to catalogue and are yet to be approved by QC. Users can view the status of the item and drill down to view the reason for rejection.

Variant Rejected

Status of rejected variants are marked out along with remarks from QC team. The user is expected to correct the errors mentioned in the remark and re-upload.

Page 1

View Next

Variant Details

Users need to look at the remark and correct errors in data in one or more fields.

Iterations

Stakeholder Walkthrough

"After the wireframes were ready, I did multiple rounds of walkthrough with product, tech, business and catalogue teams. The outcome of these discussions are mentioned below."

Edge case and minor modifications : With tangible designs now present, the team was better able to point of edge cases that might occur. This helped in detailing out the designs.

Delegation to visual design : Give detailed design walkthrough (design decisions, intended information hierarchy, use-cases etc.) to the visual design team to help them begin visual design cleanup.

Brand Identity : Detailed discussion with marketing, visual design and business team to help define the brand identity of the product to ensure that it stand out as a product in the JIO product ecosystem.

Usability Testing & Iteration

"Usability testing with real users were postponed due to the rising number of cases in India. This is planned to be taken up at a later stage when conditions are favourable. For now we plan to launch the app and gather insights through quantitative data."

The way forward