Designing Grocery shopping experience

User Analysis

To gain a deeper understanding of user behavior and pain points, we conducted extensive research using:

• Surveys and social media feedback to collect direct insights from users on frustrations and expectations.

• Data analysis to track browsing patterns, conversion rates, and interaction bottlenecks.

• Usability testing to observe real user interactions and uncover usability challenges affecting the shopping experience.

Usability testing approach

To validate our findings and explore usability challenges in-depth, we conducted a series of in-person usability tests at Centro Lame in Bologna with 10 participants (7 women and 3 men), all regular Coop customers who had never used EasyCoop before.

Participants were asked to complete a series of real-world shopping tasks, including:

• Browsing the platform and searching for products on offer

• Adding items to the cart and modifying selections

• Setting delivery preferences (day and time)

• Searching for frequently purchased products

• Using filters to refine product searches

• Proceeding through the checkout process

Observing how users interacted with the platform in a controlled environment allowed us to identify friction points, usability challenges, and opportunities for improvement.

Key findings

Our research highlighted several critical pain points that impacted the mobile shopping experience:

• Navigation inefficiencies: Many users struggled to progress through the shopping funnel, with 75% of new visitors landing on the homepage but failing to explore deeper into the site.

• Challenging product discovery: Only 35% of searches were conducted on mobile, and search-related exit rates were significantly higher than on desktop. However, when mobile users searched, they were more likely to add products to their cart, indicating that an improved search experience could enhance conversions.

• Unintuitive filtering system: Product categories were too broad, requiring users to browse multiple pages to find relevant items.

• Checkout and pricing confusion: Many users struggled with the application of discounts and vouchers, leading to frustration and abandoned purchases.

• Cart instability: Customers reported issues with the shopping cart, including items disappearing after leaving the session, causing hesitation in completing orders.

These insights provided a clear direction for our design approach, allowing us to prioritize key improvements in navigation, product search, checkout experience, and cart management to create a frictionless mobile shopping journey.

From research to Personas

To further refine our design decisions, we translated our research findings into detailed user personas that represented different customer segments. These personas played a crucial role in defining key user needs and frustrations, ensuring that our solutions directly addressed real pain points. They provided a clear framework for decision-making, aligning stakeholders around user-centric priorities and maintaining consistency in design and communication strategies. By grounding our approach in data-driven personas, we ensured that the new EasyCoop mobile experience was not only intuitive and efficient but also tailored to real user behaviors and expectations.

The context

EasyCoop, a leading online grocery shopping platform, had an established desktop experience but lacked a dedicated mobile application. With 65% of users accessing the platform via smartphones or tablets, there was a clear need to provide a seamless and optimized shopping experience for mobile users.

The goal of this project was to design a mobile app that would offer a faster, more intuitive, and engaging experience, ensuring customers could browse, search, and complete their purchases effortlessly. By leveraging insights from user research and data analysis, we aimed to develop a solution that not only adapted the existing web functionalities for mobile but also introduced new features tailored to on-the-go shopping behavior.

Benchmark

To ensure the EasyCoop mobile app met industry standards and provided a best-in-class shopping experience, we conducted a comprehensive competitive analysis of global grocery and e-commerce platforms, including Amazon, Esselunga, Waitrose, Walmart, Walmart Grocery, and Group Casino.

The benchmark focused on identifying trends, best practices, and key functionalities that could enhance the user experience. We analyzed multiple aspects of each platform, including:

• Homepage: Entry points, promotions, and personalization.

• Login & account management: User authentication flows and frictionless sign-in methods.

• Product catalog: Organization, navigation patterns, and product page structures.

• Search experience: Search engine capabilities, filtering mechanisms, and predictive suggestions.

• Filtering & sorting options: Efficiency in refining product discovery.

• Cart & checkout process: Seamless order finalization, payment options, and transparency in costs.

Additionally, we explored unique features and emerging trends, such as:

• Gesture-based interactions to improve usability.

• Push notifications for personalized promotions and order tracking.

• Innovative UX solutions that enhance user engagement and reduce friction in the shopping journey.

By evaluating these factors across industry leaders, we extracted valuable best practices and insights that helped us define strategic design improvements for the EasyCoop mobile app. This analysis provided a strong foundation for creating an experience that was not only aligned with user expectations but also optimized for efficiency, engagement, and seamless navigation.

Design actions

Based on our extensive user research and competitive benchmarking, we implemented a series of strategic design improvements aimed at enhancing the mobile shopping experience. Our primary focus was to reduce friction in key touchpoints, optimize navigation, and create a seamless and efficient shopping journey.

To achieve this, we followed a structured design process:

• Low-fidelity wireframing to explore different layout structures and interactions.

• High-fidelity prototyping to test and refine visual and functional elements.

• Iterative testing to ensure data-driven improvements and align design choices with user needs.

Enhancing search and navigation

With search being a highly utilized feature on mobile, we identified critical pain points in search relevance, filtering, and product discovery. To improve efficiency, we:

• Implemented a more advanced search engine that interprets queries more accurately, reducing dead ends.

• Enhanced the autosuggest feature to include product recommendations, making search more intuitive.

• Optimized search results layout and filtering options to help users find relevant items faster.

Refining the shopping journey

User insights revealed challenges in the cart experience, checkout process, and promotions visibility. To enhance the shopping flow, we:

• Redesigned the cart functionality to prevent session loss and allow users to retain items longer.

• Introduced clearer discount and voucher. messaging to reduce confusion around promotions

• Added notifications for expiring promotions and price changes, keeping users informed.

Improving product listings and filtering

To streamline browsing and enhance product discoverability, we:

• Refined the product filtering system by introducing category-based and product-type filters.

• Replaced pagination with infinite scrolling, reducing friction in product exploration.

Incorporated product comparison options, allowing users to evaluate similar items side by side.

Boosting user engagement and retention

To further enhance engagement, we introduced key UX improvements:

• A redesigned shopping list experience, transforming it from a simple wishlist into a smart, actionable shopping tool.

• Push notifications for stock availability and price drops, increasing retention and purchase likelihood.

• An optimized homepage layout that highlights past purchases, personalized offers, and quick actions.

By implementing these data-driven design optimizations, we significantly improved usability, navigation, and engagement, ensuring a more efficient and enjoyable mobile shopping experience.

The launch of the EasyCoop mobile app marked a significant transformation in the grocery shopping experience, offering users a faster, more intuitive, and seamless journey. The results of this project demonstrated the tangible impact of our research-driven approach and design improvements.

The app quickly gained traction among users, achieving a substantial number of downloads within the first months of launch. With a steady increase in engagement and retention, the mobile platform successfully addressed the key pain points identified in our research, leading to improved usability and customer satisfaction.

Key outcomes included:

• Increased adoption and engagement: A significant portion of EasyCoop’s user base shifted from desktop to mobile, demonstrating the demand for a dedicated app experience.

• Enhanced product discoverability: Thanks to an improved search engine, optimized filters, and refined navigation, users were able to find products more efficiently, leading to a measurable reduction in search-related exit rates.

• Higher conversion rates: The streamlined checkout process, clearer discount messaging, and enhanced cart functionality resulted in a notable increase in completed purchases.

• Improved user retention: Features like shopping list enhancements, push notifications for promotions, and a personalized homepage contributed to a more engaging experience, encouraging repeat visits.

Beyond these measurable outcomes, the project successfully aligned the mobile shopping experience with EasyCoop’s business goals, creating a platform that not only met user expectations but also strengthened the brand’s position in the competitive online grocery market. This project underscored the power of a user-centric design approach in driving business impact and delivering real value to both customers and stakeholders.

Measurable impact and business growth