BBD partnered with a leading African retail and wholesale group to design and develop a native eCommerce app for one of their South African-based subsidiaries with the goal of creating a frictionless shopping experience for users. This allows for a reduction in user frustration, faster shopping, and increased customer retention. The fully native eCommerce app for the retailer also needed to simplify the sign-in / account creation process, introduce an end-to-end shopping journey support process, improve app discoverability, incorporate existing assets, introduce upselling, and focus on customer problems, while keeping the customer first in all designs.
Objectives
The native app was created with several key objectives in mind:
- Prioritise frictionless design: Emphasising a seamless user experience by removing obstacles and optimising for mobile devices, secure payment options, and simplified browsing and checkout processes
- Simplify sign-in/account creation: Streamlining the user journey to make sign-in and account creation as frictionless as possible
- End-to-end shopping journey: Introducing a mobile platform that aligns with the retailer’s website, providing a complete shopping journey
- App discoverability: A standalone app facilitates app discoverability and marketing as it allows users to easily find and download the app from their preferred app store
- Incorporate existing assets: Leveraging existing designs from the mini-app and enhancing them to suit the native app space
- Introduce upselling: Enhancing personalised product recommendations based on user shopping behaviour to increase sales
- Customer-centric approach: Putting the customer first by focusing on designs that mitigate frustration and enhance usability
Benefits to the client’s customers:
The native app offers numerous benefits to enhance the customer experience:
- Frictionless user journeys: Minimising friction reduces user frustration, enables faster shopping, and increases customer retention
- Website integration: Existing customers can log in using the same account across both the retailer’s website and the app, creating a unified shopping experience
- Store card integration: Users can link their in-store card, seamlessly integrating online and offline channels
- Marketable prime real estate: Home page banners provide the client with the opportunity to promote specific products or sales, potentially boosting sales
Overview of the solution
BBD’s partnership with the African retail and wholesale group resulted in the development of a cutting-edge solution – the native app. This solution revolutionised the customer experience by employing a sophisticated UX/UI approach and a design process that included research, consideration, evaluation, design and implementation, and testing. The UX/UI approach employed in the development of the native app played a crucial role in achieving the project’s objectives. By focussing on frictionless design, mobile optimisation, account integration, and personalisation, BBD created a solution that exceeded customer expectations, enhanced the shopping experience, and positioned the brand at the forefront of eCommerce innovation.
Approach
BBD followed a design process to achieve seamless and frictionless user journeys for the native shopping app:
- Research: Conducting in-depth research on design problems and analysing competitors, enabling the identification of specific user requirements
- Consideration: Exploring various design options, iterating on designs, and analysing proposed solutions with support from the global holding company’s UX team
- Evaluation: Assessing design decisions, identifying areas for improvement, and reducing friction to enhance the ease of use
- Design and implementation: Iterating designs until the optimal solution was reached, followed by
development and implementation - Testing: Thoroughly testing the new design journeys, ensuring alignment with the proposed design and collecting feedback for further evaluation
Impact of BBD’s partnership
A senior vice president at the client expressed their appreciation for the work completed by BBD’s team in
supporting the development of their app. They praised the dedication and unwavering commitment displayed by BBD, day in and day out. The seamless integration of the BBD team as an external service provider impressed the company, as they viewed them as an essential part of their extended family. Not only did BBD deliver superior quality work on the app, but their swift response and attention to ongoing improvements were also acknowledged as best-in-class.
