Local Pickup Day - a feature on the Wish shopping app to assist customers plan and schedule their pickup trip to a Wish Local store
The Problem
Around 30% of Wish orders aren’t picked up by customers before the deadline, costing Wish customers a restocking fee, increased Wish Local store churn rate, and ultimately decreased profits for Wish.
Overview
Time
1 week
Team
Nikita T, Brandon L (PD), Meghan V (PM), Ash S (Eng), Chuhan W (Data Science)
During my Product Design summer 2021 internship at Wish, I worked on the Wish Local team for projects that were both consumer and store-facing.
One of the many high-impact projects that I got to work on, came out of an internal hackathon submission . My team explored ways to help improve the pickup rate for online orders shipped to local stores. In the end, our proposal was chosen to be added to Q4 roadmap.
What is Wish Local Pickup?
When a customer places an order on Wish, they can either have the package shipped to their address or to a local store that has signed up with the Wish Local program. With the Wish Local program, shops with a storefront can sign up to be a pickup location for customers’ Wish orders. Stores earn a commision for every order fulfilled while customers cut down on shipping costs.
RESEARCH
Problem Space - Diary Study
To help understand the pickup experience better, I conducted a diary study research where test participants were asked to place an order on Wish and pick up their item at a local store. In addition, I leveraged quanitative research conducted by another team member to gain a rounded perspective on the problem space.
1. Learn how shoppers navigate their checkout experience for local pickup
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of the current post-purchase notification system
3. Evaluate the usability, intuitiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction of the existing pickup flow
People Problem - Unaware of Pickup Information
Around 30% of the Wish Local orders aren’t being picked up by customers, within the 2 week window they have. Orders not picked up in time will be relisted for sale on the Wish app. From our research, we learnt a couple of reasons for this behaviour-
1. Shoppers reported not receiving push notifications or emails about their order in a timely manner.
This required the customers to frequently and on their own volition, check for order status and the pickup deadline.
2. Customers feel uninformed of store details such as opening hours and location
3. Customers are unaware of the 2-week pickup window and the reprecussions of not picking up their order
Shoppers expressed uncertainty around the timeline/deadline to pick up their order which they expected to be informed of right after placing their order.
Store Problem – Occupying Store Space
Orders not picked up by customers begin to occupy more store space than anticipated. With packages piling up and the sale of these items dependant on the needs of the local Wish customers, stores are left unsatisfied with the Wish Local program, resulting in them opting out of the program.
Unpicked up packages piling up at stores
Problem Summary
From these learnings, we noticed a recurring pattern where customers were uninformed of their pickup details because of low visibility of information and inefficient touchpoints with the existing pickup experience. This hindered customers from actualizing their pickup plan, eventually causing them to miss their pickup deadline.
Additional Painpoints and Insights
I learnt of additional painpoints in the Pickup Experience diary study that could be possibly addressed within the scope of this project:
1. 5/8 partcipants reported having to wait a long time at the store before receiving their package This wait time could be attributed to store members being short staffed or tending to their own customer and/or needing to sort through many Wish packages before they are able to locate correct one.
2. Customers aren't aware that they need to show the package's QR code to receive their order. This causes frustration for staff who need to spend additional time educating customers of the pickup process.
User quotes taken from the Pickup Expeience diary study
DESIGN GOAL
Help customers receive their order by guiding them through the pick up steps
HYPOTHESIS
Providing customers a means to schedule their pick up, will encourage accountability and action, increasing the likeliness of picking up their orders
User flow with new touchpoints introduced
By gathering customers’ pickup schedule and informing stores of this information, we anticipate the following benefits:
Value to Stores
1. Ensure adequate store staffing to be available for when customers arrive at the store
2. Sort out package ahead of time
Value to Customers
1. Reduce wait times in the store
2. Ensures a store member will be available
3. Set personal reminders for pickup
4. Increased awareness of pickup timeline/deadline
The Proposal
Pickup ready push notification
Customers receive a push notification informing them of their package's arrival with a prompt to schedule their pickup to avoid wait time at the store.
Friction addressed: By scheduling their pickup, stores can anticipate the customer's arrival and ensure there is enough staff to tend to Wish customers, thereby reducing customers' wait time in-store.
Additional Card Prompt
Customers can also learn of their order's pickup status through the home feed card with a CTA to schedule their pickup once the order is ready.
Friction addressed: Customers reported missing or not receiving notifications and email reminders that their order was ready. Surfacing the pickup information directly on the homefeed will ensure that customers have an additional way to learn of their order pickup steps if push notifications are overlooked.
Readily surfaced QR code
Visiting the Wish app on the scheduled pickup day triggers a modal, with the store details and order QR code ready to be scanned. Customers can dismiss the modal and will still be able to quickly access the pickup QR code without needing to navigate to the order details page or search through their emails.
Friction addressed: By readily surfacing the QR code on the homepage, customers are implicitly informed of the pickup steps, ensuring a more seamless transaction with the store staff.
SCALING IT FORWARD
Customized notifications
Further scaling this feature, I designed a feature where customers can select their notification channel and cadence, triggered by their previously selected pickup timeframe. This is way, customers reminders become more personalized, pointed, and directed.
