In-store Mode & Mobile Self-checkout
Shopping had changed and customers were using their phones more while in-store from looking up reviews, checking prices, and paying. With mWeb experiences as robust as apps, we had been asking ourselves “what’s our app for?”.
the challenge
Throughout my time at Kohl’s leadership would often as the question “what’s the app for?”. Mobile web was now robust and why support a redundant shopping experience if it didn’t bring value.
In 2018, retailers were recognizing the power of a phone in the customer’s hands and started to create robust in-store modes and mobile self-checkouts all within their apps.
In 2019, recognizing this trend my team started exploring just this question, “How can the app bring value to our customers while shopping in-store”.
Our app’s vision was to create an in-store “personalized concierge” experience utilizing the power of the phone and data, that will allow every customer using Kohl’s app in-store to be better served by 2022.
my role
I actively led this important program to ensure it got the attention necessary to get on the roadmap for development.
Presented concepts to leadership so they understood the value we would be creating for our customers and the business.
I organized with the team and business to come up with a timeline for the roadmap.
I collaborated with the product designers and researcher to align on product vision.
I worked with my Product partner and VP on outlining what the vision should be.
Took the learnings from the prior work and incorporated them into the current work and conveyed to leaders on direction.
I actively took a role as one of the product designer throughout the program.
Created mockups and story boards to share.
Led whiteboard and sketch sessions and created the prototypes for the testing.
discovery
To validate our assumptions about how customers use their phones in-store a survey was sent to 800 respondents.
Downloaded competitor apps to do an analysis of which ones had the best in-store experiences.
key takeaways
INDUSTRY-RETAILER MOBILE WALLERS
By 2020, Mobile Wallets will grow to 17% of all in store mobile sales
By 2021, sales volume will reach $128B (across all mobile payment)
CUSTOMER INSIGHTS
"Why are Wallet, Yes2You Rewards, and Kohl's Pay three different sections of the app? This is mystifying and frustrating even to me as a very frequent Kohl's shopper with a deep background in mobile applications. These need to be consolidated into a single section (which needs to be named Wallet, or have a new name determined).”
the designs
sketching & design
Based upon this feedback we collected throughout, Product and design held a white-boarding session to ideate through ideasmore text here
in-store mode concepts
Taking the learnings the team did rapid concepts, looking to solve for the right personalized content, an experience that would be delightful to use and pushing the bounds of Kohl’s brand.
What’s interesting about the above concepts, is the evolution of going from a “once-and-done” approach to an MVP. The designs got much cleaner and more focused.
mobile self-checkout
The second part of this work was to see how a mobile self-checkout could be integrated into the store experience. Mobile self-checkouts were becoming more mainstream and my VP asked me to come up with a solution.
Due to the complexity of Kohl’s loyalty program, one feedback we got from customers was it was difficult to know what the final cost of their purchases were before getting to the register.
Customers wanted to know the final cost before going to the register.
CONCEPTS
Utilizing the sketch session and customer flows created, rapid wire-framing was done in preparation for testing.
Even though there would be testing in store, I had the team do several rounds of user testing via Userzoom. It was a cost effective way to catch any glitches that may be hiding in plain sight.
validating designs
The team spent several weeks doing rapid online user testing. Even though this would be an in-store experience and eventually would go into the store for testing, I felt we could get great insights for the design with little effort and cost; the designs quickly evolved until we got to what our MVP would be.
Responding to feedback, the following recommendations were noted and incorporated.
Emphasize the Wallet and include all coupons, rewards, and Kohl’s Pay to see what are my discounts
When customers scan an item, display applicable coupons and rewards, and preview final price
Allow our most loyal customers to self-checkout using the app and skip the lines
Explore a design that reconciles simplicity over complexity and is personalized
final mock-ups for testing
The long-term goal was to design a cohesive experience as if it was a stand-alone app so I worked with the Brand team to come up with a unique experience that stood out from the rest of the app.
how do we get customers out the door?
To subvert challenges from leadership about security from mobile checkout, I wanted to the team to answer this question.
Kohl’s wouldn’t be an Amazon Go and probably wouldn’t have someone standing at the door like Walmart; what could be a solution that would still remove checkout lanes and allow customers to easily walk out the door with their purchases?
After brainstorming sessions with the team, we came up with a Scan-n-Scoot POD, essentially a device to allow the customer to scan a QR code on their phone and leave the store.
goals
Needed to be mobile, so they could be moved around the store
Needed to store associate devices to help with customer
Needed to feel modern and "cool" so people would to try it
designing the pod
Designing the POD would take a different skill set, so I engaged one of our designers that helped the stores team with store renditions.
building the prototype
To complete the experience for in-store testing a POD prototype needed to be created. After discussions, I purchased a monitor stand and using a tablet and monitor from the office, the POD started to come to life.
A prototype for the tablet was created to finish off the experience and with some “smoke-and-mirror” we had everything necessary to go in the store to test before a final presentation could be created.
The team set up a mock walkthrough the office to work out the bugs before heading in to the store for testing. Below are stills from a video we shot to document and easily share with leaders in other offices.
conclusion
As the team was ready to go into the store for testing, COVID hit and the company went into lock down. Due to the layoffs, all projects were stopped.
In 2020, the company went through a complete transformation and the focus of everyone’s work changed including this work and the team was disbanded.
The MVP of In-store Mode was still on the backlog for the new team to implement.