Shop sustainably on Bol

Elevate the sustainable shopping experience by reward system

Scope

Feature Addition to the e-commerce mobile app Bol that will allow users to choose to shop more sustainable and stay motivated to do so. This is a personal project that are finished during the Designlab Bootcamp.

What I did

  • User research

  • Competitor Analysis

  • Market Research

  • Wireframing

  • Protoyping

Duration

80 hours

CHALLENGE

70 % sellers not using green packaging

It is estimated that Bol.com processes a total of tens of millions of packages per year. These are mainly packages from the now 51,000 sales partners, together accounting for more than half of the turnover. Only 30 percent of partners use Bol.com's green packaging machines and buildings.

POTENTIAL TARGETS

Millennials and Gen Z - the biggest advocates of green business. 

According to NielsenIQ:

“The majority (73%) of global consumers say they would definitely or probably change their consumption behavior to reduce their impact on the environment. As consumers become increasingly aware of what they put in and on their bodies, they’re also interested in buying—and sometimes paying more—for products that simultaneously help the environment.”

Two particular target markets have ever-increasing buying power and a desire to put it towards green brands: Millennials and Gen Z.

USER BEHAVIOR

Increasing awareness & desires to buy sustainbly

Bol has launched sustainable badges and certificates for items yet all six of the interviewees for this project have never seen or used this feature. However, all of them have formed their other ways of sustainable shopping and living more sustainably For example, they will buy things that are durable and long-lasting, or they choose to buy second hand, or choose food that are reliably sourced.

OUR GOAL

Provide more sustainable options & knowledge to consumers

In return, these features could encourage the sellers to work with Bol on sustainability better, attract new users or increase user engagement.

USER PERSONA

Meet Johnny

Incorporating user interviews as well as market research, I produced one persona that represent the main audience of Bol when we think about shopping sustainably online.

Johnny is a young professional who wish to see more options of sustainable shopping. He is at an age of consuming items to make a statement about his values and his personal taste. Sometimes this means he acts to his personal desires in consumption. Lacking the knowledge and the options of sustainable shopping, he struggles to find ways to stay sustainable.

DESIGN SOLUTIONS

Provide more sustainable options and knowledge

First and foremost, during the user interviews, though being a loyal user of Bol app, most of them have never noticed the existing sustainable options on Bol.

Being sustainable can mean green shipping, no rush shipping, buying locally, energy saving, reusing materials, responsible materials, no harmful substances.

For someone like Johnny, he will expand his knowledge on sustainability and gain trust for the platform.

Green points collecting and offsetting to motivate and retain users

The second feature for Johnny is reward system and offset system.

This allows Johnny to visually see the impact from the shopping decisions he made in the platform. This can also be linked with Bol’s existing sustainable project, such as The Better For Farming & Nature program, allowing Johnny to see what Bol is doing and how he can contribute.

Low fidelity wireframe

WIREFRAME

USABILITY TESTING

Delights

Participants completed the tast flow quick without difficulty in understanding how it works.

Participants mentioned that the green points system help them to accumulate good impact without the side effect of shopping more. It feels good to be able to offset using the accumulated green points.

Issue

Participants find that they need to take a bit more effort understand how to offset the carbon emission. Was expecting an explanation or a more straightforward design.

Participants mentioned that sustainability means different things for different items. For example, a machine is sustainable if it is energy-saving. A piece of clothing is sustainable because it uses responsible material. However, the design has not differentiate that yet.

DESIGN CHANGES

2 major design decisions

WIREFRAME

High fidelity wireframe

Click to see the figma file

Reflection

  • Adding a feature to a well-established website/app can be challenging. It is particularly important to have enough research about the industry, competitors and users before adding something new.

  • The objectives of user interviews can be different. It can be used for problem discovery or for proving or disproving a hypothesis in mind. It is essential to determine what the objective is for conducting the user interview and come up with interview questions that help with achieving the specific objectives.

  • Mobile first design is one of the principle that kept in mind

  • Adding a local business tab will open up the possibilities of other featured projects the website might want to expand or focus in the platform.

What would I do more if i have more time

  • Interview the sellers side and see if there are ways to help them to be more sustainable from a designer’s pespetive.

  • Explore the possibilities of Bol business users because one of my interviewees often goes to Bol to shop necessaities for his business/company.